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Impacts of Comprehensive Teacher Induction:

NCEE 2009-4072
August 2009

Summary of Findings After Two Years: Treatment-Control Differences in Two-Year Districts

Induction Services Received

During Year 1 and Year 2, both years in which comprehensive teacher induction services were offered to the treatment group in the two-year districts, treatment and control teachers' reports showed statistically significant differences favoring the treatment group on many measures of the amount, types, or content of supports. For consistency with the way in which results are reported for one-year districts, we report on findings for the fall of each year.9

Amount of Mentoring. We found statistically significant differences between the treatment and control teachers with regard to the likelihood of teachers reporting having a mentor assigned to them, having a full-time mentor, and having a mentor who was another teacher. Treatment teachers were more likely than control teachers to report having a mentor assigned to them (94 versus 79 percent in Year 1; 80 versus 34 percent in Year 2), and to report having a full-time mentor (72 versus 16 percent in Year 1; 64 versus 7 percent in Year 2). Treatment teachers were less likely than control teachers to report having a mentor who was another teacher (38 versus 62 percent in Year 1; 12 versus 27 percent in Year 2). We also found statistically significant differences in the amount of time teachers reported spending with their mentors. Treatment teachers reported spending more time working with their mentors than control teachers did during the most recent full week of teaching. Treatment teachers reported spending more time on average in mentor meetings (124 minutes per week versus 81 minutes in Year 1; 82 minutes versus 48 minutes in Year 2). In both years, the differences were attributable primarily to differences in the duration of scheduled meetings. Figure ES.2 shows treatment-control differences for having an assigned mentor and time in mentor meetings in Year 1 and Year 2.

Mentor Activities and Assistance. Treatment and control teachers' reports showed statistically significant differences in the amount of time in various mentor activities and in the kinds of assistance teachers reported receiving from their mentors. Treatment teachers reported spending more time being observed by mentors (38 versus 17 minutes in Year 1; 22 versus 7 minutes in Year 2), meeting one-on-one with mentors (43 versus 23 minutes in Year 1; 25 versus 12 minutes in Year 2), meeting together with mentors and other first-year teachers (38 versus 11 minutes in Year 1; 25 versus 6 minutes in Year 2), and having mentors model lessons (16 versus 10 minutes in Year 1; 12 versus 5 minutes in Year 2). During the most recent full week of teaching, treatment teachers were more likely than control teachers to report receiving mentors' assistance in each of the topic areas covered by the survey: effects ranged from 14 to 28 percentage points in Year 1 and 28 to 44 percent in Year 2.

Professional Development. We did not find statistically significant differences between treatment and control teachers' reported attendance in professional development, except that treatment teachers were more likely than control teachers to report having attended sessions focused on classroom management techniques (61 versus 48 percent) in fall 2005 (Year 1).

Student Achievement

We found no evidence of statistically significant impacts on student test scores in two-year districts. The benchmark impacts on math and reading scores in the second year of the study were not significantly different from zero (Table ES.5). The data confirm that the impacts on reading and math in the second year were not statistically significant when we re-estimated the impacts using different samples, different sets of covariates, or different estimation techniques.

Teacher Retention

We found that comprehensive teacher induction had no statistically significant impact on teacher retention after two years. Table ES.6 shows the result of the three hypothesis tests specifically focused on retention in the school, in the district, and in the profession as binary outcomes. For each of the outcomes, there was no statistically significant impact. The same result was obtained when we expanded the number of outcomes to differentiate between moving to a school in another public school district and moving to a private, parochial, or other school, and expanded the outcomes for leaving to include leaving to stay at home, leaving to attend school or take a new job, and other reasons for leaving.

We also examined the reasons that teachers who left their districts (movers) or left the teaching profession (leavers) gave for leaving and found no statistically significant impacts of treatment. When we asked leavers whether they expected to return and if so, when they would do so, we did not find evidence of a treatment-control difference. In addition, we found that treatment teachers did not report feeling more satisfied with or prepared for their jobs than control teachers.

Composition of the District Teaching Force

We found that the treatment had no statistically significant impacts on the student achievement outcomes or professional background characteristics of district stayers. Table ES.7 presents the impacts on student achievement outcomes for district stayers. Table ES.8 shows the background characteristics of teachers by mobility status.

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9 For two-year districts, findings from spring of Year 1 were consistent with the findings from fall of Year 1. Likewise, findings from spring of Year 2 were consistent with the findings from fall of Year 2.