How to Use Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation Model
Bradford R. GlaserResults, behavior, learning, reaction. According to Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Training Evaluation Model, these are the four levels through which to design training programs and measure their effectiveness.
This model provides a framework for designing and evaluating training, depending on how you work through the levels. In this post, we'll walk you through the levels of the model to help you understand how they can inform your training design and assessments.
- Learn the importance of evaluation
- Discover the Kirkpatrick Evaluation Model
- Analyze results
Table of Contents
Why Does the Kirkpatrick Model Matter?
Donald Kirkpatrick, a former Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, first introduced this training evaluation model in 1959. Since then, he and now his family have updated and refined the model. The most recent update is the 2016 "New World Kirkpatrick Model."
Considering that only 11% of employees can make full use of current training, there's clearly a gap between the idea of training and its execution. In a time of rapid workplace change, you must adapt your training programs to be constantly relevant and impactful. Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Training Evaluation Model can help you do just that.
Using Kirkpatrick's Model to Design Your Training
When using Kirkpatrick's model to design your training, work from the broadest level to the narrowest, focusing first on results and then on reaction. Here's what you need to know.
Results
The first concern of your training is a big, systemic one: what organizational change do you want to see? This is the baseline question on which you will center your training.
For example, if you want to improve management, how can you work backward to integrate this into every level of your organization?
Behavior
What is the behavior change you want to see? This is where actual application in the workplace comes into play, and where it ladders up to organizational change. At this level in your questioning, think about the outcomes you want employees to achieve down the line.
Following our earlier example, what individual behavior change would improve management?
Learning
In this level, you ask what you want employees to take away from the training directly. Can they articulate the key takeaways? Do they know how to apply the skills to their jobs?
What skills will individuals need to learn to change their management behavior?
Reaction
In this narrow level, you've worked down to the individual lessons you want employees to take away from your training.
If you're trying to hone skills for individuals to change their management behavior, what kind of initial training does that lead you to?
Using Kirkpatrick's Model to Evaluate Your Training
When using the model to evaluate your training, work through the levels in the opposite direction, starting on the smallest, most granular level and working your way up to measure systemic change.
Reaction
What were employees' initial impressions? Was the training helpful? Confusing? Boring? At this phase in your evaluation, you're looking for an immediate reaction. Consider sending a survey immediately after the training or actually making the evaluation a part of the training itself.
You can close out the session with a group reflection or request people to submit their feedback on the way out. Some ideas for valuable prompts include: Was the presentation engaging? Do you feel the training was worth your time? What would you change or improve for future training? What resources or support do you need to apply what you learned?
Learning
The best way to measure learning is to do a before, during, and after assessment. Develop a set of questions and send them to employees before the training, or make it the first part of your session. Revisit the questions throughout, then conduct a post-training evaluation, all with the same question set. This will give you a concrete sense of how much was actually learned and internalized.
Behavior
When evaluating your training, you'll want to understand whether employees remember and use the skills daily. Follow up with surveys on a consistent timeline after the training—maybe one month later, six months later, and a year later. This is also a good opportunity to ask what could be improved or what lessons participants would like to learn moving forward. As job demands shift, you'll want to solicit feedback to include in future training sessions, ensuring your content remains relevant and valuable.
Results
Measuring systemic change can be a challenge. Here, you'll want to gauge the impact on the organization at large. Focus groups, team surveys, or manager polls could all be helpful ways to get a pulse on how things are going. Try doing this one year after the training to see if the change occurred—and remember, this takes time. You may need to do several pieces of training regularly before you notice any measurable transformation.
Trust HRDQ for All of Your Training Needs
With over 40 years of experience, HRDQ offers nearly 200 quality training tools for the do-it-yourself trainer including assessments, hands-on games, simulations, and activities with solutions for lunch-and-learns, short workshops, and longer programs. Get started with the Kirkpatrick Express Evaluation Toolkit and gain a comprehensive overview of the four levels of evaluation.
5 comments
Our employees often find it tedious to have several trainings over the course of the year. How do you suggest we maximize the impact of trainings so we could avoid conducting too many?
I admit I’ve always expected change right after trainings. However, I think you’re right, it takes time and we should be more patient in expecting systemic change.
Insightful read. Seems like it’s time to overhaul our training process.
Wow, this seems like it would be extremely helpful to use with our training programs. It’s always been difficult for us to gauge systemic change after trainings so we’ll try doing focus groups or team surveys.
We’ve been doing feedback surveys right after our trainings but I haven’t thought of doing a one month/six months/a year later survey. I think it’s a good idea to adapt that to our programs.