Co-Principal Investigators: Madhavi Jayanthi, Rebecca Newman-Gonchar

Purpose: The purpose of this efficacy study is to examine the impact of the Teacher Study Group (TSG) professional development program in vocabulary on teacher knowledge, observed teaching practice, and student vocabulary achievement, when implemented with first-grade teachers in Title 1 schools. Most professional development programs only involve one- or two-day trainings, but teachers value continuous training over the course of the school year and appreciate the opportunity to develop collegial relationships with other teachers. In turn, professional development that features ongoing training and collaborative work between teachers may help teachers to improve their knowledge about a specific topic, such as vocabulary, and their use of research-based practices in their teacher, and in turn, students' vocabulary outcomes.

Project Activities: The research team will address three outcomes: teacher knowledge; teaching practice; and student vocabulary. In this multi-site cluster randomized trial, schools will be randomly assigned to treatment or control within each district. Teacher participants will work through 10 interactive TSG sessions with other teachers over the course of the school year using the TSG. Researchers will examine the impact of the TSG using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM).

Products: Products include evidence of the impact of the TSG with first grade teachers in Title 1 schools as well as presentations at conferences and peer-reviewed publications.

Project Website: http://www.inresg.org/research_projects.html

Structured Abstract

Setting: The study will take place in 61 schools from 16 districts in four states (California, Texas, Ohio, and Illinois).

Sample: The sample will include 182 first-grade teachers and 1680 of their students.

Intervention: This fully-developed TSG intervention is a concentrated professional development program designed to link to existing curricula, establish a collegial network for teachers, and incorporate ongoing professional development activities. TSG is aimed at building teachers' "working knowledge" of research-based vocabulary instruction, improving their teaching practice, and increasing their students' achievement in oral and reading vocabulary. TSG is comprised of 10 interactive sessions; these sessions will take place twice each month from October to March. Each session will last 75 minutes and will be held after school hours or at a convenient time for participants. During each TSG session, a five-phase recursive process for learning the vocabulary concepts and skills is instituted. The five-phase process entails: (1) Debrief, which is when participants reviewing the lessons they planned in the last meeting; (2) Discuss the Focus Research Concept, during which a new research concept is presented; (3) Compare the Focus Research Concept with Practice, which asks participants to compare how the research aligns with the instructional design of their core reading program; (4) Plan Collaboratively, during which teachers incorporate the research concept into a lesson; and (5) Assignment, in which participants are asked to implement the collaboratively planned lesson before the next TSG session.

Research Design and Methods: The research design is a multi-site cluster randomized trial, where schools are randomly assigned within sites. The comparison condition (business-as-usual) constitutes district or state instituted professional development without the TSG component. Teachers in the comparison condition will not be engaged in the TSG or have access to the materials made available to teachers in the TSG condition during the course of the study. The number of professional development hours across the two conditions will be held equal.

Control Condition: The control condition constitutes business as usual professional development offered to teachers by their schools/school districts.

Key Measures: Researchers will measure the two key proximal teacher outcomes, teacher knowledge, as measured by the Content Knowledge for Teaching Reading assessment, and observed teaching practice, as measured by the Observation Measure for Vocabulary Instruction scales—Teacher-Directed Vocabulary Instruction and Interactive Vocabulary Instruction. Researchers will measure student outcomes in vocabulary with the following measures—the Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery and Oral Vocabulary subtests and the Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation Vocabulary.

Data Analytic Strategy: Researchers will address the three outcomes—teacher knowledge, teaching practice and student vocabulary using confirmatory analyses The research team will use HLM to perform the main impact analyses as the data is of a nested nature (i.e., students and teachers nested within schools). For both confirmatory and exploratory analyses of the TSG's impact on teacher outcomes, researchers will use a two-level HLM model with teachers at level 1 and schools at level 2. Researchers will also examine relevant mediating and moderating factors.

Related IES Projects: Teacher Quality Study: An Investigation of the Impact of Teacher Study Groups as a Means to Enhance The Quality of Reading Instruction for First Graders in High Poverty Schools in Two States (R305M030052)

Products and Publications

Journal article, monograph, or newsletter

Jayanthi, M., Dimino, J., Gersten, R., Taylor, M.J., Haymond, K., Smolkowski, K., and Newman–Gonchar, R. (2018). The Impact of Teacher Study Groups in Vocabulary on Teaching Practice, Teacher Knowledge, and Student Vocabulary Knowledge: A Large–Scale Replication Study. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 11(1), 83–108.

** This project was submitted to and funded under Teacher Quality: Reading and Writing in FY 2005.