Training Survey Templates
Ten ready-to-send surveys covering the whole training cycle: what to train, how the session landed, and whether anyone used it a month later. Every one opens as a live survey you can read before you send it.
- 10 templates
- 7 to 10 questions each
- 4 to 7 minutes to complete
- Free, no account, nothing gated
Ten free training survey templates, grouped by the moment you send them rather than by topic, because timing is what usually goes wrong. A needs assessment sent after the course is a post-mortem. A reaction survey sent five weeks late measures memory, not the session. The timing table below matches your decision to the right survey and the right week.
Every training template opens in the free online survey maker, so you can match the questions to the session you actually ran. Nothing is gated: no account, no email address, no download form standing between you and the question list. If you only have room to send one thing all year, send the post-training feedback survey template in the last five minutes of the session, while everyone is still in the room. Browsing more widely? Start from our free survey templates.
Which Training Survey Should You Send, and When?
Timing decides more than wording here. The same question asked in the room and asked again five weeks later gives you two different things: one measures the session, the other measures whether the session mattered. Find your decision in the left column.
| You need to know | Survey type | When to send it | Length | Mode | Template |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| We do not know what to train yet | Needs assessment | Once or twice a year, before you design anything | 10 q, 6 min | Confidential | Employee Training Needs Survey |
| We picked the topic but not the starting level | Baseline | 3 to 7 days before the session | 8 q, 5 min | Identified | Pre-Training Survey |
| People do not understand why this change is happening | Awareness pulse | After each comms wave, before rollout training | 7 q, 5 min | Anonymous | ADKAR Awareness Survey |
| Was the session worth their time? | Reaction | Immediately after, before people leave the room | 7 q, 4 min | Anonymous | Post-Training Feedback Survey |
| Did any of it get used on the job? | Reaction plus transfer | Immediately, then again at 30 and 60 days | 9 q, 7 min | Confidential | Employee Training Feedback Survey |
| Should we run this course again? | Course evaluation | End of each day or module | 9 q, 6 min | Anonymous | Instructor-Led Training Evaluation Survey |
| Is this facilitator getting better run over run? | Facilitator coaching | End of every session, every time | 9 q, 5 min | Anonymous | Facilitator Feedback Survey |
| Did the workshop change what people do next week? | Workshop feedback | End of session, then a pulse 2 to 4 weeks later | 10 q, 6 min | Anonymous | Workshop Feedback Survey |
| Is the platform getting in the way of the course? | Platform check | 2 to 4 weeks after launch, then quarterly | 8 q, 5 min | Anonymous | LMS Survey |
| Would people actually evacuate correctly? | Safety and drill check | 24 to 72 hours after the drill | 8 q, 4 min | Confidential | Fire Safety Survey |
Training Needs Assessment Surveys
Three surveys for the stage before anyone books a room, and they are not interchangeable. The Employee Training Needs Survey is the wide one: run it across a department when you do not yet know which topics to fund, because it scores every skill on proficiency and importance together so you can rank them. The Pre-Training Survey is the narrow one: the topic is already decided and you want a baseline you can re-ask word for word afterwards. The ADKAR Awareness Survey is neither, and it is the one people skip. It checks whether staff understand why a change is happening at all, which decides whether they walk in willing to learn. These go to the same population as your wider people research, so they sit alongside the employee survey template library.
Post-Training Feedback Survey Templates
Both of these work as a training feedback form template you can send the moment a session ends. The difference is how long you intend to keep asking. The Post-Training Feedback Survey is 7 questions in about 4 minutes and it is built to be answered in the room before people pack up, which is why it collects more responses than anything else on this page. The Employee Training Feedback Survey opens the same way but adds a 7 to 14 day recall check and a 30 to 60 day transfer check, so pick it when you have permission to contact the same people twice more. Running lots of small sessions? Send the short one every time and the long one once a quarter.
Training Evaluation and Effectiveness Surveys
A training evaluation form is only useful if it can tell you which part failed, so these two each isolate a specific suspect. The Fire Safety Survey tests recall and behavior against a real event: alarm recognition, evacuation route, muster point, and what actually happened in the last drill. That is about as close to observed behavior as a survey gets, and it overlaps with the compliance and risk survey templates. The LMS Survey answers a different question: whether the platform was the problem rather than the course. Send it two to four weeks after a launch or migration, once people have hit the real friction and not just the first login. If your worry is the software itself rather than the learning, the technology survey questions go deeper.
