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Beginning with the November 1959 issue of Training & Development (then called the Journal of the American Society of Training Directors), I published a series of four articles, "Techniques for Evaluating Training Programs." Since then, I've written many articles and book chapters on evaluation and compiled 20 years' worth of evaluation material in Evaluating Training Programs (American Society for Training and Development, 1975) and More Evaluating Training Programs (ASTD, 1986).
Over the years, a lot of things have happened in writing about and teaching evaluation. But the content has remained basically the same. I've made a few modifications in the guidelines for each of the four levels, as well as provided more and different forms and examples in my books. But the levels: reaction, learning, behavior, and results have remained constant.
It all started in 1952, when I decided to write my dissertation on "evaluating a supervisory training program." In analyzing my goals for the paper, I considered measuring participants' reaction to the program, the amount of learning that took place, the extent of their change in behavior after they returned to their jobs, and any final results that were achieved by participants after they returned to work. I realized that the scope of the research should be restricted to reaction and learning and that behavior and results would have to wait. Thus, the concept of four levels was born.
In the November 1959 article, I used the term "four steps." But someone, I don't know who, referred to the steps as "levels." The next thing I knew, articles and books were referring to the four levels as the Kirkpatrick model.
Defining the our levels
In 1993, my friend and colleague Jane Halcomb urged me to write a book describing the model. She said that many people were interested in it but had trouble finding details. The book, Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels (Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, California, 1994), uses case studies to show how the four levels can be implemented--from...