Donald Kirkpatrick’s doctoral dissertation outlined the criteria for assessing the effectiveness of training. Training effectiveness is not one-dimensional. Just as we utilize multidimensional measures to assess performance effectiveness for employees, training effectiveness requires attention to several key aspects of training.

While Kirkpatrick’s work was initially done in the 1950s, the integrity of the model has withstood the test of time and evolved to what is now called the New World Kirkpatrick Model. In fact, a 2009 survey from the Institute for Corporate Productivity of 704 business, human resource, and learning professionals, found that Kirkpatrick’s model is the most commonly used tool for assessing training effectiveness. Training evaluation occurs during the training program, as well as afterward while trainees work on the job, to evaluate all of Kirkpatrick’s levels.

There are many considerations for how to administer the evaluations, including how to write appropriate questions, when to collect data, and how to choose the most effective method of data collection for the type of questions you are asking. Depending on training design, you may need to collect information before the training and then after the training to be more confident that trainees learned the material. Paper-and-pencil and online surveys are generally the most common ways to collect training evaluation data. The advantage is that both protect respondent anonymity as names do not need to be collected.

A downside of using paper-and-pencil surveys, however, is that they are typically administered by the trainer at the end of a session, which may lead to less honest responses for fear of losing anonymity. In addition to surveys, many items can be observed, including on-the-job behaviors as assessed by trainers, peers, subordinates, or superiors to the trainee. While drafting survey questions may seem easy, writing questions that are easily measurable and can provide confidence in the results has some important guidelines to follow.

Subjective questions are best for assessing a person’s perceptions about the training session itself, or something the individual learned during the training. Objective questions are best for gathering metrics to assess outcomes or results. Seek to obtain answers that can provide you with the rich information you need to improve your training delivery and training effectiveness.