ISSN 1753-9439 Paper 16 Vol 1 No 2 Pages 393 – 423
Leadership development in the UK National Health Service:
Assessment of transformative academic education
To-date, unlike other training organisations, academic institutions have not been required to assess the effectiveness of the methods beyond those of academic achievement. However, this position is likely to change as academic institutions become increasingly involved in the development of bespoke programmes for both public and private sector organisations. This paper aims to address that deficit through the evaluation of an academic programme, aimed at Human Resource professionals in the National Health Service, that utlized the techniques developed for organisational training programmes in assessing its impact on learning, behaviour and results. Based on Kirkpartick's (1959) model of evaluation, the approach taken not only measures the impact of the programme on individual learning, attitudes and behaviour but attempts to evaluate how that impact translates into organisational benefits. Furthermore, it explores the on-going development of the assessment process and ways in which that process can be refined to elicit more accurate data particularly at the organisational level.
Keywords: Evaluation, Kirkpatrick, English National Health Service, Leadership Development programme.