Learning Analytics: Long Live Smile Sheets

Delving further into the data provides a possible explanation for the continued dissatisfaction. More sophisticated measurement and data that are meaningful to executives outside the learning department remain a work in progress.

According to survey results, 51 percent of BIB members correlate job performance back to learning, with a further 23 percent indicating they have plans to put in a performance measurement plan within the next two years.

About 36 percent of BIB members reported that they correlate learning to their employees’ productivity, with a further 23 percent indicating they plan to do so in the next 12 to 24 months.

Approximately 39 percent of survey respondents correlate learning to overall business performance, with an additional 30 percent planning to correlate performance and learning in the next two years.

The reasons for this continued lack of satisfaction with measurement and the lagging sophistication in methods are parallel. BIB members most commonly reported a lack of resources to engage in measurement and a lack of management support or interest.

This leaves learning leaders in a quandary. They remain unsatisfied with their current measurement efforts but report they are unable to get the resources or support to embark on more sophisticated measures that would be meaningful to the business.

But the longer learning leaders rely on smile sheets and other output and satisfaction measures, the farther they’ll be from acquiring more meaningful business metrics. Smile sheets are dead. Long live smile sheets.