Kirkpatrick’s Four Level Evaluation Model

Donald Kirkpatrick's  Four Level Evaluation Model is the best known evaluation
methodology for judging learning processes. It makes an excellent planning,
evaluating, and troubling-shooting tool. David Kirkpatrick never used the word
‘level’, he normally called them “steps’’. In addition, he did not call it a model, but
used words such as, “techniques for conducting the evaluation”.

The four steps of evaluation consist of:

 Step 1: Reaction 
 Step 2: Learning 
 Step 3: Behaviour 
 Step 4: Results 

This model is not just for training but for learning process too. It not only helps to develop
formal learning, such as training, but other forms, such as informal learning, development
and education
But with the technological advances, it needs some changes as well.
The learners should be motivated to learn. This differs from Kirkpatrick who wrote that
reaction was how well the learners liked a particular learning process.
Performance is a better objective than behaviour because performance has two aspects:
behaviour being the means and its consequence being the end and it is the end we are mostly
concerned about.
By flipping the model upside down and adding the changes we get:
• Result - What impact (outcome or result) will improve our business?
• Performance - What do the employees have to perform in order to create the desired
impact?
• Learning - What knowledge, skills, and resources do they need in order to perform?
• Motivation - What do they need to perceive in order to learn and perform?
Level four: Results
Results evaluation is of the most interest to the business leaders, while the other three
evaluations (performance, learning, and motivation) are essential to the learning designers for
planning and evaluating their learning processes.
Motivation, Learning, and Performance are largely soft measurements. However, decision-
makers who approve such learning processes prefer results. The other levels are also
important.
The motivation evaluation informs you how relevant the learning process is to the learners
The Learning evaluation informs you to the degree of relevance that the learning process
worked to transfer the new skills to the learners
The performance evaluation informs you of the degree that their skills actually transferred to
their job
The results evaluation informs you of the return the organization receives from supporting the
learning process. Decision-makers normally prefer this harder result, although not necessarily
in dollars and cents.
This Results measurement of a learning process might be met with a more balanced approach
or a balanced scorecard (Kaplan, Norton, 2001), which looks at the impact or return from
four perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal, Innovation and Learning.
Evaluating the impact of learning is important as it allows the customer to know exactly how
the learning process will bring positive results to the business.
Level three: Performance
This involves testing the learner's capabilities to perform learned skills while on the job, it
can be performed formally (testing) or informally (observation). It is important as the primary
purpose of learning in the organization is to improve results by having its people learn new
skills and knowledge and then actually applying them to the job.
Level two: Learning
This is the extent to which learners improve knowledge, increase skill, and change attitudes
as a result of participating in a learning process. It includes some type of post-testing to
ascertain what skills were learned during the process and what skills they already had.
Level one: Motivation
When a learning process is first presented, the learner has to make a decision as to whether he
or she will pay attention to it. If the goal or task is judged as important and doable, then the
learner is normally motivated to engage in it. However, if the task is presented as low-
relevance or there is a low probability of success, then motivation for task engagement is low.
Criticism
There are three problematic assumptions of the Kirkpatrick model: 1) the levels are not
arranged in ascending order, 2) the levels are not causally linked, and 3) the levels are
positively inter-correlated.
Kirkpatrick's four levels treat evaluation as an end of the process activity, whereas the
objective should be to treat evaluation as an ongoing activity that should begin during the
pre-learning phase.
The four Levels are only for training process, rather than other forms of learning. The four
levels of evaluations mean very little to the other business units.