This blog post is part of our Research Article of the Month series. For this month, we highlight “Teacher Professional Development and Student Reading Achievement: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects,” an article published in Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness in 2019. Important words related to research are bolded, and definitions of these terms are included at the end of the article in the “Terms to Know” section.
Why Did We Pick This Paper?
Research suggests that high-quality teachers play a significant role in student achievement—higher than any other school factor (Hattie, 2009). One way to build teacher capacity is through professional development (PD)—training on current, effective, evidence-based instructional methods. PD can take different forms, including workshops, professional learning communities, coaching, online training, or conference attendance.
High-quality PD can improve teachers’ knowledge and skills and change their attitudes and beliefs. This, in turn, can affect their instruction and practices, which is likely to positively impact student learning (Desimone, 2009).
This study measures the effects of teacher PD on student reading outcomes. Researchers also examine moderators that may influence these outcomes, including characteristics of the study design (e.g., experimental design, student outcomes measured), PD opportunities (e.g., intensity, delivery method, level of collaboration, format), teachers (e.g., years of experience, certifications and degrees), and students (e.g., disability status, grade level).
Findings from this study may help districts identify and provide high-quality PD that builds teacher knowledge and supports student reading achievement.
What Are the Research Questions or Purpose?
The researchers examined the impact of teacher PD on student reading outcomes by addressing the following research questions:
- What are the effects of PD on reading achievement for students in Grades K–8?
- What elements of study design are potential moderators of effects?
- What characteristics of professional development are potential moderators of effects?
- What characteristics of participants, both teacher and student, are potential moderators of effects?
What Methodology Do the Authors Employ?
The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 28 quantitative research studies that examined the impacts of teacher PD on student reading outcomes. To be included in the analysis, the studies needed to:
- Be conducted in a K–8 setting
- Examine teacher PD as the independent variable
- Examine student reading achievement (e.g., phonological awareness, decoding, word identification, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension) as the dependent variable
- Utilize an experimental or quasi-experimental design
- Include effect sizes or the ability to calculate them
- Be published in a peer-reviewed journal in English between 1975 and 2017
For each of the included studies, researchers examined the students’ performance on a reading outcome. These outcomes were classified as either code-focused (e.g., phonological awareness, decoding, word identification, fluency), meaning-focused (e.g., comprehension, vocabulary), or general reading ability.
Researchers also took into account other variables in the studies that could affect the outcomes of PD. These variables included:
- Characteristics of study design
- Experimental design (randomized control trials, quasi-experimental design)
- Student outcomes measured (code-focused or meaning-focused)
- Characteristics of PD opportunities
- Intensity (number of hours of PD)
- Delivery method (district staff, researchers, online)
- Level of collaboration and active participation
- Format (whole group, summer workshop, professional learning community, coaching)
- Characteristics of teachers
- Average years of teaching experience
- Percentage of teachers with advanced degrees
- Characteristics of students
- Disability status
- Grade level
The researchers estimated effect sizes of teacher PD on student reading outcomes using a random effects model. They also examined the relationships between potential moderators (i.e., study, PD, teacher, and student characteristics) and student outcomes.
What Are the Key Findings?
What are the effects of PD on reading achievement for students in Grades K–8?
Overall, the analysis results of the study indicate that teacher PD positively impacted student reading outcomes in reading (g = 0.18). However, this is the average effect size, and there is notable variation in effect sizes reported from the primary studies included in this meta-analysis. This indicates that some kinds of PD were more effective than others. For example, Teacher Study Group (TSG), a PD model, had a medium to large positive effect on student reading outcomes (Gersten et al., 2010) whereas other PD models had small or no effect.
What elements of study design are potential moderators of effects?
- For randomized controlled trials (g = 0.18) and quasi-experimental design studies (g = 0.19), teacher PD significantly improved student outcomes in reading.
- Teacher PD significantly improved both code-focused student outcomes (g = 0.22) and meaning-focused student outcomes (g = 0.17).
What characteristics of professional development are potential moderators of effects?
The PD characteristics examined did not significantly moderate the effect between PD and reading outcomes.
What characteristics of participants, both teacher and student, are potential moderators of effects?
The teacher and student characteristics examined did not significantly moderate the effect between teacher PD and reading outcomes.
What Are the Practical Applications of Key Findings?
