Evaluation of an Educational Planning Training Course for Supervisors of Educational Planning in the Ministry of Education

Abstract

The study aims to determine the quality of the Educational Planning training course for the planning supervisors in the Ministry of Education. This course is provided by the Leadership Training Center in the College of Education at King Saud University. The study also aims to identify the advantages and disadvantages of the Educational Planning course, and the trainees’ views and suggestions for the course’s development. The study identifies the impact of the trainees’ characteristics (academic level, previous experience in planning, age) in their evaluation of the Educational Planning course. The community (and sample) of the study consists of 75 trainees, of which 50 trainees responded to the study questionnaire. A questionnaire was developed to explore the trainees' point of views on their experience of the training course in terms of its objectives, content, scheduling, the training environment, trainers and course management. The study used the “SEVQUAL” approach to measure the gap between what the trainees’ expectations of the institution and their perceptions of the institution’s actual performance. The differences between the trainees’ perceptions and expectations can be described mathematically as follows:Quality of training (Q) = actual performance (P) - expected performance (E). The study’s results show negative gaps in all dimensions and phases with an average gap of -2.67, indicating that the trainees were not satisfied with the training course they experienced. The maximum negative gap is in the “training materials” dimension (an average of -2.8), followed by “assessment of trainers” (a negative gap of -2.6).  Next, the dimension of “training activities” has a negative gap (-2.53), and finally the “course schedule” and “training environment” dimensions which have less negative gaps (-2 and -1.3 respectively). The trainees listed many pros and cons of the training course and a set of suggestions for the development of the training course.