Every educational initiative is aimed at improving learning and outcomes for students; most seek to accomplish this by changing teacher practices to enhance students’ learning in the classroom. Similarly, most evaluations of educational initiatives measure impact in terms of student outcome data and implementation fidelity measures. Though analysis of these variables is vital to the evaluation process, research has shown that implementation does not occur without a foundation of quality professional development. Throughout our 15 years of experience and research in conducting utilization-focused evaluation of educational initiatives, my colleagues and I have developed, tested, and refined a mechanism for evaluating professional development. 

While the research literature has identified key elements of effective professional learning, few research-based instruments exist for evaluating the quality of professional development. In education, professional development is often only evaluated through participant satisfaction surveys – if at all. In this presentation, I will describe a standardized process for evaluating both online and face-to-face trainings and present a research-based instrument for evaluating the effectiveness of workshops. This tool evaluate trainings’ alignment to project learning objectives, trainers’ use of adult learning principles, participants’ opportunities for skill rehearsals and reflection, participants’ change in knowledge, and availability of follow-up implementation supports. This evaluation process has been used in several large-scale train-the-trainer models to ensure that training fidelity is maintained throughout the scale-up process. Data from this tools support trainers to become more effective and to identify and target areas for improvement to attain higher professional development and implementation fidelity. 

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