As teachers and leaders, we have a sense of the positive impact of engaging in professional development. At a personal level it helps us acquire knowledge and develop our practice in new ways. A growing body of evidence reinforces this; research demonstrates that PD generates important impact in a number of different ways. The impact it can have is three-fold.
Firstly, the impact PD has on pupils. A growing body of evidence suggests that professional development is likely to be the most significant lever at our disposal to improve learning and outcomes for pupils (Fletcher-Wood and Zucollo, 2020). This is because we know that some teachers have more impact on the progress of the pupils they teach. Dylan Wiliam explains that, if (as a pupil) you get one of the best teachers you will learn in six months what it takes an average teacher a whole year to teach you. If you get one of the weakest teachers, the same learning will take you over two years. This means there is a four-fold difference between the best and the weakest teachers in terms of their ability to change learning (Wiliam, 2010, Hanushek, 2004). This impact is particularly true for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Sutton Trust has written that:
…the effects of high-quality teaching are especially significant for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds: over a school year, these pupils gain 1.5 years’ worth of learning with very effective teachers, compared with 0.5 years with poorly performing teachers. In other words, for poor pupils the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher is a whole year’s learning.
Sutton Trust, 2011
Expertise in school leadership also makes a significant difference. A study published by Jason Grissom and colleagues demonstrates the impact that school leaders can have on pupils. Specifically, Grissom and his colleagues show that replacing a below-average principal with an above-average principal would result in an additional 2.7-2.9 months of learning per year in maths and reading. This is a phenomenal difference in the rate of pupil learning.
Secondly, the impact PD has on teachers. A recent study by Pham (2022) demonstrated that there is a ‘spillover’ effect of the best teachers. The author of the research shows that, through collaboration with others, the impact of the most effective teachers impact rubs off on other teachers at the school, iteratively increasing the expertise of the teacher community. Professional development can support the improvement of the organisational and working conditions within a school. It (PD) has been described by Gamoran et al (2000) as acting as an “engine of change” because of its potential to increase teacher knowledge and skills and strengthen collaborative efforts among staff.
Finally, research shows that teacher and leader expertise also has some useful by-products for the system. Specifically, teachers who are motivated by mastery goals (ie. goals focused on doing tasks correctly and on the development of competence) rather than performance goals (ie. and being focused on one’s performance relative to others and as perceived by others) are more engaged with their work and less likely to burn out, (Daumiller and Dresel, 2023) meaning that a focus on teacher expertise may impact upon efforts to retain the workforce. Relatedly, higher teacher job satisfaction has been linked with better student achievement; in short, the happiest teachers have more of an impact on their pupils (Nkenge et al, 2021).
For these reasons, PD is likely to be a key mechanism, alongside other action we can take in school, to improve the working lives of teachers and leaders and – most crucially – to improve the impact we can all have on the pupils with whom we work.
References
- Daumiller, M. and Dresel, M. (2023) Temporal dynamics between faculty goals, burnout/engagement, and performance in teaching and research: A latent change score approach.
- Fletcher-Wood, H., and Zuccollo, J., (2020) The effects of high-quality professional development on teachers and students: A rapid review and meta-analysis.
- Gamoran, A., Secada, W., & Marrett, C. (2000). The organizational context of teaching and learning. In M. T. Hallinan (Ed.), Handbook of the sociology of education (pp. 37-63).
- Hanushek, E.A. (2004). Some simple analytics of school quality (NBER working paper no. W10229).
- Nkengne, P., Pieume, O., Tsimpo, C., Ezeugwu, G., & Wodon, Q. (2021). Teacher satisfaction and its determinants: analysis based on data from Nigeria and Uganda.
- Pham, L. (2022) Why Do We Find These Effects? An Examination of Mediating Pathways Explaining the Effects of School Turnaround.
- Sutton Trust (2011) Improving the impact of teachers on pupil achievement in the UK – interim findings.
- William, D. (2010) Teacher quality: why it matters, and how to get more of it.