LAUSR

How do you assess the effectiveness of your simulation or other nursing professional development (NPD) educational offerings? If you are like most of us, you are probably using Kirkpatrick’s four levels for training evaluation. Dr. Kirkpatrick originally published his four levels of training evaluation model in 1959, which included the following: Level 1, Reaction; Level 2, Learning; Level 3, Behavior; and Level 4, Results/outcomes. Many NPD practitioners, simulation educators, and others in the broader training and development field primarily reference Kirkpatrick Level 1, that is, reaction evaluations, and/or Level 2, that is, knowledge gained as determined by pretests and posttests, to determine the efficacy of their training. So, are we maximizing our use of Level 1 and Level 2 evaluations? Are we asking our learners and other stakeholders enough probing questions about their satisfaction with our educational sessions that we find out what is important to them, rather than just using standard evaluation forms that ask broad, nonspecific questions? If we