WWC Quick Review of the Report "Impacts of Comprehensive Teacher Induction:
Results from the First Year of a Randomized Controlled Study"1,2
Features of Comprehensive Teacher Induction
Year-long intensive and structured support for beginning teachers
Weekly meetings for new teachers with trained mentors
Ongoing classroom observations and constructive feedback
Monthly professional development sessions
What is this study about? The study examined the effects of comprehensive teacher induction (CTI) programs on teacher outcomes and student achievement.
Within participating school districts, schools were randomly assigned to offer their beginning teachers either a CTI program or the district’s standard induction program.
The study examined CTI’s effects on teacher practice and teacher retention. This review examines the study’s teacher retention analysis.
The analysis of teacher retention focused on about 1,000 teachers in 418 eligible elementary schools in the 2005-06 school year. These schools were in 17 school districts that served primarily low-income students.
Teachers were surveyed at baseline and again after one year to determine the percentage of teachers in each research group that had returned to teach for another year.
The analysis of student outcomes was limited to students of CTI-eligible teachers who taught tested subjects in a tested grade. This sample included nearly 5,000 students in nearly 200 elementary schools.
The standardized language arts and mathematics test scores of students of CTI teachers were compared to those of students of CTI-eligible teachers in control schools.
WWC Rating for Analysis of Teacher Outcomes
The analysis of teacher
outcomes described in this
report is consistent with WWC
evidence standards
Strengths: The study is a well-implemented randomized controlled trial.
What did the study authors report about teacher outcomes?
The study found no statistically significant effects of the CTI program on teacher retention rates after one year. On average, 75 percent of the beginning teachers in both research groups returned to their school to teach for a second year. The study also found no effect on the proportion who remained in the teaching profession a year later (about 95 percent for both research groups).
WWC Rating
The analysis of student
outcomes described in this
report is consistent with
WWC evidence standards
with reservations
Strengths: The study used a randomized controlled trial research design.
Cautions: The student analysis was based on data on the subset of schools with CTI-eligible teachers that taught mathematics or language arts in a grade that was subject to standardized testing (representing fewer than one-half of the randomized schools and just over one-fourth of randomized teachers). In addition, just over 20 percent of teachers who were eligible for the student analysis were dropped, primarily because they could not be linked to their students in district data. Consequently, the CTI teachers used in the analysis may have differed from control-group teachers in ways that were related to the test scores of their students. The study authors adjust for teacher and student characteristics when estimating the program’s effects on student achievement. However, the selection of the subset of teachers eligible for the student analysis, as well as attrition from this eligible sample of teachers, may have introduced differences between the treatment and control groups that were not accounted for in the analysis.
What did the study authors report about student outcomes?
The study found no effects of the CTI program on student reading or math achievement.
The WWC has reservations about these results because CTI students may have been different from control students in ways not controlled for in the analysis.
1Glazerman, S., Dolfin, S., Bleeker, M., Johnson, A., Isenberg, E., Lugo-Gil, J., Grider, M., & Britton, E. (2008).
Impacts of comprehensive teacher induction: Results from the first year of a randomized controlled study (NCEE 2009-4034). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
2Absence of conflict of interest: This study was prepared by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR). Because the WWC project director is an MPR staff member, the study was reviewed by staff from Chesapeake Research Associates.
WWC quick reviews are based on the evidence published in the report cited and rely on effect sizes and significance levels as reported by study authors. WWC does not confirm study authors’ findings or contact authors for additional information about the study. The WWC rating refers only to the results summarized above and not necessarily to all results presented in the study.
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