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Designing Effective Development: Lessons from the Eisenhower Program - December 1999
Chapter 3
In the previous sections of the chapter, we have described the quality of Eisenhower-assisted activities-as defined by their structural and core features-and teacher outcomes for Eisenhower-assisted activities, as reported by teachers in our national sample. Now, we draw on these data to examine the relationships among these characteristics of professional development activities, in an effort to identify the characteristics of professional development activities that are related to teacher outcomes.
Throughout the chapter, we have characterized professional development activities in terms of structural and core features. We view the three structural features-activity type (reform versus traditional), duration, and collective participation-as elements that set the parameters or context in which a professional development activity takes place. And we view the three core features-content focus, active learning, and coherence-as characteristics of the professional development processes and experiences that take place during an activity. Given this framework, we expect the structural features of professional development to play an important role in determining the substance or core of the professional development experienced by teachers; and we expect the core features of the professional development experienced to contribute to teacher outcomes, including enhanced knowledge and skills and improvements in teaching practice.
To test this view of professional development, we estimated a formal causal model, using data from our national sample of teachers. The model serves two related purposes: it enables us to determine whether the relationships we have hypothesized are supported by the data we have collected, and it also permits us to develop estimates of the strength of these relationships. The model incorporates the following measures of the structural features of professional development: activity type (coded reform=1, traditional=0); two aspects of duration--time span (coded 1=less than one day, 6=more than one month) and number of contact hours; and collective participation (coded 0=not collective, 1=somewhat, 2=collective).31
The model also incorporates the following measures of the core features of the professional development experiences: content focus (coded 0=not at all, 1=minor emphasis, 2=major emphasis); active learning (coded as the number of types of opportunities for active learning, from 0 to 20); and coherence (coded as the number of elements of coherence, from 0 to 9).
Finally, the model includes the following outcome measures: enhanced knowledge and skills (coded from 1=not at all to 5=great extent); and change in teaching practice (coded from 0=no change to 3=significant change).
Since it is possible that teachers in different types of schools or teachers with different characteristics may experience different types of professional development, we have included school and teacher characteristics as control variables in our model. The model includes the characteristics of the schools in which the participating teachers teach: the percent of students eligible for free lunch and the percent of minority enrollment. The model also includes five characteristics of the participating teachers: gender, subject of the teacher?s professional development experience (mathematics or science); grade level (elementary, middle, or high school); whether the teacher is certified in the teacher?s main teaching field; and the teacher?s teaching experience, in years.32 (See Appendix E for more information on our measures of these school and teacher characteristics.)
In addition, since we are interested in understanding the differences between activities supported through the district and SAHE component of the program, we have also included the sponsorship of the activity as a variable in the model (coded 1=SAHE grantee, 0=district).
The results are shown in Exhibit 3.21. (A more detailed presentation of the results appears in Appendix E.) The results shown are expressed as standardized path coefficients, which represent the relative influence of one variable on another. Path coefficients generally have values between -1 and +1, and coefficients with larger absolute values indicate stronger relationships. All paths shown are statistically significant.
To interpret the results, we begin by discussing the variables at the left-hand side (sponsorship and structural features) and proceed to discuss the core features and teacher outcomes. First, the analysis indicates that sponsorship has a substantial effect on both the time span and contact hours spent in professional development: on average, SAHE-grantee activities are spread over a substantially longer period of time and involve more hours of professional development than district activities.33 Sponsorship also has an influence on active learning and collective participation: SAHE-grantee activities are more likely to provide opportunities for active learning, and less likely to be designed for collective participation than district activities; that is, they are less likely to be designed for teachers in school, department, or grade-level groupings. Finally, sponsorship has a direct influence on content focus: controlling for time span and contact hours, SAHE-grantee activities tend to give more emphasis to content than do district activities.
Activity type is somewhat less influential than sponsorship, but, like sponsorship, it has an important influence on duration: reform activities tend to span longer periods and to involve greater numbers of contact hours than traditional activities.
