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The Rules of Evidence

Focus on Key Points to Develop The Best Strategy to Evaluate Professional Learning

By Thomas R. Guskey
August 2012
Vol. 33 No. 4
A few years ago, I learned an important lesson about gathering evidence on the outcomes of professional learning endeavors. Several colleagues and I were asked to evaluate the effects of a new program that had been implemented in elementary schools throughout an entire state. The program involved extensive professional learning for the educators responsible for implementation and was quite costly. We collected information on student achievement, affect, and behavior from four years before implementing the program and three years following. We also gathered data on teachers’ recommendations of students for special services and student disciplinary actions during that time. Comparing year-to-year results based on hundreds of students, we found no significant improvement on any measure of student learning. Some measures actually showed declines. According to the

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Authors

Thomas R. Guskey

Thomas R. Guskey (guskey@uky.edu) is professor of educational psychology in the College of Education, University of Kentucky.

References

Ainsworth, L. & Viegut, D. (2006). Common formative assessments: How to connect standards-based instruction and assessment. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

 

Covey, S.R. (2004). The 7 habits of highly effective people. New York, NY: Free Press.

 

DuFour, R. (2004, May). What is a “professional learning community”? Educational Leadership, 61(8), 6-11.

 

Epstein, J.L. & Associates. (2009). School, family, and community partnerships: Your handbook for action (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

 

Guskey, T.R. (2002). How’s my kid doing? A parent’s guide to grades, marks, and report cards. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

 

Guskey, T.R. (2005, Winter). Taking a second look at accountability. JSD, 26(1), 10-18.

 

Guskey, T.R. (2007a). Leadership in the age of accountability. Educational Horizons, 86(1), 29-34.

 

Guskey, T.R. (2007b). Multiple sources of evidence: An analysis of stakeholders’ perceptions of various indicators of student learning. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 26(1), 19-27.

 

Guskey, T.R. & Yoon, K.S. (2009, March). What works in professional development? Phi Delta Kappan, 90(7), 495-500.

Learning Forward. (2011). Standards for Professional Learning. Oxford, OH: Author.

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University of Kentucky | + posts

Thomas Guskey is a professor emeritus in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky, whose work is dedicated to helping teachers and school leaders use quality educational research to help all of their students learn. The author/ editor of 25 books and more than 250 articles and book chapters, he is an expert on educational measurement, evaluation, professional learning, assessment, and grading. His five-level framework of professional learning evaluation is a seminal resource in the field. His latest article for The Learning Professional, Learning Forward’s journal, is “Look beyond the satisfaction survey: A framework to evaluate results of professional learning.”

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