Where are we at? An empirical study of levels and methods of evaluating continuing professional development

While the importance of CPD is widely acknowledged by the profession, evaluation of the impact of CPD is rarely undertaken in a systematic manner. In this survey study of teachers and CPD coordinators in England we looked at the extent to which CPD is evaluated at different levels of Guskey’s (2000) hierarchical model of evaluation of professional development. Findings suggest that the Guskey model can be usefully employed to characterise levels of CPD evaluation in English schools. Evaluation of CPD is most likely to take the form of measuring participant satisfaction. However, there was evidence of multi-level evaluation happening in many schools, encompassing participant learning and value for money as well as participant satisfaction.