Strengths and weaknesses of kirkpatrick model

Discussion 1 Instructions: This week’s lecture describes the advantages and disadvantages of using Kirkpatrick’s taxonomy. As an HR employee tasked with creating and evaluating a training course for your organization, how would you use Kirkpatrick’s taxonomy to evaluate the training? What could you do to minimize the disadvantages of the tool? Response Instructions: Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts. Utilize the textbook to support claims. Student 1: Kirkpatrick’s Taxonomy had four levels of evaluations. What I favor about Kirkpatrick’s taxonomy is that it was developed with short-term and long-term performance outcomes. Many times a company will try to evaluate things with either one or the other performance outcomes but not both at the same time. I believe that is a huge issue today. Although his taxonomy was well thought out there are, of course, advantages and disadvantages when it comes to this fourlevel evaluation framework. As an HR employee tasked with creating and evaluating a training course for my organization, I can use Kirkpatrick’s taxonomy to evaluate the training in a number of ways. The first way I could utilize this is by referring to the second level of his evaluation method. As with level 1, evaluations for level 2 are done immediately after the training event to determine if participants gained the knowledge, skills, or attitudes expected (Morrison et al., 2012; Noe, 2012; Piskurich, 2010). This poses the question of, “Did They Learn It?” That is an important question that I don’t see asked enough. Throughout all of the times I’ve been trained in a particular subject or situation, I can honestly say nothing has been learned. That type of feedback would give value to the instructor so that they can re-evaluate their training and get it to the level in which it will be easier to ingest for the trainees and retain/learn whatever is being taught. All four levels are useful but of course they come with disadvantages. A major challenge to evaluation training's effectiveness is isolating any subsequent performance improvement to the training itself. That is, improved performance may correspond to the timing of the training but may not be linked to new training itself (Kopp, 2014). A way to minimize this disadvantage would be to ease in the new transitions as far as training goes. There are some situations when you are required to go cold turkey because whatever is going on must stop. But whenever you can, try to ease your way into training by first having a discussion. During the discussion with your colleagues and subordinate, help them understand the changes they will soon undergo. Doing this will lessen the blowback you may receive from your employees. Student 2: Kirkpatrick's taxonomy includes four levels of evaluation: reaction; learning; behavior; and result. It is a widely used standard to illustrate each level of trainings impact on the trainee and the organization as a whole (Kopp, pg 7:3, 2014). I would use Kirkpatrick's taxonomy for evaluating a training course by first knowing what is being evaluated and the correct steps to take. The reaction step will let me know if the trainees liked or enjoyed the training and was it a good use of their time?. The learning step would allow me to find out if the trainee learned anything from it. The behavior step will let me know if the trainee was able to apply any of the information to their performance. The last step is results which will allow me to see actually what was learned and if the trainee took all of the information in and applied it. All of these steps is very beneficial to use and you should have a good training course from it. What could you do to minimize the disadvantages of the tool? The trainer must have a great understanding of the tool in order for it to be successful in training. So having this knowledge about the tool and understanding it will minimize the disadvantages. Discussion 2 Instructions: Read the article Apple is Beta-testing an Update that Kills Evasion Jailbreak. In the textbook, beta-testing is described as used for formative evaluation and for fine-tuning.