One Program Fits All? Patterns and Outcomes of Professional Development During a Large-Scale Reform in a High-Stakes Science Curriculum

Abstract

When translating large-scale policy changes into educational practice, classroom-level implementation is crucial and dependent on teachers’ capabilities. Most research underscores the importance of professional development (PD) as a proximal factor to achieve educational change. Connected to the recent Advanced Placement (AP) science examination reform, this large-scale quantitative study (NTeachers = 9,096; NStudents = 197,589) investigates teacher participation in different PD formats (i.e., face-to-face, online, materials) and their associations with teacher- and student-level outcomes. We found that teacher characteristics (e.g., gender and administrative support) were associated with the choice of the PD format. We also found AP subscore differences between students of teachers who participated in different PD formats. Furthermore, teachers who participated in formal PD activities tended to report higher challenges with the AP reform. Thus, this study encourages PD providers to implement changes alongside a variety of PD programs to account for the potential differential benefits for teachers.

Essential components of teacher professional development for financial literacy: A literature review

“…Research suggests that activities spread over time, such as semesterlong courses with 20 or more hours of contact time, are beneficial for teacher development [22], [24]. From this viewpoint, some professional development programs adhere more closely with the idea of lifelong learning compared to programs that only last a few days each school year [34].…”

Investigating the sources of teacher intercultural self-efficacy: A three-level study using TALIS 2018

“…Teachers who participate in intercultural professional development related to cultural diversity and who decide to work or study abroad may share certain characteristics, such as having higher intercultural self-efficacy from the start. Some studies found selection effects with regards to participation in professional development or study abroad programs (Hübner et al, 2021;Zimmermann et al, 2020), while others did not (Petersdotter et al, 2017). Similarly, higher teacher intercultural self-efficacy in schools with a higher proportion of first-and second-generation immigrant students may also indicate selfselection effects, i.e., teachers with higher intercultural self-efficacy choosing to work at more diverse schools.…”

How do Teachers Collaborate in Informal Professional Learning Activities? An Epistemic Network Analysis

“…This study is tied to a large-scale National Science Foundation-project that broadly examined teachers' PD participation patterns and their impact on classroom instruction and student performance, which distributed web-based surveys to all AP Biology teachers in the nation (e.g., Fischer et al, 2018;Fischer, Foster, et al, 2020;Hübner et al, 2021). Surprisingly at the time, we found that many AP Biology teachers reported their engagement in Twitter communities as an informal learning opportunity on an open-response question on their online activities in response to the AP reform.…”