Understanding the Link: Teacher Professional Development and Student Achievement
2,500 students to participate in Experimental Study of PBS Teacherline’s Impact in Selected School Districts Nationwide“No Classroom Left Unstudied,” read the headline of a May 28, 2004 article appearing in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Fueled by NCLB requirements, schools are being pressed to base their improvement plans on research-based evidence of student learning. Such evidence, ideally, comes from studies of learning that take place in classrooms (as opposed to laboratory settings) and, as the Chronicle article points out, seeks to establish how the expenditure of “federal dollars impact on student scores. “
That is the thrust behind an experimental study underway in elementary schools in Miami-Dade County, Florida and Richland, South Carolina. Led by Hezel Associates and focusing on PBS TeacherLine’s professional development courses, the quantitative study seeks to answer the question, “To what degree does a teacher’s participation in online professional development impact a student’s ability to achieve? “ To examine this question, the study will involve more than 100 elementary school teachers and 2,500 students in three locations.
As a recipient of public funding through the U.S. Department of Education’s Ready To Teach program, PBS TeacherLine, which offers standards-based online courses to teachers nationwide, is required to present scientifically-based evidence of learning outcomes in support of the courses it has developed. Hezel Associates, TeacherLine’s external evaluator, initiated the experimental study in Miami-Dade in the spring of 2004, on the heels of a pilot study that took place there in 2003. Based on a request from the U.S. Department of Education that came during TeacherLine’s mid-point review, the company and its partners are expanding the study to other locations outside of Florida, to optimize the generalizability of the findings.
“The U.S. Department of Education was drawn to both our experimental design and to the substance of our research,” observed Paula Szulc Dominguez, Ed.D., director of research and evaluation at Hezel Associates. “The panelists who reviewed our research felt that it merited a larger stage” to document how teachers’ professional development experiences translate into student achievement. The research team has completed baseline observations and data collection in Miami and is preparing to conduct another round of information gathering in South Carolina.
The findings from the study (to be released Fall, 2005) relate directly to teacher quality issues highlighted in the No Child Left Behind act. School districts throughout the United States that are questioning whether online professional development represents a sound investment will be able to rely on the study’s outcomes for their decision making.