As we expected, our two measures of duration—time span and amount of time—exert a substantial influence on the core features of professional development experiences.34 Time span and amount of time have a substantial positive influence on opportunities for active learning and coherence. Longer activities tend to include substantially more opportunities for active learning (such as the opportunity to plan for classroom implementation, observe and be observed teaching, review students? work, and give presentations and demonstrations); and they also tend to incorporate more aspects of coherence (including connections to a teacher?s goals and experiences, alignment with standards, and professional communication with other teachers). Time span and amount of time also have a moderately positive influence on the emphasis given to content knowledge: activities that span a longer period and last more hours are more likely to focus on mathematics and science content.
The fact that both time span and contact hours have independent effects on our measures of core features suggests that both dimensions of duration are important. Professional development is likely to be of higher quality if it is both sustained over time and involves a substantial number of hours.
As we anticipated, all three of our measures of the core features of activities have a positive influence on enhanced knowledge and skill, as reported by the teachers in our sample. Both content focus and coherence have substantial positive effects on enhanced knowledge and skills, indicating that activities that give greater emphasis to content and that are better connected to teachers? other professional development experiences and other reform efforts are more likely to produce enhanced knowledge and skills.35 Active learning is also related to enhanced knowledge and skills, but the effect is less strong.
Finally, enhanced knowledge and skills have a substantial positive influence on change in teaching practice: teachers who report enhanced knowledge and skills are likely to report changing their teaching practices as well. In addition, the coherence of professional development activities has an important positive influence on change in teaching practice, over and above the effects of knowledge and skills. This suggests that teachers who experience professional development that is connected to their other professional development experiences, is aligned with standards and assessments, and fosters professional communication, are more likely to change their practice, even among teachers who have gained the same underlying knowledge and skills as a result of their professional development experiences.
These results are very encouraging, for a number of reasons. First, they tend to confirm several of the key assumptions underlying the Title II reauthorizing legislation. For example, our results indicate that sustained and intensive professional development is more likely to be of high quality, as reported by teachers, than is shorter professional development. Our results also indicate that professional development that focuses on academic subject matter, gives teachers opportunities for "hands-on" work, and is integrated into the daily life of the school, is more likely to produce enhanced knowledge and skills.
Second, the results provide insight into the reasons why teachers in SAHE-grantee activities tend to report more positive outcomes than teachers in district activities. In particular, the model indicates that the difference between SAHE-grantee and district activities can be accounted for almost entirely by the fact that SAHE-grantee activities are of substantially longer duration than district activities (both in terms of time span and contact hours), and they give more emphasis to subject matter content. Our results indicate that, when these structural and core features are controlled, sponsorship (SAHE grantee versus district) does not have a direct effect on teacher outcomes.
In addition, our results indicate that the effects of activity type are also largely indirect, operating through duration. Reform activities tend to be of longer duration than traditional activities, and this accounts for nearly all of the positive effects of type.36
Finally, our results call attention to the importance of the coherence of professional development activities. Activities that are linked to teachers? other experiences, aligned with other reform efforts, and encouraging of professional communication among teachers appear to support change in teaching practice, even after the effects of enhanced knowledge and skills are included in the model.
32 With few exceptions, we found few systematic differences in Eisenhower professional development experiences for teachers in different types of schools or with different characteristics. One teacher characteristics that hs a consistent effect is grade level taught. Teachers in secondary schools tend to report participating in activities with less positive quality (for example, fewer opportunities for active learning and less change in teaching practice). See Appendix E.
33 These and all other results described control for the school and teacher characteristics discussed in the text.
34 The model predicting the core features and teacher outcomes include sponsorship, the structural features, and all control variables.
35 When enhancements in knowledge and skills is controlled, content focus has a negative association with changes in classroom practice. We suspect that this result is probably spurious, resulting from the large number of independent variables included in the model predicting change in teaching practice. (The model for change in teaching practice includes all of the structural and core features of professional development, as well as all control teaching practice includes all of the structural and core features of professional development, as well as all control variables.) We estimate a model predicting change in teaching practice but omitting knowledge and akills as an intervening variable, and, in that model, content focus has a positive effect.
36 Our results show a modest direct effect of activity type on enhanced knowledge and skills, indicating that reform activities have slightly more positive outcomes when all of the design features and quality characteristics in our model are included.
 [Participation of Teachers from High-Poverty Schools] |
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 [Chapter 3 Summary and Conclusions] |