It is commonly referred to as Kirkpatrick Level 1. Did the students enjoy the program?

1. Quality advocates say that such feedback is important. Buzz marketers would say that the students are your best advocates, so you want them to be happy. It keeps the instructor on their toes.

2. There are plenty of people including Kirkpatrick who say that the information is fairly worthless.

3. Also, I have seen many situations where training groups use it because it is the easiest metric. It lets them off the hook from doing other evaluations.

But I heard an argument yesterday from a 30 year veteran that had me thinking beyond the 2) and 3).

1. Does it put the students in the wrong mentality? Does it, as the instructor described yesterday, put the students in a mindset of learning back and saying, "OK, show my what you got? The lessons are your responsibility to teach, not mine to learn? Entertain me! Make it fun?" Does it position too much training as entertainment not training as responsibility to shareholders?

What do you think?