Publication: Teacher Professional Development around the World: The Gap between Evidence and Practice
Date
2018-08
ISSN
Published
2018-08
Author(s)
Abstract
Teachers, like all professionals,
require ongoing professional development opportunities to
improve their skills. This paper provides evidence on
effective professional development characteristics and how
at-scale programs incorporate those characteristics. The
authors propose a standard set of 70 indicators—the
In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument—for reporting
on professional development programs as a prerequisite for
understanding the characteristics of those programs that
improve student learning. The authors apply the instrument
to rigorously evaluated professional development programs in
low- and middle-income countries. Across 33 programs, those
programs that link participation to career incentives, have
a specific subject focus, incorporate lesson enactment in
the training, and include initial face-to-face training tend
to show higher student learning gains. In qualitative
interviews, program implementers also report follow-up
visits as among the most effective characteristics of their
professional development programs. The authors then apply
the instruments to a sample of 139 government-funded,
at-scale professional development programs across 14
countries. This analysis uncovers a sharp gap between the
characteristics of teacher professional development programs
that evidence suggests are effective and the global
realities of most teacher professional development programs.
Citation
“Popova, Anna; Evans, David K.; Breeding, Mary E.; Arancibia, Violeta. 2018. Teacher Professional Development around the World: The Gap between Evidence and Practice. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8572. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30324 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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