Will Thalheimer - Performance-Focused Smile Sheets: A Radical Rethinking of a Dangerous Art Form

Only a few people combine the rigor of a researcher and the usability of a how-to writer. Will Thalheimer is the best among them. He has done it again in his Performance-Focused Smile Sheets. Will has undertaken an audacious project. This book is the beginning of a radical revolution for professionalizing our field. Sign me up.

Sivasailam Thiagarajan, PhD

Principal and Mad Scientist at The Thiagi Group

In a 160-plus billion dollar training industry, debunking and reconstructing traditional smile sheets is way overdue. Kudos to Will Thalheimer for leading the way!

Ruth Colvin Clark

Clark Training & Consulting

Will Thalheimer attacks one of the most intractable misconceptions in our field, and does so with authority and humor. His straight-shooter approach to improving smile sheets is a wake-up call for the field. Thalheimers prescription is easily understandable and makes perfect sense. And, any book that equates learning measurement to pure sex has to be a must read!

Marc J. Rosenberg, PhD

Marc Rosenberg and Associates

What we need in Learning and Development is nothing short of a revolution in the way we evaluate training. The current approachwhich in most companies is limited to end-of-class smile sheetsneeds to be thrown out. In Performance-Focused Smile Sheets , Dr. Will Thalheimer presents revolutionary ideas, as well as practical guidelines and examples for transforming a useless exercise into one of real value and impact. Read this book and you will want to join Will on the front lines of change.

Roy Pollock, DVM, PhD

Chief Learning Officer, 6Ds
Company co-author of Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning

Will Thalheimer, one of our most reputable translators of research into practice, has written his first book, a readable treatise on that scourge of learning, smile sheets. This insightful (and inciteful) work aptly skewers current approaches and provides a healthy alternative that both helps us now and educates us to do better going forward. A valuable contribution indeed!

Dr. Clark Quinn

Executive Director of Quinnovation

author of Revolutionize Learning & Development

In our field there can be a lot of hand-wavinggeneral advice without clear application guidelines. Wills book is exactly the opposite. He gives you the deep-dive on level 1 training evaluations, including both the how and the why. This is evidence-based practice at the master level.

Julie Dirksen

Author of Design For How People Learn

Its about time that someone took the ubiquitous but mostly useless end-of-session training feedback questionnaire to task. Will Thalheimer does a great job of telling us why the current practice doesnt work and replaces it with thoughtful and sensible advice for feedback tools that will provide valid and actionable data.

Robert O. Brinkerhoff

Professor Emeritus, Western Michigan University & Director, Brinkerhoff Evaluation Institute

With this book, Will Thalheimer provides an important contribution, particularly in showing how to ensure that learner feedback provides a true gauge of on-the-job success. The book is research-based, comprehensive, and based on real-world experiences. If youre spending time and money in using smile sheets, this book will show you how to make them valuable, useful, and relevant to your organizations success.

Jack J. Phillips

Chairman, ROI Institute

Freakin revolutionary or business smart? Will Thalheimers position is that smile sheets are a waste unless theyre designed to predict a change in job behavioran idea thats refreshing, worthwhile, and, as the book demonstrates, actionable too! I encourage you to read Performance-Focused Smile Sheets and reflect on how you might improve the feedback your organization captures from its learners.

Judith Hale, PhD, CPT, ID (SEL, ILT, JA+)
Co-founder Institute for Performance Improvement

Will Thalheimers work is grounded in research, honed through experience, and organized to provide a practical perspective for application. In PerformanceFocused Smile Sheets , Will dissects the current failure of learner-feedback instruments and provides an alternative perspective on what will work; as well as arguments you can use to change organizational cultures that remain wedded to these inaccurate metrics.

William Coscarelli

Professor Emeritus ,

Southern Illinois University

Will Thalheimer, PhD, is one of the definitive myth busters in our field, and he does it with great precision but also humor. Its good that hes explaining the things we need to know about smile sheets, because there are just too many fairytales. We must be held to a higher standard.

Patti Shank, PhD

Author and Learning Analyst

PattiShank.com

It is hard to do, but Will Thalheimer has found a way to make the measurement of learning sexy and exciting in his book Performance-Focused Smile Sheets . Youll find yourself turning the pages and laughing along the way (usually at your own past mistakes, which you wont make again after reading this book).

Ryan Watkins

George Washington University

Finally, a book that acknowledges and addresses the dirty and widespread problem with smile sheets, which typically tell us nothing useful and focus our attention on the wrong things. Will Thalheimer's book provides useful guidance for using this tool correctly, in ways that improve learning and its transfer to the workplace in ways that produce valued performance. Anyone involved in workplace learning and performance will find this book valuable.

Steven W. Villachica, PhD
Associate Professor
Boise State University

If you are responsible for evaluating training, stop right now and read Performance-Focused Smile Sheets . The insights and ideas will change forever how you create evaluations. Quite simply, the BEST book on smile sheet creation and utilization, period!

Karl M. Kapp

Professor of Instructional Technology
Bloomsburg University

What I like most about Thalheimers book on Performance-Focused Smile Sheets is that it puts the focus where it belongs, predicting subsequent performance on the jobthe ultimate measure of learning in an enterprise context. An excellent resource for all Learning Professionals!

Guy W. Wallace

President, EPPIC Inc.

Thalheimer has replaced the smile sheet beauty pageant with an approach that delivers concretely actionable design insights, reinforces learning, and educates learners and their sponsors about what really matters in learning. Hes turned the smile sheet into a tool capable of delivering substantial performance impact for both individuals and businesses.

Adam Neaman, PhD

former Manager of Technology-Enabled Learning Design, Mckinsey & Co.

Armed with a lot of heart and incredible insights, this book oozes with mind-blowing, radical, myth-busting, research-proven takeaways from the master of learning research, Will Thalheimer. This is a must read, and a must apply, for anyone involved in education, learning, and evaluation; from conferences to workshops to online education.

Jeff Hurt, EVP, Education & Engagement,
Velvet Chainsaw Consulting

Copyright 2016 by Will Thalheimer, PhD

Work-Learning Press

2 Belmont Terrace

Somerville, MA 02143

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