The Reference Desk, using available evidence and research, provides quick-turnaround responses to questions submitted by education stakeholders around the Northeast and Islands Region. Every Friday, REL-NEI highlights one or two questions submitted to its Reference Desk.
Does Professional Development Improve Student Achievement?
The Reference Desk received a variety of questions about professional development over the summer. This question—a common one—gets to the core of professional development: How effective is it at improving student achievement? In coming weeks, the Reference Desk will look at additional questions about professional development, but this week focuses on recent reports from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
Question
What are some studies that measure the impact of professional development on student learning?
Research Synopsis
Reference Desk researchers found that “teachers who receive substantial professional development—an average of 49 hours in the nine studies (reviewed in this study)—can boost their students’ achievement by about 21 percentile points” (NCES, 2007) and that the measurement tools used in the studies were mostly standardized tests. A 2008 NCES report on two professional development programs for second-grade teachers, however, found that, despite “positive impacts on teachers’ knowledge… neither intervention resulted in significantly higher student test scores” (NCES 2008).
Publicly Available Resources
- Reviewing the Evidence on How Teacher Professional Development Affects Student Achievement. Yoon, K. S., Duncan, T., Lee, S. W.-Y., Scarloss, B., & Shapley, K.; U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, Issues & Answers Report, REL 2007–No. 033; October 2007; 55 pages.
This report identifies nine studies that address the effect of teacher professional development on student achievement and meet What Works Clearinghouse evidence standards. Findings show that “teachers who receive substantial professional development—an average of 49 hours in the nine studies—can boost their students’ achievement by about 21 percentile points.” The measurement tools used in the nine studies were listed in the column of “Student outcomes examined;” see the full report for more.
- The Impact of Two Professional Development Interventions on Early Reading Instruction and Achievement. Garet, M. S., Cronen, S., Eaton, M., Kurki, A., Ludwig, M., Jones, W., Uekawa, K., Falk, A., Bloom, H., Doolittle, F., Zhu, P., and Sztejnberg, L;
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, NCEE 2008-4030; September 2008; 236 pages.
“This report describes the effectiveness of two specific professional development strategies in improving the knowledge and practice of second-grade teachers in high-poverty schools and the reading achievement of their students. Both the 8-day content-focused institutes series (treatment A) and the institute series plus in-school coaching (treatment B) produced positive impacts on teachers’ knowledge of scientifically based reading instruction and on one of the three instructional practices promoted by the professional development. However, neither intervention resulted in significantly higher student test scores at the end of the one-year implementation period. The institute series plus in-school coaching did not produce a significantly greater impact on teacher practice than the institute series alone.”
- Teaching Teachers: Professional Development To Improve Student Achievement. Research Points: Essential Information for Education Policy; American Educational Research Association; 2005; 4 pages.
“Research on professional development is scattered throughout subject areas, with its focus ranging from classroom processes and structures to teachers’ personal traits. This report has limited this review to learning opportunities for teachers that are explicitly aimed at increasing student achievement. Studies suggest that the more time teachers spend on professional development, the more significantly they change their practices and that participating in professional learning communities optimizes the time spent on professional development. Changing goals for learning, coupled with shifts in curriculum emphasis and a deeper understanding of teacher learning and student thinking, have led to new findings about the impact of teacher professional development and how best to sharpen teachers’ skills and knowledge.”
Reference Desk Researchers also recommend the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, which is a national resource working to strengthen the quality of teaching—especially in high-poverty, low-performing, and hard-to-staff schools.
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