Why a Stakeholder Approach to Evaluating Training

Abstract

The problem and the solution. After more than 40 years, the reigning framework for evaluating training—the four-level Kirkpatrick model—rarely gets beyond the first level: trainee reactions or the “smiles test.” The author argues that this is because current approaches to training evaluation are primarily of interest to trainers but not to the many constituencies served by training, trainers, and the training function. To these other constituencies, current approaches to evaluating training are largely irrelevant. Adopting a different approach to the evaluation of training, a stakeholder-based approach, can solve this problem of irrelevance. Using a stakeholder-based approach requires trainers to incorporate stakeholder requirements into the design, development, and delivery of training, increasing stakeholder interest in the outcomes and in evaluating those outcomes in ways that offer meaning, value, and relevance to all of the stakeholders.