85th AMS Annual Meeting

Tuesday, 11 January 2005: 4:00 PM
Evaluation of NOAA's NWS Advanced Warning Operations Course (AWOC)
Bradford N. Grant, NOAA/NWS, Norman, OK
Poster PDF (180.8 kB)
The Warning Decision Training Branch (WDTB) is currently delivering distance-learning instruction to approximately 1600 National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters as part of the Advanced Warning Operations Course (AWOC). A significant part of the AWOC is the incorporation of Science and Operations Officers (SOOs) and Development and Operations Hydrologists (DOHs) as facilitators to help forecasters in the local administration and training duties of the Course. One of the most important reasons WDTB is adopting this approach in the AWOC is to ensure a higher degree of training transfer (known as level 3 evaluation). This paper will summarize three levels of training evaluation components utilized in AWOC with special emphasis on level 3. Level 3 evaluations, often known as performance evaluations, offers the best opportunity for the training community and NWS organization to determine the extent to which trainees have been able to apply or transfer knowledge gained, or skills acquired on the job. As part of this process in AWOC, WDTB is measuring behavior changes of forecasters due to the training. Without assessing these types of performance areas of training, organizational human resources and capital can suffer and any impacts of training cannot be achieved.

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