Most of our training is conducted by Subject Matter Experts, who are more and more in demand for field work. We are trying to determine if there is an industry standard for instructor to participant ratios. Most of our courses include group exercises and case studies. Our current ratio ranges from about 4-5 to 1. Does it make a difference if the course is primarily lecture? If it is highly technical? If it is hands-on? My thinking is that it does make a difference, but I wonder what other organizations are doing?

Well classroom teachers can handle 30 students or more in pure lecture environment. Given your situation with group work, I would say 4 groups of 4 people in each group.

ben

I have been an SME who does training for 25+ years. I have taught courses with from 2 - 30 participants. Most of the classes I've taught have been with computer based hands-on exercises or group exercises.

I prefer about 16 - 18 participants for hands-on courses. When we have group exercises I generally divide the group into small groups as Ben suggests. Part of the key is that the exercises are designed for that, with a whole-group debrief. For those, I prefer 12 - 16 participants. I really don't like doing much more than 20 in either context.

That said, I have done 24 or more in the group exercise format when the exercises were designed for that size group. It worked quite well.

Naturally, the more hands on and interactive the better. However the only reason that may stop you is the cost which is the trainer's time.

Usually, the smaller the group, the more tailored is the training. As a result delegates get to learn and know more since they can get more from the trainer.

For group sizes, 4-6 per trainer seems to be ideal as the instructor has enough time to understand delegates problems and delegates can progress together.

Bigger groups tend to slow down training since you need to go with the common denominator which reduces performance. As a rule of thumb, the higher the numbers, the more lecture-like the training and hence less interactive. It means delegates need to do more homework to learn and can't expect to master the skill during the course as much as they would do in a small group.

Hope this helps.