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Discusses a method for the evaluation of school management training programmes, and explores the usefulness of this evaluation approach within the context of two school management training programmes. Investigates whether the impact of these training programmes on principals and teachers can be demonstrated by changes in their self‐efficacy. Training effects are determined by means of repeated measures. Finds significant principal effects and no teacher effects. Discusses theoretical and practical implications within the context of self‐efficacy theory and a model for staff development.

The purpose of this paper is to explore in detail how teachers' perceptions of workplace conditions for learning are related to their informal workplace learning activities and learning outcomes.

From a sample of 32 teachers, a purposeful sampling technique of maximal variation was used to select two cases described in this paper. In a mixed methods design quantitative data are used to position the two teachers in relation to their peers. Qualitative data are used to describe the two cases in depth.

The findings show how the diverging ways in which the two teachers perceive and actively shape their workplace conditions help to explain differences in the teachers' learning activities and learning outcomes.

Scholars have argued that informal workplace learning is embedded in interdependent practices that arise from the interaction between social practices and individual agency. The case studies provide insight into how workplace conditions for learning are shaped in this interaction and how perceptions of these conditions enable or constrain teachers' informal workplace learning.

The complexity of the work of school leaders has intensified in recent years. The basic assumption underlying this article is that school leaders should develop a coherent vision of the school to effectively cope with the increased complexity of their work. In order to develop such a coherent vision, integration at a cognitive level is needed. In order to gain insight into both the complexity and integrity of the visions of school leaders, their tacit knowledge is studied using cause maps. More specifically, a method to elicit and interpret cause maps is explored and the analysis of the tacit knowledge, as expressed in the structure and content of their cause maps, indeed shows them to differ with regard to the level of cognitive integrity and balance within their cognitive repertoires.