Michael Coldwell

Level models of continuing professional development evaluation: a grounded review and critique

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 are 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 a number of ways and with differing emphases, and that choices made about their use will need to reflect both theoretical choices and practical considerations.

Coaching as an in‐school leadership development strategy: experiences from Leading from the Middle

There is a large literature on leadership mentoring and coaching. However, in education in England, mentoring is the term that has dominated policy and discussion until recently, with the application of this concept as a core element in teacher training and in the induction of new headteachers. Coaching has emerged more recently as a significant element of continuing professional development for teachers. The first national leadership development programme to embody an explicit and systematic approach to coaching was the National College for School Leadership’s programme for school middle leaders—Leading from the Middle (LftM). This paper explores the experience of school‐based coaching on LftM. It begins by considering key issues concerning the practice of leadership coaching before presenting data on the LftM coaching experience drawn from two evaluations of the programme. The findings suggest that the potential functions of coaches on programmes such as LftM are wider than those in more traditional coaching roles, and the demands arising from the programme and from the school may lead to some role ambiguity. Secondly, three important issues affect the coaching experience: coach skills and commitment, the time devoted to the process, and the place of coaching within broader school leadership development strategies.

Outcomes of In-school Leadership Development Work A Study of Three NCSL Programmes

This article presents the results of a study of the impact of three programmes of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), namely Leading from the Middle, the National Professional Qualification for Headship and the Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers. All three programmes embody a blended learning approach that includes an in-school component. This article focuses on factors within the programmes that influence learning from the in-school components. It focuses particularly on factors relating to individual participants and to the school contexts within which they work. The article relates the findings to previous literature on work-based learning and suggests a broader model of the factors that influence the outcomes of leadership development programmes.

Rethinking models of professional learning as tools: a conceptual analysis to inform research and practice

Abstract 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, by Desimone and by Clarke 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.

Career orientations and career cultures: individual and organisational approaches to beginning teachers’ careers

Abstract Despite the very large literature on teacher careers from an individual perspective, there is relatively little that links the perspectives of teachers themselves to how schools as organisations approach careers. The aim of this paper is, first, to outline how teachers’ orientations towards careers change across three dimensions, and, second, to examine how schools as organisations deal with career, developing a model of organisational responses, including developing a concept of ‘career culture’, derived from an analysis of interviews regarding the first three years of teaching conducted with senior leaders and second-year teachers themselves. By considering the fit between individuals’ career orientations and school career cultures, the paper surfaces both the fluid nature of these orientations and the subsequent potential instability of the fit.

Effective PSHE education: values, purposes and future directions

This article explores the perceived effectiveness of personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education in primary and secondary schools. It outlines the relationship between perceived effectiveness and a range of explanatory factors, linking these to the values and ethos of schools, differing views of the purposes of PSHE education, and long-standing policy agendas. We conclude by attempting to locate PSHE education in the new and rapidly evolving policy context and discuss some potential ways forward, as established means of support and challenge disappear. The data utilised in the paper come from a mapping and effectiveness study of PSHE education in both primary and secondary schools throughout England, which was conducted by Sheffield Hallam University on behalf of the Department for Education.

Professional learning and professional careers: theory, evaluation and practice

This thesis uses a set of theoretically informed approaches to understand aspects of the professional careers, development and practices of teachers, addressing three questions in particular. Firstly, how can models, and other theorisations, help illuminate the influence of professional development and practice on a range of outcomes? Secondly, how can focussing on the situated nature of professional practice and initiatives improve understanding of professional learning and practices? Thirdly what new empirical research evidence can the approaches described in the first two research questions produce in relation to professional learning and wider professional practice? It does so via a set of eight papers published over eleven years, drawing on seven mainly mixed methods studies conducted over a six year period. In relation to the first research question, the papers use realist understandings of the social world to build a set of path and level models of professional development alongside critiques of these and other models. Additionally, they provide theoretical constructs to support understanding of professional practice, in particular boundary theory and career constructs. In relation to the second, the papers develop a set of features of context which are missing from earlier accounts, indicating that the context for programmes and change processes can be: dynamic, rather than static; agentic, acting causally not just as a backdrop; relational, operating at different points and in concert with or against other contextual factors; historically located; complex and systemic. Finally, relating to the third question, the papers cover a wide range of studies; however, all focus on the relationship between outcomes and change processes in situ, and in particular the various relationships between the programme or change process; individual teachers or leaders; the organisations within which they work; and wider political and other contexts. The findings link to and illuminate aspects of these relationships.

Tests as boundary signifiers: level 6 tests and the primary secondary divide

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the question: How do teachers and school leaders respond to high stakes testing of pupils transitioning from primary to secondary school? It explores how a new test, the Level 6 test, operated with regard to primary/secondary school relationships in England. It draws on an analysis of qualitative interviews with teachers and school leaders in 20 primary schools that took part in the test, 40 school leaders that chose not to and 20 secondary-school leaders. Theoretical work on social boundaries is utilised to develop an argument that this test and its results acted as a boundary signifier, crystallising many of the tensions between primary and secondary schools. These tensions included the role of accountability regimes in requiring schools to demonstrate progress; narrowing of the curriculum and teaching to the test; and the extent to which test results can provide a true representation of pupil attainment. We conclude by suggesting the potential of the boundary signifier concept in relation to other tests at the primary/secondary boundary and other key transition points in education, and consider whether such tests can act as an ideal boundary object, serving to help overcome, rather than cement, barriers between schools.