Kirkpatrick’s Five Levels of Training Evaluation Made Easy

The Three Minute Train the Trainer #15

Photo by William Warby on Unsplash

This is #15 of The Three Minute Train the Trainer Series for newbie and aspiring trainers. To see the rest of the series and the archives, click here.

Training is great when it works.

So how do you know if your training is successful?

You don’t unless you evaluate it.

The most well-known model of training evaluation is the Kirkpatrick Model, which consists of four levels:

• Reaction: Did the students find the training interesting, enjoyable, and relevant?
• Learning: Did your trainees recall, understand, and apply the content in the class?
• Behavior: Did the trainees change their behavior after the training?
• Results: Did the training solve the organizational problem it is designed to solve?

Most organizations only get as far as reaction and learning, so if you take action on the next two levels, you are ahead of the game.

What’s important is to understand the concept: you should be creating training to change behavior and that behavior change solves a business problem.