Applying Kirkpatrick's Evaluation Model in Iranian Nursing Studies: A Scoping Review

Iranian nursing researchers considered the Kirkpatrick model to evaluate educational programs. The present review study was conducted to determine the possibility of a systematic review and summarize the results on the Kirkpatrick model in Iranian nursing studies.

The present scoping review was conducted based on the Arksey & O'Malley framework. For this purpose, SID, Magiran, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases, and Google Scholar search engine were searched with keywords "Kirkpatrick,” "Nursing,” and "Iran" and their Persian equivalents, without time limit. The final studies were selected based on the PRISMA framework. The information from included articles was extracted. In the last stage, the advice of four medical education and nursing experts were applied.

Finally, 16 articles were included in this review. A total of five and 11 studies had quasi-experimental and observational designs, respectively. The Kirkpatrick model’s initial two stages were applied in the six studies. In addition, other studies used four levels of the model to evaluate educational programs. A systematic review study was not observed in the process of search. The six studies focused on the evaluation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation courses.

The current studies had weaknesses in using the evaluation model, such as the incompleteness of the evaluation steps. Future studies should focus on measuring all levels of the model. Further, the evaluation of educational interventions on patients based on the Kirkpatrick model should be considered. According to the available evidence, conducting a systematic review is impossible.