In this indispensable companion to the classic book Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels, Donald and James Kirkpatrick draw on their decades of collective experience to offer practical guidance for putting any or all of the Four Levels into practice. In addition, they offer a comprehensive list of the ten requirements for an effective training program and show how to decide what to evaluate, how to get managers to support the evaluation process, and how to use the Four Levels to construct a compelling chain of evidence demonstrating the contribution of training to the bottom line.

Implementing the Four Levels is a companion book to Berrett-Koehler's bestseller Evaluating Training Programs, which has sold over 47,000 copies across 3 editions. Evaluating Training Programs is the standard work on Kirkpatrick's four-level evaluation model, which is the most widely used evaluation approach in the training/human resource development world. It contains bare-bones explanations of the four levels (they being REACTION, LEARNING, BEHAVIOR, and RESULTS) and then case studies of the four levels in action. This new book presents how to implement those four levels by using seven keys for practical application:First Key: Analyze Your resources Asks some crucial questions to ask yourself to see what resources you have and what is needed to accomplish the task at hand.Second Key: Involve Your Managers If you are going to be effective in evaluating programs, you need to have their encouragement and support. If they have negative attitudes toward you and/or your programs, you will not be able to evaluate effectively. This key also has suggestions for how to get the managers "on board."Third Key: Evaluate the Four Levels Go through the established four levels for evaluating programs and see how they apply to your particular scenario and aim.Fourth Key: Evaluate Reaction Establish a way of registering individual participants' reactions and tabulating the results. Suggestions are provided as to how to do this.Fifth Key: Evaluate Learning Offers advice on how to gauge and measure the level of learning and skill acquired.Sixth Key: Evaluate Behaviour Shows what to look for and how to measure the change in behavior resulting from the process.Seventh Key: Evaluate Results Shows how to evaluate results on a before and after basis and how to account for and include additionalfactors such as control groups, time for results to occur and so on.

“Don and Jim’s insights on management buy-in tactics and many practical examples of how to execute comprehensive level three and four evaluations are truly invaluable. As no industry dynamics are exactly the same, I found the flexibility of options/tools/resources around learning evaluations to be credible and comprehensive.”
—Barbara Hewitt, Executive Director, MGM Grand University

“Unless training directly addresses an organization’s need, and unless the training professional can prove this with evidence, the value of the program (or the entire training department) may be missed. What better authors to address this than Don and Jim Kirkpatrick!”
—Allison A. S. Wimms, Senior Training and Development Specialist, Johns Hopkins HealthCare LLC

“Without Kirkpatrick's Four Levels, we would all be flying blind! This new book is another very important addition to our evaluation body of knowledge and will provide very practical solutions to your evaluation problems.”
--Christopher R. Hardy, PhD., Director, Strategic Planning and Customer Relationship Management, Defense Acquisition University