Evidence-based policy has come to the foreground of recent national and international educational discussions. It is often connected to a quantitative turn in educational research, including measuring of effects and benefits of (continuing) education and training by quantitative methodology (e.g. large-scale assessments like the PISA studies). The issue of effects and benefits is a relevant factor in public financing and co-financing of training (European Learning Account Partners Network 2004), as well as in enterprise-provided training (Kirkpatrick/Kirkpatrick 2006). The paper will discuss the terminology and the theoretical foundations of this approach by an extensive literature analysis and a heuristic morphological model (Zwicky 1989).The paper will deliver an overview of central terms within evidence-based policy, such as effects, benefits, sustainability or evidence. We will discuss the differences as well as the analogies, also with reference to different academic fields (e.g. educational studies, economics, psychology, sociology). On this basis, the paper reflects the potential to apply these terms to evidence-based educational policy considering the learning individual in a pedagogical perspective. Moreover, we will propose an elaborated draft version of a meta-model for the analysis of effects and benefits of continuing education. The scope of this holistic and multivalent model (Maslow 1954) extends so-far known narrow economical or functionalist approaches (Becker 1993, Messer/Wolter 2009) that rather assume linear causalities between intentions and results. Most of the functionalist approaches are generally sceptical regarding qualitative research methods: “In cases where ex post evaluations are available, these are generally based on qualitative surveys of participants and as such are of little use in evaluating impact.” (Messer/Wolter 2009, p. 19). Contrary to these discussions, we take into account unintended effects that are hard to measure and discuss ways of combined methods to identify such unintended effects – for example the increase of individual creativity and self-confidence (i.e. Meier et. al 1998; Beicht/Walden 2005; Bimrose/Barnes 2008). The heuristic model could be used to either plan evaluation designs or monitor evaluation studies with reference to their heuristic values as well as to their blind spots in researching effects and benefits of continuing education.

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