The Best Way to Use the Kirkpatrick Model for Evaluating L&D Impact

If there’s one question that comes up often among learning and development (L&D) professionals, it’s “How effective was the training initiative we just offered?” L&D leaders want to know whether learners mastered a new skill, changed their behavior, or made a shift in workplace culture because of what they learned. 

These metrics haven’t always been easy to gauge. For decades, L&D pros have turned to The Kirkpatrick Evaluation Model to assess the impact of their work and measure results. It’s a common and useful tool. Unfortunately, it’s also very easy to misuse.

What is the Kirkpatrick Evaluation Model? 

The Kirkpatrick Model is a popular method for evaluating the effectiveness of a training, e-learning, or educational program. This analytic tool helps L&D professionals assess training programs based on four criteria: reaction, learning, behavior, and results. 

The method was developed by Donald Kirkpatrick in 1954 as part of his PhD dissertation. (Donald went on to become a professor at the University of Wisconsin and president of the American Society for Training and Development.) Over the past seven decades, it’s become the most widely used method for evaluating the effectiveness of training programs and instructional design.

How do you use the Kirkpatrick Evaluation Model? 

The model is composed of four levels of criteria: reaction, learning, behavior, and results. 

When Donald first came up with the model, he thought that learning professionals should follow these checklists in a linear fashion, starting with assessing employees’ reactions to an educational program and working up the ladder to finish with results.

But that’s the exact wrong way to approach it, according to LinkedIn Learning instructor Jeff Toister. A better method is the reverse.

“Start at Level 4 and identify the results you want to achieve, then work backward to Level 3 to think about what participants need to do on the job to achieve those results, and so on,” Jeff says in his course Measuring Learning Effectiveness. “This will make it easier to connect the training to organizational goals.”

A brief overview of the Kirkpatrick Model

Before we go any further, let’s delve into the fundamentals of the Kirkpatrick levels, as broken down by Ajay Pangarkar in the course Practical Success Metrics in Your Training Program. 

Here are the four levels of training evaluation:  

1. Reaction

The first level gauges how employees react to the learning solution they’ve received. A common way to measure this is by conducting a survey after a course, asking learners questions such as: 

• What were the biggest strengths and weaknesses of the training?
• Did the training program accommodate your personal learning style?
• What are the three most important things you learned from this training? 

“If you ever completed some type of form or survey at the end of a training session,” Ajay says, “you’ve probably completed a Level 1 evaluation.” 

2. Learning 

“At the second level,” Ajay explains, “you figure out if participants truly understood the training and whether they can actually apply the skill or do the task.” 

Common ways to measure this are hands-on assignments, post-training tests, or interview-style evaluations to demonstrate the person has learned a new skill.

3. Behavior

This level measures any behavioral change or desired outcome that may have occurred as a result of your course. In other words, how are employees applying their new behavior or skills once they are back on the job? Common ways to measure this are in-field inspections or evaluations from participants’ managers. “This is the level,” Ajay says, “that gets leadership attention.”

4. Results

With this level, you’re looking at: Did employees apply what they learned or engage in new behavior once they were back on the job? 

If, for example, you offered an e-learning course on management, did the learners improve as managers? Have employee surveys shown an improvement in manager effectiveness, thereby improving retention? 

“It may seem a distant data point from the behavior you’re specifically training,” Ajay says, “but it’s actually the reason why you're doing any training in the first place.” And that’s what brings us to our recommended reverse-order approach.

The best way to use the Kirkpatrick Model

Those four levels represent the fundamentals of the model. But the key is using the model the right way, by starting with Level 4 and working your way back to Level 1. We mentioned Jeff’s view on this earlier, and it’s one shared by Ajay.

“Even though it seems counterintuitive to start at Level 4,” Ajay says, “we need to determine our key metrics here, so we can make sure all other decisions orient our training focus toward these data points.”

Say, for example, that you want to improve the management skills at your company. Perhaps your key metric is engagement; that is, you believe that better managers will improve the engagement level of your employees.

Start with the fourth level, the result. From there, you can begin to work backward on what you expect at each previous level.

For Level 3, you’ll want to focus on a behavior. Perhaps you believe your managers will improve if they have more career conversations with their employees. So, your instructional design centers on having that career conversation, which should result in them learning a new skill (Level 2). 

By grounding this conversation in the current state of work (the challenging economy, evolving work environments, and tech layoffs) you can help motivate managers and increase their commitment. Then think about how that might change their immediate response to the training program, which is what Level 1 measures. 

It might not be so important that they thought the course was fun (although that never hurts).

Instead, it’s likely more important that it was effective training; that is, that they understand the importance of career conversations and you get their buy-in on using them.

Is the Kirkpatrick Model the best way to measure learning effectiveness?

This is debatable. There are alternatives to the Kirkpatrick Model covered in Jeff’s course — the Phillips ROI Model (which is an extension of the Kirkpatrick Model) and the Brinkerhoff’s Success Case Method, along with countless others.

There are strengths and weaknesses to all these models. But here’s the reality: When you want to measure results, it’s not so much which model you choose as it is how well you execute it.

Most of the time, the Kirkpatrick Model will work fine. It comes down to executing it correctly, and that boils down to having a clear idea of the results the stakeholders want to achieve and then working backward to achieve it.

Final thoughts

The recent LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report found that L&D’s influence with the C-suite continues to surge, and learning and development is increasingly being viewed as a must-have, not a nice-to-have. L&D leaders are locking in their seats at the executive table. 

To keep growing, L&D must continue to show its impact and its connection to business results.

The Kirkpatrick Model can help with that. By using it correctly — which is to say, backward — you can achieve desired results and show more return on investment with your specific programs. And that will give you a much better chance of getting funding and support for more learning solutions moving forward.