Kirkpatrick levels of evaluation in communication skills curriculum design

Effective communication plays a vital role in the workplace. Picincu (2018) argues that communication in the workplace can make or break a business. Workforce (2019) also reiterated the importance of honing students’ communication skills when they identified 15 out of 31 core competencies for the 21st century to be competencies relating to dealing with people, besides competencies in dealing with business, and selfmanagement. Curriculum design has often focused on Kirkpatrick’s levels 1 (reaction) and 2 (learning) of evaluation. The purpose of this exploratory study is to identify gaps between employers’ expectations regarding undergraduates or new hires’ communication skills and curriculum design, and to revise the curriculum having the intention to track impact at levels 1, 2, 3 (application) and 4 (impact). A sample of how curriculum could be re-designed with these 4 levels of evaluation will be presented.