Evaluating the Impact of Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Participant Reaction
In the interview phase, 100% of schools employed evaluative practices at this
level.
Characteristics of “high” banded schools included 17 :
! Evaluation of all discrete CPD events
! Staff encouraged to record all CPD events: both discrete events
(INSET days, courses, etc.) as well as points from professional
discussion, observations.
! Collation and examination of evaluation forms; staff being aware of
what happens to the forms once they are completed
Evaluative methods used at this level:
! “Happy Sheet”
! Discussion
! Focus Groups/Interviews
! Departmental/Staff meetings
! Learning logs/reflective journals
The most usual means of collecting data on the impact of CPD include both the
evaluation form filled in immediately after the event, and personal conversation
with participants, “collecting the soft data” as one CPD leader termed it. A
number of CPD leaders highlighted the danger that such forms in particular will
tell them more about the venue and the lunch provided than they will about the
training itself, much less the impact.
17 Not all of these characteristics would necessarily be present in any given school; however, a
majority of these characteristics, across the range of the levels of evaluation of impact, would
need to be present for a school to be ranked as high.
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