Conference Program

The “impact” of teacher professional development is often considered a linear process linking professional learning to changes in teachers’ knowledge and practices, and to student outcomes. While policy and evaluation frameworks frequently rely on this conception of "impact", this approach can oversimplify professional learning as a stable input–output mechanism and underestimate the role of design, mediation, and context. This contribution critically revisits impact in professional development by focusing on a neglected but fundamental aspect: the pedagogical architecture of the learning environment in which teachers enact innovation.

We draw on a national eTwinning mixed-methods study carried out across 14 Italian secondary schools, where each implementation context included two matched classes taught by the same teacher in the same subject (eTwinning vs. control). In this context, we focus on the teacher and project layer to explore how “impact” may operate through a structured project scaffold. Using a dedicated project-analysis protocol applied to Quality Label-awarded eTwinning projects, we characterised pedagogical quality along multiple dimensions (such as authenticity of joint tasks, intensity of international collaboration, epistemic use of technology, student agency, and curricular integration). In our research, these qualitative descriptors were triangulated with implementation evidence from teachers’ monthly logbooks, cross-case patterns at school level, and quantitative evidences extracted from the analysis of pre-post students' self-evaluation questionnaires and pre-post teachers' evaluations.

A key pattern emerges: even within a sample of highly experienced teachers - eTwinning ambassadors with strong professional profiles - project quality varies substantially and aligns with systematic differences in implementation density, visibility of competence-related episodes, and the coherence of the learning workflow. The findings suggest that impact in teacher professional development cannot be exclusively reduced to teachers’ baseline expertise. Rather, the eTwinning ecosystem functions as a powerful accelerator and scaffold structure: it provides a pre-architected framework that supports teachers in designing collaborative routines, generating observable evidence of learning processes, and sustaining reflective cycles of planning, documentation, and iterative improvement. In this sense, “impact” appears as an emergent property of a learning ecosystem in which professional competence is surely relevant, but structured design and shared quality criteria strongly condition what can be enacted in practice, documented as evidence, and transferred across contexts.

The “impact” of Teacher Professional Development (TPD) has become a central policy imperative and a frequent object of evaluation, yet its meaning remains contested and often reduced to linear, measurable effects on teacher knowledge, classroom practices, or student outcomes. Recent developments in impact evaluation of TPD shift the focus from linear effects to contextualized and hierarchical models, linking professional learning to changes in teacher attitudes, practices, and student outcomes (Guskey, 2002; Bubb & Earley, 2010). This approach aligns with the European Commission frameworks, which emphasize broader contextual effects in teacher training, including institutional and community outreach. This contribution reports the design and early findings of an INDIRE–CRESPI collaborative scoping review aimed at mapping how “impact” is conceptualised and operationalised in recent review-level literature on in-service TPD, and at identifying methodological and political tensions embedded in prevailing evaluation models.

Methodologically, the study adopts a PRISMA-informed scoping approach, explicitly oriented to detect conceptual “grey areas”, competing definitions, and evaluation blind spots, rather than to estimate a single pooled effect. Following a multi-database search strategy and deduplication workflow, the corpus was progressively refined from a broad pool of records to a manageable subset for abstract screening, with a deliberate focus on review-based studies (systematic reviews, meta-analyses, scoping reviews) and on K–12 contexts.

The analytic framework is organised around six mapping questions: (1) definitions of impact (as change, transfer, transformation, sustainability); (2) units of analysis (teacher, school, system) and students as indirect beneficiaries, in K-12; (3) types of effects measured (e.g., impact on teachers’ attitudes, conceptions, knowledge, skills, practices; impact on students’ perceptions, attitudes, achievement); (4) temporal assumptions (short-term gains vs lasting effects/fade-out); (5) measurement logics (standardised indicators, self-report, observational/artefact-based evidence, multi-level models); (6) role of context and agency (how organisational conditions, professional cultures, and teacher decision-making mediate or re-define “what counts” as impact).

By making explicit how review studies frame attribution, causality, and “evidence”, the contribution speaks to the panel’s call to interrogate the epistemological and methodological implications of impact-driven evaluation, and to propose more contextualised and participatory perspectives. We conclude by outlining a preliminary conceptual map that distinguishes impact-as-accountability from impact-as-professional learning ecology, and by proposing implications for future research designs and policy uses of evaluation in large-scale TPD.

The growing emphasis on competence-based approaches has increased pressure on education systems to translate European key competences into curricula and everyday practices (Council of the European Union, 2018). This shift calls for effective forms of Teacher Professional Development (TPD) that can support teachers’ engagement with competence-based education.

TPD is widely recognised as a key lever for fostering innovation and improving teaching quality (Council of the European Union, 2014; OECD, 2019). However, the “impact” in TPD is frequently conceptualised as a linear and measurable effect on teachers’ knowledge or classroom behaviour, overlooking the situated, mediated, and context-dependent nature of professional learning (Opfer & Pedder, 2011).

Building on the assumption that teachers’ professional development is shaped by multiple professional and personal experiences, this contribution explores the potential impact of SCAFFOLD on teachers’ ability to design learning activities for competence-based education.

