A comparison of the practices used by human resource development professionals to evaluate web-based and classroom-based training programs within seven korean companies

The purpose of the study was to compare the practices used by HRD professionals to evaluate web-based and classroom-based training programs within seven Korean companies. This study used four components of evaluation to examine how HRD professionals evaluated web-based and classroom-based training programs in their organizations and compared the differences between these training approaches. Also, this study identified the barriers that might prevent HRD professionals from evaluating web-based and classroom-based training programs and compared the differences between these training approaches with the evaluation barriers. Lastly, this study explored the key decision factors for determining how HRD professionals evaluated their web-based and classroom-based training programs. Two data sets were used for the study. One set of data was gathered from a survey questionnaire distributed to all HRD professionals (N=147) who currently evaluated web-based and/or classroom-based training programs within the seven companies in Korea and the researcher assessed the entire population for the study. The total number of respondents was 73 out of 147 HRD professionals, with an overall response rate of 49.66%. The other was gathered from open-ended interviews with five current directors in the departments of HR or HRD within the seven companies. The data from the survey questionnaire were analyzed based on descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis to address the research questions. In addition, the data from the interviews were read, coded, and analyzed by the researcher to explore the research questions in more depth. The results showed that web-based and classroom-based training programs were most frequently evaluated for the process evaluation component, followed by the input evaluation component. On the other hand, web-based and classroom-based training programs were least frequently evaluated for the organizational context evaluation component, followed by the output evaluation component. The results also showed that web-based and classroom-based training programs were meaningfully different on the process evaluation component, while these training approaches were not meaningfully different on the other types of component evaluation. In addition, the results showed that the context and evaluation factors were the primary barriers preventing HRD professionals from evaluating web-based and classroom-based training programs. However, web-based and classroom-based training programs were not meaningfully different in the three factors of evaluation barriers. Finally, the results of this study also found that the primary decision factors determining evaluation for web-based and classroom-based training programs were senior management's needs, development of current and new training programs, different types of training programs, political issues for online courses, personnel benefits, and budgets for training programs. This study offered several implications for future research that will be important to the theory and practice of training evaluation in the HRD field.