EPPI-Centre systematic reviews of continuing professional development

CUREE is the registered coordinating centre managing an EPPI-sponsored Review Group looking at the impact of CPD. The Group's aim is to use systematic reviews of literature to identify the characteristics of effective CPD. Our approach to the EPPI process is to involve practitioners in the reviewing process and we are supported in this by a group of retired and serving classroom teachers with an interest in CPD and research.

The first EPPI registered review of the impact of collaborative CPD on teaching and on learning was published in July 2003. It was widely welcomed by practitioners and policy makers because, for the first time, the review provides evidence of links between specific CPD processes and improvements in teaching and learning processes and outcomes. The second review builds upon and updates the first review and looks at collaborative and individually oriented CPD. The third in the series examines studies of sustained, collaborative CPD in studies which focus on teacher only impact data.

The current, fourth review, has set out to establish the nature of specialist inputs in effective CPD.

The reviews have helped to inform the DfES National CPD Strategy and the Primary National Strategy, as well as the NCSL to inform professional development processes. The NUT, the main sponsor of the first review and another sponsor, the GTC, have also made extensive use of the first review in supporting their CPD strategies and programmes.

According to the EPPI Centre, finding out what is already known is a science as well as an art. Most reviews of research evidence take the form of traditional literature reviews, which usually examine the results of only a small part of the research evidence, and take the claims of report authors at face value. By contrast, systematic reviews aim to find as much as possible of the research relevant to particular research questions, and use explicit methods to identify what can reliably be said on the basis of these studies.

Such reviews then go on to synthesise research findings in a form which is easily accessible to those who have to make policy or practice decisions. In this way, systematic reviews reduce the bias which is potentially an element in other approaches to reviewing research evidence.

The first four reviews are available here:

How do collaborative and sustained CPD and sustained but not collaborative CPD affect teaching and learning?

How does collaborative CPD for teachers of the 5-16 age range affect teaching and learning?

What do specialists do in CPD programmes for which there is evidence of positive outcomes for pupils and teachers?

What do teacher impact data tell us about collaborative CPD?

Summaries of the EPPI reviews on CPD research can be found on the TDA website.

For more information, contact the project coordinator, Colin Isham.