Features

Published November 2009

The Kirkpatrick Model: Past, Present and Future

Jim and Wendy Kirkpatrick

In 1954, Don Kirkpatrick was at the University of Wisconsin working on his Ph.D. dissertation on the topic of evaluating the effectiveness of a supervisory management program he developed. Being a practical man, he decided on four simple words — reaction, learning, behavior and results — to describe how training would lead to learning, which would lead to on-the-job application, in turn leading to desired results.

After earning his doctorate, Kirkpatrick didn’t give those four simple words another thought until Bob Craig contacted him in 1959 and asked him to write an article for the ASTD journal. He accepted, but said that instead of one article, he would write four. Thus were born the Kirkpatrick Four Levels. Kirkpatrick didn’t actually use the word “levels,” nor did he name his work a model. And at that point, he had no idea the impact these articles would have on the world of corporate learning and development.

After those four articles were published in 1959, related articles began surfacing with questions about the application of the four levels, largely from academic circles and primarily on Levels 1 and 2. At the request of Nancy Olsen at ASTD, Kirkpatrick reviewed the literature and wrote summative editorials on evaluation in 1965, 1975 and 1985.

In the 1970s, Kirkpatrick’s awareness of the widespread use of the model grew and he found that his four levels were being used worldwide as a standard for training evaluation. As technology progressed, Kirkpatrick began using an overhead projector and transparencies when presenting the applications. And, while most would consider this technology archaic and cumbersome, he continues to use it today, to the amusement and amazement of audiences.

Throughout the 1980s, many organizations developed Level 1 and Level 2 methods and tools, and Kirkpatrick began collecting case studies of these practices, believing them to be an important way to educate and encourage others. However, there was still a concentrated focus on Levels 1 and 2. Even with newer technology, which made it easy to implement electronic surveys, most organizations remained focused on measuring only those two levels.

The Continued Development of Kirkpatrick

At the suggestion of a friend, Kirkpatrick published a book in 1993, Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels, featuring the case studies that he collected over the years. Meanwhile, Kirkpatrick’s son, Jim, was working as a career consultant, using the Kirkpatrick Model as a framework for helping clients and employees identify career goals and a path to achieving them. He then became the training director at First Indiana Bank, where he was able to use the Kirkpatrick Model in the traditional training sense.

In 2005, Don and Jim Kirkpatrick released their first co-authored book, Transferring Learning to Behavior, focused on Level 3 behavior. This transfer of learning to behavior continues to be one of the biggest goals and challenges of many training organizations.

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Putting Kirkpatrick to Work

David Basarab and Michael Woodard

Having alignment all the way up the organization makes executing the four levels almost effortless.

Click to read more

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