Assessing Participant Performance in Online Professional Development Training Programs

In the United States, professionals in many disciplines are required to remain current in their field by completing training courses to obtain continuing education units. Traditionally, face to face professional development training has been designed to teach workplace skills and could include laboratory segments and activities where instructors observe participants’ involvement. Satisfactory completion is assessed using true-false or multiple choice tests. Today, instructional designs using on-demand distance-based professional development training are widely promoted, but how participant performance is measured is not standardized. The issue is particularly important in online courses containing innovative simulated laboratory activities where participant choices and actions in virtual workplace scenarios must be evaluated. In this paper, methods used to assess participants’ decision-making and higher-order thinking skills are discussed and effectiveness measures are presented. The paper concludes with a summary of how these assessment methods can be implemented by organizations responsible for licensure and professional development credits.