Continuing professional development (CPD) evaluation in education has been heavily influenced by' level models', deriving from the work of Kirkpatrick and Guskey in particular, which attempt to trace the processes through which CPD interventions achieve outcomes. This paper considers the strengths and limitations of such models, and in particular, the degree to which they able to do justice to the complexity of CPD and its effects. After placing level models within the broader context of debates about CPD evaluation, the paper reports our experience of developing such models heuristically for our own evaluation practice. It then draws on positivist, realist and constructivist traditions to consider some more fundamental ontological and epistemological questions to which they give rise. The paper concludes that level models can be used in number of ways and with differing emphases, and that choices made about their use will need to reflect both theoretical choices and practical considerations.
One approach to designing, researching or evaluating professional learning experiences is to use models of learning processes. Here we analyse and critique five significant contemporary analytical models: three variations on path models, proposed by Guskey Desimone andlarke and Hollingsworth; a model using a systemic conceptualisation of learning by Opfer and Pedder; and a cognitive learning model by Evans. To do this, we develop and illustrate an analytical framework focused on model components, purposes, scope, explicit and implicit theories of learning and change processes, agency and philosophical underpinnings. We identify similarities, differences, inconsistencies and limitations in the models. This provides the basis for reconceptualising models as tools to be deployed alongside other relevant constructs and thus the analytical framework can support a more informed selection of theoretical models by researchers and practitioners.
This chapter addresses evidence-informed teaching in the English context. The chapter makes the case for considering England as having elements of both high and low social cohesion, with a paring back of the role of Local Authorities (districts) alongside the growth of more powerful but smaller Multi-Academy Trusts. Within the context of a highly regulated accountability regime, this places England in the hierarchist, with elements of fatalist, quadrant of the cohesion/regulation matrix. England has a well-developed infrastructure for supporting research use, including the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), a very well-resourced charity acting as the What works Centre for school education. Despite this, use of research evidence amongst teachers is low, and this has changed little since the mid-2010s. The chapter draws on institutional theory to explain this finding. The following explanations are provided: a lack of resources, coupled with a strong, politicised accountability system and a hollowed out middle tier to support schools, contributing to a lack of prioritisation amongst school leaders. However, England's well-developed infrastructure has enabled the EEF to play a significant and evidence-led role in supporting schools in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapter concludes by suggesting a series of suggestions to improve use of research in England. These include alignment of policy with research evidence; support for school leaders; work to explicitly link research to the evidence forms; and supporting research brokerage.
This article considers the role of context in 'theory-based' evaluations, particularly those that use chain-type path or logic models. Reflecting on the use of causal models in the school professional development field, a set of underlying features of context is developed: the article proposes that context can be dynamic, agentic, relational, historically located, immanent and complex. The article applies these features to a consideration of a commonly observed contextual factor: senior leader support for an intervention. The article argues that actively considering these underlying features can allow for a more sophisticated approach to context, and concludes with a set of related interrogatory questions for evaluators, aiming to improve learning in future evaluation.
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