Project Activities
Research question
- What kind of impacts did these specific professional development strategies have on teacher knowledge and practice, and on student achievement in reading?
- Did more intensive methods produce stronger impacts?
Structured Abstract
Design
The two interventions evaluated were (1) an 8-day, content-focused institute series that began in the summer and went through the school year, based on the Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) curriculum (treatment A) and (2) the institute series plus coaching during the school year by an in-school reading specialist, with coaches trained by the Consortium for Reading Excellence (CORE) (treatment B).
Ninety schools in six districts were recruited to take part in the study, with a focus on second grade teachers (270) and their students (more than 5,000). In each district, schools were randomly assigned in equal numbers to receive the institute series only (treatment A), the institute series plus coaching (treatment B), or the professional development normally provided by the district (the control condition). Data were collected during the implementation year (2005–06) and one additional year (to determine if any impacts persisted) using measures of professional development implementation quality, teacher knowledge and practice, and student achievement obtained from administrative records.
Key findings
On the Reading PD Program:
- Although there were positive impacts on teacher's knowledge of scientifically based reading instruction and on one of the three instructional practices promoted by the study PD, neither PD intervention resulted in significantly higher student test scores at the end of the one-year treatment.
- The institute series plus in-school coaching did not produce a significantly greater impact on teacher knowledge or practice than the institute series alone.
- There were no statistically significant impacts on measured teacher or student outcomes in the year following the treatment.
On Three Content-Focused PD Programs Tested Across Three IES Evaluations:
- The PD improved teachers' knowledge and some aspects of their practice.
- Improving teachers' knowledge and practice did not lead to positive impacts on student achievement.
- Most of the measured aspects of teachers' knowledge and practice were not correlated with student achievement.
- The consistent pattern of findings suggests that future studies might seek to better understand on what aspects of teacher knowledge and practice PD should focus, and how PD can achieve a larger impact on knowledge and practice that also impacts student achievement.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
A report, titled Impact of Two Professional Development Interventions on Early Reading Instruction and Achievement, was released in September 2008.
Other publications from this study are listed below.
Briefs
- Does Content-Focused Teacher Professional Development Work? Findings from Three Institute of Education Sciences Studies A brief synthesizing findings from this study and two prior IES studies of teacher professional development in elementary school mathematics and middle school mathematics (November 2016)
Questions about this project?
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