Instructor and Facilitator Feedback Surveys
Keep the person separate from the course, or every low score turns into an argument about which one you meant. The Instructor-Led Training Evaluation Survey rates the whole session, instructor included, and is the right choice when you are deciding whether to run the course again. The Facilitator Feedback Survey rates only the person: pacing, whether quiet participants got airtime, whether questions were answered or parked. Use it for coaching, hand the results to the facilitator, and keep it anonymous. One warning about small rooms. With fewer than about eight responses a single unhappy participant moves the average enough to look like a trend, so read the comments rather than the score.
Workshop and Session Feedback Forms
A workshop feedback form has a harder job than a course evaluation, because a workshop is usually a one-off and there is no next cohort to improve for. This one is weighted toward what the participant will do next rather than how they felt: it asks for one thing they will do differently in the next week, and what should change if the day is ever repeated. The Workshop Feedback Survey is 10 questions in about 6 minutes and carries an optional two to four week pulse, which is the part that tells you whether the day mattered at all. For a session with a single named presenter, the facilitator template above is the sharper instrument.
Training Survey Questions You Can Copy
Every question below is lifted word for word from one of the ten templates on this page, so the phrasing has already been through a scale and a pilot. They are plain agreement statements on a five point scale with no reverse-worded traps, and the bracketed parts are the bits you swap for your own course name, skill or metric. Copy the blocks you need, or open a template to get the full set with the answer scales already attached.
Before the session: baseline and needs
- "Before this training, how would you rate your current skill on [topic]?"
- "How confident are you that you can apply [skill] on the job within 2 weeks after training?"
- "What are your top 1-2 goals for this training?"
- "What could get in the way of using what you learn? (Pick all that apply)"
- "Which 3 training topics would help you most in the next 90 days?"
- "How important will the following skills be in 3-6 months?"
From the Pre-Training Survey and the Employee Training Needs Survey.
Immediately after: how the session landed
- "Overall, [Training name] was a good use of my time."
- "The training content was relevant to my role."
- "The training objectives were clear."
- "The pace of the training was appropriate."
- "I had enough opportunities to practice (examples, exercises, scenarios)."
- "The materials (slides, job aids, examples) supported my learning."
From the Post-Training Feedback Survey and the Employee Training Feedback Survey.
The instructor, the facilitator and the room
- "The instructor explained concepts clearly and checked for understanding."
- "The facilitator managed time well (started/ended on time, balanced discussion vs agenda)."
- "The facilitator encouraged participation from different voices (not just the most vocal participants)."
- "The facilitator handled questions clearly (answered, parked, or followed up without derailing the session)."
- "The room/virtual platform and logistics supported my learning."
- "What should the facilitator start or stop doing next time?"
From the Instructor-Led Training Evaluation Survey and the Facilitator Feedback Survey.
Confidence and intent to use it
- "I feel confident applying what I learned in my day-to-day work."
- "I can explain the key ideas from this workshop to someone else."
- "How confident do you feel applying what you learned in the next 2 weeks?"
- "I intend to use what I learned in the next 30 days."
- "What is one thing you will do differently in the next week as a result of this workshop?"
- "What might prevent you from using what you learned?"
From the Workshop Feedback Survey and the Post-Training Feedback Survey.
Thirty to ninety days later: did it transfer
- "In the past 30 days, how often have you used [specific behavior from the training]?"
- "What is the biggest barrier to using what you learned?"
- "What support would help you apply this more consistently?"
- "Since the training, I have seen improvement in [quality/speed/safety/customer outcome] in my work."
- "Which course objective(s) do you feel least confident about right now?"
- "What support from your manager would help you apply new skills on the job?"
From the Employee Training Feedback Survey and the Employee Training Needs Survey.
Measuring Training Impact After 30 and 90 Days
Almost every organization measures training on the one day it is easiest to measure. In 2025 ATD Research surveyed 277 talent development professionals. Of those, 93 percent collected participant satisfaction data. Yet 29 percent did not evaluate their learning programs at all, and only 30 percent said they were good at using learning data to make business decisions.[1] The gap is not effort. It is timing. A survey handed out at the end of a session can only tell you how the session felt.
