4 Questions to Determine if Your CPR Training is Effective

Achieving student engagement is a fundamental challenge in any form of education, especially when the student is a beginner or is someone refreshing their skills. If you are an instructor in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), you've likely struggled to keep people engaged - especially when teaching laypeople.

Laypeople learning CPR for the first time are often surprised by the prescriptive training agenda necessary to impart a clinical skill. They are not prepared for the didactic training involved; instead, they expect to get right to practicing compressions on a manikin. The challenge for many instructors is that when students encounter this prescriptive approach, they may become disengaged. They can begin to focus just on passing the test. But will they leave confident to perform later? And, how will they perform later?

One of the most tried and tested models for measuring training effectiveness is the Kirkpatrick Model. Trusted by educators for decades, the Kirkpatrick Model can help you target opportunities for engagement by addressing four simple, yet targeted, questions.

Below, we outline how to apply this model to your training and achieve engagement during every class.

According to the Kirkpatrick Model, it is important to gauge each student’s reaction to the material so that you can better identify what they need to stay active in the learning process.¹ Where are the opportunities within your prescribed curriculum to make the training more interesting, useful, and challenging?

To better engage learners in your course, you might consider including incentivized games. Gamification, or the process of applying game-related principles to learning, has become a popular way of motivating learners to participate.²

Evidence has shown that even physicians are turning toward online video "games" as a learning tool, requiring less time to learn necessary information and competing against other physicians.⁴ The use of gamification entering the healthcare field indicates that it has applications to learning life-saving techniques. And, CPR training is no exception.

Friendly competition can make a big impact in the classroom; today's CPR feedback technology can help to facilitate this type of competition naturally.

When measuring the overall results of your training, the number of lives saved carries the most weight. Every minute and a half, someone in the United States goes into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital.¹⁰ Four out of five times, the victim is at home.¹¹ Because of this, it isn’t typically a paramedic or a doctor beginning CPR on a victim – it’s a layperson, a victim’s friend, a victim's loved one.

As a CPR instructor, you have the ability to prepare them to save a life. With the most engaging training methods, positive learner attitudes, and the right tools, students can leave your class feeling as inspired as they did when they entered.

Helping You Boost CPR Training Effectiveness

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