30+ training survey questions and best survey design practices

The world is changing rapidly with new technologies and globalisation, making learning and development a higher priority than ever.

Most people have taken some form of knowledge and skills training in their lifetime. New employees attend new hire training to acquire the skills they need to navigate their new workplace. A job function may require extra training to develop new skills or refresh existing ones for certification.

Training differs significantly from traditional courses, with participants expecting immediate improvements in their abilities after sessions. Surveys are essential tools for measuring training effectiveness and participant engagement. With the right training survey questions, you can assess your training effectiveness and decide where adjustments are needed.

Training surveys collect feedback from participants before and after sessions, allowing you to assess effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. You can also use the data to improve future training.

Training surveys for organisations and employees offer a host of benefits. They allow organisations to improve their training programmes and retain effective employees. The reality is that your employees want quality training. 

According to a SurveyMonkey Audience survey, approximately 86% of employees say that job training is important to them. Most employees are even willing to spend out-of-office time on training. Your programming needs to be extremely effective to take full advantage of this training opportunity. 

These surveys help you gather feedback, measure effectiveness and shape future training initiatives. Training ​​surveys:

Identifying which questions to ask in a training survey is challenging. These questions must be tuned to your audience and deliver actionable data. Use the following example questions to create effective surveys. 

Pre-training survey questions help you gather information about running successful training sessions. You’ll find out:

Demographics help you understand your audience, their available time commitment and their place in your organisation. It is unnecessary to ask intrusive demographic questions about aspects such as ethnicity, gender identification or age unless they are relevant to the training subject.

With this information, you can structure your training appropriately to ensure that the needs of your group are met effectively.

Post-training surveys measure the outcomes of your training sessions. You can determine whether you achieved your training goals and use the data to inform your next training session. Analysing your post-survey data will offer valuable insights into planning future training sessions.

With a post-training survey, you will discover:

If a particular training session is well attended or positively rated by attendees, evaluate whether it is a necessary part of your training schedule. Popular training can be updated and offered more regularly. For this, simply ask:

This is a good indicator of the most informative and effective trainers. This should be your impetus to find out what they do differently from other instructors so that you can offer feedback and improvement opportunities to all trainers. Ask questions such as: 

Was there anything that prevented the group from fully engaging in the training? If so, identify the barriers and strategies for overcoming them. Ask questions such as:

Analysing your data should reveal what improvements you can make to your future training sessions to make them more informative, effective and attractive to attendees. Ask questions such as:

Ask post-training knowledge questions to assess whether participants acquired the knowledge or skills identified in your training goals. Ask questions such as:

The purpose of training feedback survey questions is to gather specific feedback about the session. These surveys cover the:

This includes asking about the feelings associated with undergoing the training and how well the employee felt the training went. 

These surveys measure whether the training achieved its intended outcomes and had a lasting impact. A training effectiveness survey should be administered a few weeks or months after completion. This gives participants time to apply the training in their daily work.

This survey will assess changes in participants’ knowledge, skills or behaviour over time, the applicability of training to job performance and the training programme’s ROI (return on investment). 

These surveys explore what training to offer, the effectiveness of the training you’re delivering and whether students feel they are acquiring the skills they desire. Use the following six tips to craft effective feedback questions that ensure actionable insights.

Pre-training skills assessments should be run before training sessions. They will establish what your participants already know, their expectations for the training and any learning needs and preferences. This information can be used to determine how you run the training, information delivery methods and content.

Pre-training skills assessments should determine participants’ prior knowledge, training expectations and learning preferences. The data from this survey can be used to find learner satisfaction and experience with the training. Our training course evaluation template is a great place to start.

Compare data from pre- and post-training skills assessments to assess learning gains from your training.

Poll individuals at the outset of a longer training programme to baseline where they are in relation to their goals. Throughout training, ask students to assess their progress. Deliver your survey on mobile devices in the training environment for near real-time feedback or on social media to broadcast their achievements to their network.

Find out whether the training you’re delivering is engaging and effective. Are you meeting the expectations of participants? Are they getting the instruction or information that they thought they would? Use this feedback for continuous improvement.

Two trainers might deliver the same course material quite differently, and that diversity allows you to attract more students. Nevertheless, you still need to know that all trainers can deliver training. Use surveys to gather students’ opinions of teacher effectiveness.

Kick off your instructor evaluations with our course evaluation survey template and our University Instructor Evaluation Survey Template. Take a look at our education surveys for other ways to lead assessments. 

What do students or employees think about your organisation’s job training and development programmes? Do the offerings support their career goals and ambitions? Which education programmes do they need in order to achieve their objectives?

Find out whether your company is providing ample training for employees to learn and grow on the job. Use our career development survey template as a starting point to determine whether you are helping employees reach their full potential.

Could older people in your community benefit from a hands-on technology course? Are newbie parents interested in parenting classes? Utilise surveys in your community, workplace or fitness organisation to inform classes and training for your residents, employees, patients or clients.

Test potential offerings using SurveyMonkey Audience, which gives you access to millions of respondents similar to your target audiences.

Use this step-by-step guide to create and implement training surveys. 

First, you must identify what you want to evaluate. Let’s suppose you’ve started a new process for employee onboarding training and need to determine how effective your new programme is. 

Your goals may be to:

In order to achieve these goals, the entire survey and delivery process needs to be crafted with the result in mind. 

Use online tools such as SurveyMonkey or similar platforms. With SurveyMonkey, you have access to various tools that help you retain and nurture top talent, boost employee satisfaction and implement impactful training programmes. 

Explore employee and customer satisfaction surveys, learning support surveys and department support surveys.  

Tailor your questions to your training objectives. Use the example questions above and the questions referenced in any applicable template to help you design questions. 

Make sure you craft effective survey questions that incorporate neutral answer options, ask one thing at a time and are mostly closed-ended. 

You may share the survey via email, QR codes or training portals. We recommend preparing participants to receive the survey and reminding them to complete it.

It sometimes helps to include the survey in the training coursework (if possible) or provide incentives for filling out the survey. 

Now, you can customise employee training with a data-driven training needs assessment. Use responses to refine future training. 

Here are a few other suggestions for getting people to complete your surveys.

The list of potential training topics is almost endless. SurveyMonkey offers many surveys that can be used or customised to cover many training areas. You might use a few templates with individuals, community residents, students and their parents, and employees.

The Training Course Evaluation Template helps you pinpoint what’s working and what isn’t and ensures that your efforts truly support employee growth and success.

Preview the Training Course Evaluation Template

Effective training starts with understanding your audience. Pre-training survey questions help to assess attendees’ knowledge and expectations, enabling you to create impactful sessions.

Preview the Pre-Training Survey Template

Reinforce onboarding by giving new hires a simple quiz to assess their understanding and identify areas for improvement. Use this sample quiz to structure your survey and ensure that your key messages stick.

Preview the New Hire Training Template

Use these templates to create optimised onboarding and training programmes that push employee productivity and result in greater business impact.

Preview the Employee Onboarding Training Template

To measure training success, you need to ask the right questions using the right templates. These surveys can improve training outcomes, engage employees and provide measurable value for organisations.

SurveyMonkey has 400+ survey templates written by experts to help you with your survey needs. See how SurveyMonkey can power your curiosity.