Evaluating the Impact of Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

• Support from the school
• Participants’ use of new knowledge and skills
• Pupil learning outcomes
• Changes in pupil behaviour (added)
• Value for money (added)
In the third survey, CPD providers were initially asked to specify the types of
CPD they provided and then asked about the methods they used to evaluate
these and their views on the usefulness of different evaluation approaches.
3.2.a. Schools
Separate questionnaires were sent by post to the CPD co-ordinators and
teachers in 1000 randomly selected schools in the autumn term 2003: 223
CPD co-ordinator (76.1 female, 23.9% male) and 416 teacher (84.4% female,
15.6% male) questionnaires were returned.
Table 2. Age category of respondents
20-30 31-40 41-50 51-60
CPD leaders 3.1 15.4 41.0 40.5
Teachers 27.3 24.2 29.3 18.9
Both leaders and teachers responses showed a higher proportion of female
respondents, although this tendency was more pronounced among teachers
than amongst CPD leaders, possibly reflecting the higher representation of
males in senior posts in schools. CPD leaders tended to be over 40 (81.5%),
suggesting the post usually goes to experienced members of staff. The age
profile among teachers was a more balanced one. This is consistent with the
national profile.
The schools from which responses were received were compared with those
not returning questionnaires on a number of measures to check their
equivalence. These included attainment (KS1, KS2 or GCSE as appropriate),
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