Findings suggest that teacher PD generally has a positive effect on student reading achievement in Grades K–8. It is worth noting that the average total length of teacher PD was around 52 hours, with a range of 4 to 295 hours across studies, and these PD opportunities were associated with varying levels of impact on student outcomes. This wide range indicates that a certain level of intensity and duration may be necessary for teacher PD to have a significant effect on student outcomes, although there is no agreement among researchers on the level of intensity required to effectively enhance teacher knowledge and practices and produce improved student outcomes. When providing reading and literacy PD for teachers, it is important to ensure that the content is both meaningful and relevant to the teacher’s instructional needs. Additionally, allocating sufficient time to PD can help maximize its benefits for teachers and students.
What Are the Limitations of This Paper?
When examining the relationships between the moderators and the student reading outcomes, teacher characteristics such as teaching experience and advanced degrees were included in the moderator analysis. However, teacher knowledge and skills, another important part of teacher characteristics, was not considered or included in the analysis. Teacher knowledge and skills has been shown to potentially influence student learning and, ultimately, their reading outcomes (Soodla, Jogi & Kikas, 2017; Porter et al., 2023). Future research should incorporate this characteristic to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that contribute to student outcomes, as the primary goal of teacher PD programs is to enhance both teacher knowledge and skills.
In addition, there is a lack of data on students with disabilities and secondary students across studies. Only one study included in the meta-analysis examined reading outcomes for students with reading difficulties, and there were few studies at the secondary level. It remains unclear whether teacher PD could effectively address the needs of students with disabilities, who require high-quality, specialized instructional strategies to support their reading. Future studies should explore the impact of PD on teacher’s ability to support these students.
Terms to Know
- Moderator: Moderators are variables that affect the relationship between two other variables. For example, the relationship between the length of a reading intervention and reading comprehension may be stronger for students who are at risk for reading disabilities versus students who are not at risk. In this case, at-risk status would be a moderator.
- Independent variable: An independent variable is a factor that influences dependent variables in experimental studies. For example, the length of a reading intervention in total minutes (independent variable) may affect a student’s composite reading score (dependent variable). They are called “independent” because they are manipulated by the experimenter and therefore independent of other influences.
- Dependent variable: Dependent variables are factors that may change in response to an independent variable. For example, a student’s composite reading score (dependent variable) may change in response to the length of reading intervention they receive in total minutes (independent variable).
- Experimental: Experimental research aims to determine whether a certain treatment influences a measurable outcome—for example, whether a certain instructional method influences students’ reading comprehension scores. To do this, participants are divided into two groups: an experimental group, which receives the treatment, and a control group, which does not receive the treatment. In an experimental study, these groups are randomly assigned, meaning each participant has equal probability of being in either the treatment or the control group. Both groups are tested before and after the treatment, and their results are compared. Because participants are randomly assigned to a control group, this kind of study is also known as a randomized control trial.
- Quasi-experimental: A quasi-experimental study is similar to an experimental study except that participants are not randomly assigned to groups. In educational research, groups often are assigned by classroom rather than through random assignment, making this kind of research quasi-experimental.
- Effect size: In statistics, effect size is a measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables in statistical analyses. A commonly used interpretation is to refer to effect size as small (g = 0.2), medium (g = 0.5), and large (g = 0.8) based on the benchmarks suggested by Cohen (1988), where “g” refers to Hedge’s g, a statistical measure of effect size.
- Peer-reviewed journal: When an author submits an article to a peer-reviewed journal, the article is reviewed by scholars in the field. They make sure that the article is accurate, relevant, high quality, and well written.
- Randomized control trial: See experimental.
- Random effects model: A random effects model is a type of statistical model that measures how an independent variable affects a dependent variable across a number of different samples or studies. Unlike a fixed effects model, a random effects model accounts for variability between different groups in a dataset.
References
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Routledge.
Desimone, L. M. (2009). Improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: Toward better conceptualizations and measures. Educational Researcher, 38(3), 181–199. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X08331140
Didion, L., Toste, J. R., & Filderman, M. J. (2019). Teacher professional development and student reading achievement: A meta-analytic review of the effects. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 13(1), 29–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2019.1670884
Hattie, J. A. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of 800+ meta-analyses on achievement. Routledge.
Gersten, R., Dimino, J., Jayanthi, M., Kim, J. S., & Santoro, L. E. (2010). Teacher study group: Impact of the professional development model on reading instruction and student outcomes in first grade classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 47(3), 694-739. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831209361208
Porter, S. B., Odegard, T. N., Farris, E. A., & Oslund, E. L. (2023). Effects of teacher knowledge of early reading on students’ gains in reading foundational skills and comprehension. Reading and Writing, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-023-10448-w
Soodla, P., Jõgi, A. L., & Kikas, E. (2017). Relationships between teachers’ metacognitive knowledge and students’ metacognitive knowledge and reading achievement. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 32, 201-218.
