How "Room Quality" Impacts Virtual Training Effectiveness Scores
Training effectiveness scores are significantly influenced by the quality of the physical or virtual environment, as demonstrated by consistent differences in participant ratings between high- and low-quality classroom settings and among various virtual meeting platforms, with one platform achieving 99% top ratings compared to others averaging 90%, despite identical instructors and content.
The Good Room or the Bad Room?
Turns out, training effectiveness scores are impacted by “room quality,” even in a virtual environment.
“Training leaders were refusing to teach in the basement classrooms because their scores were lower versus when they would teach in the top floor classrooms with a view of the city and windows all around. Same content, same instructor, consistently different scores between the two venues.”
This feedback came from a training leader at a Fortune 100 software company. The environment of the classroom accounted for a measurable swing in perceived class quality.
When the world shifted to virtual, Corporate Visions transitioned from delivering 120 live, in-person classroom training events to 160 virtual classroom training events every month. That number continues to climb as companies discover the value of scaling training quickly and efficiently in a virtual environment.
Not Every Virtual Classroom is the Same
Interestingly, the same “good room, bad room” impact on training experience scores appears between different web platforms, similar to the differences noted in physical classroom spaces.
Corporate Visions delivers training on 6-10 different virtual meeting platforms. Over the last three months, class scores have been measured across these various web conferencing tools.
One key performance indicator is how participants rate the instructor and the event on a scale of 1-5, where four means “better than most” and five equals “best ever.”
When looking at instructor scores across the various platforms, they remain consistent, around 4.9, regardless of the web conference platform used. However, when comparing overall class ratings, there is a significant difference.
- One web conference tool is driving 99 percent fours and fives, while the others average around 90 percent.
- Same courses. Same instructors. A 10 percent drop in ratings. The only difference is the platform.
This raises the question: Will instructors soon refuse to work on certain virtual platforms because their course scores will go down?
Notably, the top-performing online platform has consistently driven higher course scores than measured with traditional, live in-person classrooms (99 to 94). This is another indicator that virtual training can be better than live.