Education Endowment Foundation:Invitation to tender: Professional Development in post-16 settings practice review

Invitation to tender: Professional Development in post-16 settings practice review

Apply for funding for research focused on professional development in post-16 settings in England

Starting in 2024, EEF has an extended remit to expand on and broaden existing work in the post-16 space with an additional £40 million of funding. As part of this extended post-16 remit, the EEF will be creating resources for the sector, including the translation’ of existing guidance reports with robust underlying systematic reviews.

One report being considered for this process is Effective Professional Development. A previous evidence and practice review, commissioned by the EEF on GCSE English and maths resits in post-16 settings, found that multiple interviewees described issues that they faced when trying to organise PD to promote improved teaching practice.

The EEF are therefore commissioning a practice review’ with a focus on continuing PD for teaching and learning to inform our understanding of what PD looks like in post-16 settings from a practitioner perspective, and when compared to the mechanisms of effective PD, as identified in EEF’s Effective Professional Development guidance report. We are suggesting two outputs for the work, based on the research questions as outlined above

  • A practice review of the day-to-day practicalities of PD in post-16 settings;
  • An analysis of existing PD programmes against the 14 mechanisms of effective PD.

We are open to proposals that answer the primary and secondary research questions using a variety of methods, and are open to suggestions of innovative approaches. It may be appropriate to adopt a mixed-methods approach, triangulating data from several sources, which may include survey(s), interviews, focus groups, and/​or analysis of policy documents.

How to apply

The full invitation to tender for this commissioning opportunity can be found below.

Proposals should be sent to kathryn.​davies@​eefoundation.​org.​uk by 5pm on 25th September 2024.

Further details can be found in the invitation to tender below.