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Over the past few decades, we have seen an increasing concern for the quality of teaching and learning in post-secondary education (Biggs, 2003). In response to these concerns, postsecondary education institutes across the globe have set up dedicated centres tasked with organizing and supervising initiatives aimed at supporting faculty development. However, in spite of the increased investments in a wide variety of faculty development opportunities offered by these centres, little evidence is typically provided regarding the impact of these initiatives (Stes, Min-Leliveld, Gijbels, & Van Petegem, 2010). Yet, in order to advance the work of an emerging group of scholars in faculty development (Taylor & Rege Colet, 2010), insight is required into the factors that impact the extent to which faculty development initiatives improve the professional practice of its participants. These insights might aid staff in faculty development and faculty support centres, as well as those involved in making teaching policy, to effectively foster the professional learning of faculty and, consequently, improve the quality of teaching in post-secondary education.

This special issue aims to present a response to the lack of available insights into the impact of faculty development. The question guiding the contributions is: What do we learn from evaluation studies into the impact of faculty development initiatives? To facilitate cross-pollination of ideas within the community of scholars in faculty development worldwide, we aimed to bring together authors from a multitude of countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Australia, South Africa, the USA, and Canada, who study …