Following Guskey’s (2000) clear, and often overlooked, five ‘Levels’ of evaluating professional development (PD), I can see that genuine progress continues to be made in Level 2 (Participants’ Learning) and Level 4 (Participants’ Use of New Knowledge and Skills). These levels remain vital for planning and evaluating effective PD. We have become more confident in identifying the knowledge we want participants to acquire, and in designing deliberate practice and coaching approaches that help translate this into changes in classroom practice. There is still more to be done, of course, but the direction of travel feels positive: greater clarity about what knowledge matters, and how it can be embedded. 

Level	Brief Description
Level 1: Participants’ Reactions	Evaluates how participants feel about the professional development — their satisfaction, engagement, and perceived relevance.
Level 2: Participants’ Learning	Assesses the knowledge or skills participants gained during the PD activity.
Level 3: Organisational Support & Change	Examines the organisation’s support, structures, policies, leadership, and culture that influence the implementation of learning.
Level 4: Participants’ Use of New Knowledge & Skills	Looks at how effectively participants apply what they learned in their practice.
Level 5: Student Learning Outcomes	Measures the impact of the PD on pupil achievement, attitudes, or behaviours.

What I want to turn to, though, is the level we rarely discuss: Level 3 – Organisational Support and Change. 

Guskey (2000) highlights that Level 3 sits at the heart of whether sustained change can occur. This aligns closely with what we know from wider change literature, including the foundational work of Lewin (1947; 1951) and Kotter (1996), as well as education‑specific contributions such as Fullan (2020), where many of these ideas converge. Change projects are notoriously difficult to implement successfully. Kotter (1996) reminds us starkly that “a majority of transformation efforts fail” and school improvement initiatives, with PD at their core, are no exception.  

Using a simplified change model through a PD lens, you can imagine a teacher (or group of teachers) whose existing practice we aim to ‘unfreeze’, develop and refine through new knowledge, and then ‘refreeze’ into embedded, habitual practice through ongoing support such as coaching Lewin (1947; 1951). 

Stage	Brief Description
Unfreeze	Preparing individuals or organisations for change by disrupting the existing equilibrium, creating awareness of the need for change, and building motivation to move away from the current state.
Change (or Transition)	Moving from old behaviours or processes to new ones. This stage involves implementing new practices, experimenting with new ways of working, and supporting people through the uncertainty and adjustment period.
Refreeze	Embedding the new behaviours or processes so they become the norm. This involves stabilising the organisation at a new equilibrium, ensuring changes are consolidated and sustained.

When all of this takes place within a single department or school, the process is easier to see and more coherent to manage. But once external partners enter the picture (local authorities, MATs, regional bodies, national organisations) the process often becomes fragmented. In my experience, external input tends to focus heavily on knowledge acquisition, while the responsibility for turning that knowledge into practice is left to individual teachers or schools. I am not always convinced that school leaders feel well-equipped to support the parts of the process they suddenly become responsible for. Equally, I am unsure how well external organisations understand what is needed to help schools move from knowing to doing. The scale and complexity of this work may be the biggest inhibitor, but it also feels like the crux of the issue. 

This is why I often describe PD leaders as the ‘joiners of dots’. They are the individuals who can see the full PD journey unfolding and understand how the different pieces fit together. They play a pivotal role in Guskey’s Level 3. These leaders curate high-quality opportunities for acquiring new knowledge, understand the participants they are supporting, and create the right conditions for positive engagement. Crucially, once new knowledge has been gained, they are the ones who design the structures, systems and rhythms that help turn that knowledge into sustained changes in practice, narrowing the all too familiar ‘knowing–doing gap’. 

At this point, it is worth acknowledging that PD leadership in schools is rarely the responsibility of a single individual. Leaders of PD often wear several different leadership hats, or the work is carried out collaboratively across a team. This makes it even less clear where responsibility for evaluating Guskey’s Level 3 truly sits. Is it the role of the school, the external provider, or a shared endeavour? Guskey (2020) suggests that evaluation at this level should focus on the organisation’s advocacy, support, accommodation, facilitation, and recognition of those involved in the process. He summarises this as an assessment of organisational capacity: the ability of an education system to support its educators to do whatever is necessary to ensure all students learn at high levels. This is, ultimately, our ongoing mission and challenge as a sector—how do we create the conditions that enable our teachers to keep getting better? 

As schools and organisations, we need to consider more carefully how we evaluate Level 3 (Organisational Support and Change) if we are to truly ‘join the dots’ in the PD process. Guskey (2020) poses a powerful reflection: Can you identify specific aspects of organisational support and change that contributed significantly to the success of a professional development programme or activity? I wonder how often we ask ourselves this question in our PD planning and evaluation. Perhaps it is here, in Level 3, that the real work, and the real opportunity, lies. 

 

References  

Guskey, T.R. (2000) Evaluating Professional Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. 

Kotter, J.P., 1996. Leading Change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press 

Lewin, K (1947a) Frontiers in group dynamics: concept, method and reality in social science; equilibrium and social change. Human Relations 1(1): 5–41. 

Lewin, K. (1951) Field theory in social science: selected theoretical papers (ed. Cartwright, D ). New York: Harper & Row.