Donald Kirkpatrick set out four levels of training evaluation in 1959, and they are still the clearest way to think about timing.[8][9] Each level answers a different question, and each one has a week when it can be answered honestly. Ask a level 3 question on the day and you get a prediction, not a measurement.
| Level | What it measures | When to send it | Ask something like | Template on this page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Reaction | Whether people found it relevant and worth their time | Same day, ideally before they leave the room | "Overall, [Training name] was a good use of my time." | Post-Training Feedback Survey |
| 2. Learning | Whether they can actually do the thing now | 7 to 14 days later, once the glow has worn off | "Which course objective(s) do you feel least confident about right now?" | Employee Training Feedback Survey |
| 3. Behavior | Whether they are doing it on the job | 30 days, then again at 90 | "In the past 30 days, how often have you used [specific behavior from the training]?" | Employee Training Feedback Survey |
| 4. Results | Whether a number you care about moved | 90 days at the earliest, against a baseline you took first | "Since the training, I have seen improvement in [quality/speed/safety/customer outcome] in my work." | Pre-Training Survey, then the 90 day follow-up |
Hardly anyone gets past level 2. In a study of training professionals, 43.5 percent ran a level 3 evaluation at least some of the time, and only 18.4 percent ever ran a level 4.[3] That matters more than it sounds, because the level everyone does measure is the weakest predictor of anything. A meta-analysis of 34 studies and 115 correlations found that questions about usefulness predicted on-the-job transfer better than questions about enjoyment, and better than knowledge tests did.[2] So if you keep only one item from your end-of-session form, keep the one that asks whether people expect to use this, not the one that asks whether they liked it.
The reason to come back at 30 and 90 days is that application fades. Training professionals at 150 organizations estimated that 62 percent of employees were applying the material immediately after training, 44 percent at six months, and 34 percent at one year.[4] Most of that loss happens after the last survey has been sent.
Two practical rules follow. First, ask the follow-up in a different setting from the session. A meta-analysis of 89 transfer studies found that when transfer was measured by the same source in the same context, the result was consistently inflated.[6] A form filled in at the back of the training room flatters the training room. Second, take the baseline before you start. The pre-training survey exists so that your 90 day question has something to be compared against.
Training Survey FAQ
What questions should I ask in a training survey?
Ask about relevance, pace, practice, confidence and intent to use it. Keep every item to one idea. The strongest single question is not "did you enjoy it" but "will you be able to use this", because usefulness ratings predict on-the-job transfer better than enjoyment ratings do.[2] There are 30 questions taken straight from our templates in the copy-ready section above.
When should I send a post-training survey?
Send the reaction survey the same day, ideally in the last five minutes of the session. Response rates collapse once people go back to their inboxes. Then send a second, shorter survey at 30 days to find out whether anything is being used, and a third at 90 days if you have a metric to check. Those are three different surveys asking three different things, which is what the timing table is for.
How many questions should a training feedback survey have?
Under 10 for anything you send at the end of a session, and under 6 for a follow-up. Every template here is between 7 and 10 questions and takes 4 to 7 minutes. Long forms do not fail because people quit. They fail because people speed up and stop thinking about halfway through.
Should training feedback surveys be anonymous?
Anonymous whenever you are rating a person, so facilitator and instructor surveys, always. Confidential when you need to re-contact the same people at 30 days, which means you can link the answers but you promise not to report them individually. Identified only for the pre-training baseline, where matching each person to their own starting point is the entire purpose. Report anonymous results in groups of about five or more, or people can be identified by elimination.
What is a training evaluation form?
A training evaluation form is a structured set of questions used to judge whether a course was worth running. In practice most of them only measure reaction, which is how the session felt. A fuller evaluation checks four things at four different times: reaction, learning, behavior on the job, and results. The four levels table shows which question belongs to which week.
What is the difference between a training survey and a training evaluation?
A survey is the instrument. An evaluation is the judgment you make from several surveys over time. One end-of-day form is a survey. That form plus a 30 day check plus a metric you tracked before and after is an evaluation. Most pages use the words interchangeably, which is part of why so many teams stop at the first one.
How do I write a workshop feedback form?
Weight it toward behavior rather than satisfaction, because a workshop is usually a one-off with no next cohort to improve for. Ask what one thing they will do differently next week, what was most valuable and why, and what should change if you ever run it again. Two rating items are plenty. Our Workshop Feedback Survey is built this way and takes about 6 minutes.
What are the four levels of the Kirkpatrick model?
Reaction, learning, behavior and results. They were set out by Donald Kirkpatrick in 1959 and are still the standard frame for training evaluation.[8][9] Level 1 asks whether people found it relevant. Level 2 asks whether they learned it. Level 3 asks whether they are doing it. Level 4 asks whether a number moved. Each one becomes answerable at a different point, which is why sending one survey cannot cover them all.
How do I measure training effectiveness after the session?
Take a baseline before the training, then re-ask the same items at 30 and 90 days. Ask the follow-up somewhere other than the training room: when transfer is measured by the same source in the same setting, the result is reliably inflated.[6] Ask about frequency rather than opinion, so "how often have you used this in the past 30 days" instead of "was it useful".
Why do so few organizations measure training impact?