SCAFFOLD is a card-based tool developed by the European Training Foundation with the Joint Research Centre and grounded in research operationalising the European key competences for educational design (Bacigalupo, 2022). It is intended to support teachers in designing competence-oriented learning experiences characterised by learners’ active engagement with real-world problems (Bacigalupo et al., 2024).

This paper presents the research design and preliminary results of the ongoing Italian adaptation and experimentation, promoted by Fondazione per la Scuola, INDIRE, and the University of Bologna.

The study addresses three research questions: (1) whether the use of SCAFFOLD can foster teachers’ knowledge of transversal competences, their awareness of their relevance, and their design practices; (2) which factors facilitate or hinder the adoption of the cards; (3) whether design practices initially supported by SCAFFOLD can evolve into autonomous design competences over time.

The study adopts an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). An initial qualitative phase, based on semi-structured observations of a SCAFFOLD workshop involving 18 teachers, informed the formulation of the research questions and the subsequent quantitative, questionnaire-based experimentation. A further qualitative phase (interviews and focus groups) will deepen the quantitative findings and reconstruct differentiated teacher profiles and patterns of adoption.

The quantitative phase relies on pre- and post-questionnaires and adopts a hybrid design. For teachers who complete both questionnaires, it takes the form of a quasi-experimental non-equivalent groups design, comparing teachers who attended a dedicated webinar with teachers who completed the pre-test but did not attend it. For teachers entering only at the post-test stage, it takes the form of a post-test-only pre-experimental design (Cohen et al., 1980/2018). The questionnaires investigate teachers’ profiles, familiarity with competence frameworks, the importance they attribute to key competences, and self-perceived readiness for competence-based design and assessment; the post-test also explores modes of use, perceived usefulness, and facilitators and barriers to adoption. At the time of writing, the study is ongoing; however, the pre-test questionnaire has already collected approximately 800 responses.

In conclusion, the experimentation contributes to the debate on TPD by investigating impact not only in terms of observable effects, but also in relation to the conditions, practices, and trajectories through which professional learning takes shape.

The paper investigates how Italian teachers perceive and use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their professional practice. The research, part of the TEACH-AI project, uses the PAIR-S questionnaire (Adamoli et al., 2026) to analyse the responses of over 4500 teachers, focusing on three key theoretical concepts: Affordance-in-Practice (Costa, 2018), Professional Capability (Nussbaum, 2011) and Sentiment (Bing, 2012). The research also identified aspects in relation to the recent “Guidelines for the introduction of Artificial Intelligence in schools” issued by the Italian Ministry of Education and Merit for the introduction of Artificial Intelligence in schools (MIM, 2025). These were incorporated into the survey tool and subjected to detailed analysis in this study. Cluster analysis identified four distinct profiles (Receptives, Adaptives, Oppositionals and Indifferents) based on their technological preparedness and perception of AI, revealing a gap between current predominantly operational use and perceived potential for professional practices in the future (Adamoli & Emmanuel, 2025). The research aims to understand whether and to what extent AI is perceived not only as a technical tool, but as a professional “capability” capable of promoting integration that enhances professional autonomy and the relational dimension of teaching.

In recent decades, teacher professional development (TPD) has increasingly been framed in terms of measurable impact on teaching practices and student outcomes. While such approaches aim to strengthen accountability and evidence-based policy, they often rely on simplified causal models that overlook the complex and reflective nature of professional learning. Within this debate, formative assessment can be interpreted not only as a pedagogical strategy for supporting student learning, but also as a key dimension of teachers’ professional development.

This paper explores formative assessment as a potential lever for teacher professional learning through the analysis of a large-scale professional self-assessment device used in the Italian teacher induction programme. The study examines the Bilancio delle competenze, a national framework for teacher self-assessment developed by INDIRE and completed by more than 95,000 newly appointed teachers during their probationary year in 2024/25 and 2025/26. The instrument is structured around three professional domains (Teaching, Institution and Community, and Professional Development), eight standards and thirty-six competence indicators designed to support reflective practice and professional growth.

The analysis focuses in particular on the Teaching domain, investigating teachers’ self-perceived competence in relation to formative assessment practices. Results show that teachers report relatively strong confidence in communicating learning objectives and assessment criteria to students. However, significant challenges emerge in the operational use of formative assessment as a tool for monitoring learning processes and regulating teaching practices in progress. Approximately half of the respondents position themselves as still “in training” in the implementation of formative assessment strategies during instruction.

These findings reveal a persistent gap between instructional design and the use of assessment as an ongoing regulatory process within teaching. While teachers perceive themselves as competent in planning and supporting students’ learning processes, the integration of formative assessment into everyday instructional decision-making remains less consolidated.

The paper argues that professional competence frameworks and self-assessment tools such as the Bilancio delle competenze should not be interpreted merely as monitoring instruments, but as reflective devices capable of fostering teacher agency and supporting professional learning. From this perspective, the study contributes to ongoing discussions on how the impact of TPD should be conceptualised and evaluated, suggesting that greater attention should be paid to reflective processes and to the role of professional standards in shaping teachers’ understanding of assessment as part of their professional practice.