How Can Universities Measure the Impact of Professional Development on Teaching Quality?

Universities often know how many colleagues attended a development programme and whether they enjoyed it. They are less certain about what changed afterwards. Measuring professional development impact on teaching requires a different question: did the learning help educators address an identified teaching problem, and what evidence supports that conclusion?

A credible evaluation does not need an elaborate institutional score. It needs a clear improvement objective, a baseline, appropriate evidence and enough time for participants to apply their learning. The strongest approach also acknowledges other influences on teaching and student outcomes.

Start with the teaching problem, not the workshop

Before commissioning development, define the difficulty in observable terms. “Improve teaching excellence” is too broad. “Help students understand and use assessment criteria before submission” gives the programme a specific purpose and provides a basis for evaluation.

The OECD guide Fostering Quality Teaching in Higher Education recommends explicit objectives for professional development and monitoring its effect on teaching quality. Universities can apply that principle by writing a short evaluation plan before recruitment begins.

• Identify the learner need and the courses affected.
• Describe the teaching practice participants will develop.
• Record what successful application would look like.
• Choose evidence sources and collection dates.
• Assign responsibility for reviewing results and deciding next steps.

Keep the scope manageable. One well-evaluated change in assessment practice is more informative than a dashboard covering every possible educational outcome without a clear link to the intervention.

Build a four-stage evidence chain

Stage 1: Participation and access

Record who participates, who completes and who cannot access the opportunity. Where lawful and appropriate, examine coverage by department, role and contract type. Attendance confirms exposure, not learning. Nevertheless, exclusion of sessional teachers or heavy workloads may explain why an otherwise promising programme fails to reach relevant courses.

Stage 2: Demonstrated learning

Ask participants to produce something that shows the intended capability: a revised assessment brief, an accessible teaching resource or a justified lesson plan. Use a simple rubric with criteria agreed in advance. Confidence surveys can supplement this evidence, but increased confidence is not proof of competence.

Stage 3: Application in teaching

Review whether the new practice appears in actual delivery. Evidence might include peer observation, course materials, assessment moderation notes and reflective accounts supported by examples. Allow time for implementation; a participant who completes training after a module ends may not have a suitable opportunity until the next teaching cycle.

Stage 4: Consequences for learners

Examine outcomes matched to the original problem. These might include students’ understanding of assessment expectations, the quality of revisions after feedback or accessibility barriers reported during a course. Student marks can contribute, but changes in difficulty, marking practice and cohort composition complicate interpretation.

Use several sources rather than one teaching score

The European Standards and Guidelines connect staff development with institutional quality assurance and require institutions to collect, analyse and use relevant information. For evaluation, this supports bringing evidence together rather than treating a single survey result as the whole story.

Student feedback describes an important perspective on the learning experience. Peer review can examine disciplinary appropriateness and teaching design. Student work can show the application of knowledge or skills. Instructor reflection can explain implementation choices and unexpected barriers. Agreement across these sources strengthens an interpretation; disagreement identifies questions worth investigating.

For example, students may appreciate faster feedback while their work shows continuing difficulty applying it. The appropriate response is not to dismiss the positive survey or declare the programme successful. It is to investigate whether feedback needs clearer action points or opportunities for practice.

Establish a baseline and interpret change carefully

Gather comparable evidence before implementation wherever possible. Use the same rubric for reviewing assessment briefs before and after development. Preserve representative examples of student work through appropriate consent, anonymisation and retention arrangements. Document changes in course content, staffing and assessment conditions.

An illustrative evaluation might involve lecturers redesigning project rubrics after a development series. Before training, reviewers examine rubric clarity and collect student explanations of the criteria. After implementation, they repeat those tasks and review how students use feedback. This design tests the intended mechanism without inventing a universal improvement target.

A comparison with similar courses can help, especially when implementation is phased. However, participants may be more motivated than non-participants, and courses may differ substantially. Report these limitations. Unless the design supports causal inference, describe evidence as consistent with a contribution from development rather than proof that training caused every observed improvement.

Make evaluation safe, proportionate and useful

Staff need to understand whether evidence supports programme improvement, formal appraisal or research. Do not quietly reuse developmental peer observations for personnel decisions. Explain access permissions, retention periods and reporting arrangements before collecting identifiable information.

Use aggregated findings for institutional reporting where possible. Small groups may remain identifiable even after names are removed, so suppress or combine sensitive breakdowns. Seek the relevant ethical approval when evaluation becomes research involving participants, according to institutional requirements.

A short programme may need a focused task review and follow-up conversation. A substantial institutional investment may justify repeated observations and a fuller outcomes study. Evaluation effort should match the decision at stake, not consume resources needed for implementation.

Frequently asked questions

How soon can universities measure impact?

Learning can be assessed during the programme. Application requires a genuine teaching opportunity, while student outcomes may require a full module or programme cycle. Set dates accordingly.

Can these findings establish ranking improvement?

No. Internal teaching evidence is not automatically an indicator in a named ranking methodology. Accreditation is also distinct from ranking. EUCPD membership affects neither ranking eligibility nor scores.

Turn findings into the next decision

Conclude each evaluation with a documented decision: continue, adapt, expand or stop. Explain which evidence informed it and what remains uncertain. This closes the improvement cycle and makes professional development accountable for educational change rather than the production of attendance certificates.