Because the later levels are genuinely hard, not because people are lazy. In one study 43.5 percent of training professionals ran a level 3 evaluation at least sometimes, and 18.4 percent ever ran a level 4.[3] ATD found that 90 percent of respondents call isolating training impact a challenge, while only 15 percent feel ready to address it.[1] The practical answer is to lower the bar: pick one metric, take a baseline, and re-ask three months later.
How do I run a training needs assessment survey?
Rate each skill twice, once for how good people are at it now and once for how much the role needs it. The gap between the two is your ranking. Then force a choice, because everything looks important when nothing is compared. Our Employee Training Needs Survey asks people to pick the three topics that would help most in the next 90 days, which surfaces priorities a rating scale alone will not.
Are these training survey templates really free?
Yes, and nothing is gated. Every one of the ten opens as a live survey with no account, no email address and no download form. You can read all the questions before you decide to use any of them. We build the survey tool, so we would rather you tried a template than filled in a lead form.
Methods and Sources
How these templates are built
Every template on this page is a live survey in our own builder, not a screenshot or a PDF. The question counts and completion times in the cards and in the timing table are read from each template itself rather than estimated. Items are written as positively worded agreement statements on a five point scale, because reviews of scale design put the useful range at five to seven points, and reverse-worded items are known to lower reliability rather than fix agreement bias. Where a template maps its questions to an evaluation framework, we say which framework and cite it below.
Which instruments we cannot reprint, and why Kirkpatrick is different
Several of the best known workplace instruments cannot legally be reproduced on a free page. Gallup Q12 items are copyrighted and cannot be published outside a participating company without permission, and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and the Maslach Burnout Inventory are licensed for academic or paid use only. Kirkpatrick is different in kind: the four levels are a published evaluation framework rather than a question set, so we map our own wording to the levels and cite the source instead of copying anyone else.
Limits
The figures on this page are the best published evidence we could verify, and they are still narrower than the claims usually built on them. The 62, 44 and 34 percent application figures are estimates given by training professionals about their own organizations, not observed behavior, and the study is from 2006. The ATD numbers describe 277 talent development professionals who chose to answer a survey, which is not a random sample of employers. The forgetting curve replication had one subject and used nonsense syllables. The question counts and completion times we publish are read from our own templates, so they are exact for these templates and tell you nothing about how long your version will take once you have edited it. None of this tells you whether your training worked. It tells you when to ask.
Disclosure
SuperSurvey is our own survey builder, so we have an obvious interest in you using it. In exchange, nothing here is gated: every template opens as a live preview with no account, no email address and no download form, and you can read all ten question sets without giving us anything.
References
- ATD Research. The Future of Evaluating Learning and Measuring Impact: Improving Skills and Addressing Challenges, 2025. Survey of 277 talent development professionals, released 30 April 2025. prweb.com
- Alliger, G. M., Tannenbaum, S. I., Bennett, W., Traver, H., and Shotland, A. A meta-analysis of the relations among training criteria. Personnel Psychology, 50(2), 341-358, 1997. doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1997.tb00911.x
- Kennedy, P. E., Chyung, S. Y., Winiecki, D. J., and Brinkerhoff, R. O. Training professionals usage and understanding of Kirkpatrick Level 3 and Level 4 evaluations. International Journal of Training and Development, 18(1), 1-21, 2014. doi.org/10.1111/ijtd.12023. The 43.5 and 18.4 percent figures are quoted from the open thesis version: scholarworks.boisestate.edu
- Saks, A. M., and Belcourt, M. An investigation of training activities and transfer of training in organizations. Human Resource Management, 45(4), 629-648, 2006. doi.org/10.1002/hrm.20135
- Arthur, W., Bennett, W., Edens, P. S., and Bell, S. T. Effectiveness of training in organizations: a meta-analysis of design and evaluation features. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(2), 234-245, 2003. doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.2.234
- Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T., and Huang, J. L. Transfer of training: a meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 36(4), 1065-1105, 2010. doi.org/10.1177/0149206309352880
- Murre, J. M. J., and Dros, J. Replication and analysis of Ebbinghaus forgetting curve. PLOS ONE, 10(7), e0120644, 2015. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120644
- Kirkpatrick Partners. The Kirkpatrick Model. kirkpatrickpartners.com
- Kirkpatrick, D. L. Techniques for evaluating training programs. Journal of the American Society of Training Directors, 13, 1959. Published as four articles between November 1959 and February 1960, and later collected in Kirkpatrick, D. L. Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels, Berrett-Koehler, 1994. These predate digital identifiers and have no resolvable link.
Browse Other Template Categories
Six categories, all built the same way, all free to open.
Still not sure which one to send? The timing table near the top of this page matches the decision to the survey.