How Does Language and Literacy Professional Development Change Preschool Teachers' Knowledge? Evidence From the ExCELL Teacher Knowledge Assessment

• In Event: 41.056 - Examining the Relationship Between Teachers' Language and Literacy Knowledge and Practice in Early Childhood Classrooms

Abstract

Professional development for in-service preschool teachers is widely recognized as a key strategy for raising the quality of instruction around early language (e.g., vocabulary, sound awareness) and literacy (e.g., alphabet knowledge, decoding). Although most PD interventions involve changing teacher knowledge in order to change practice, teacher knowledge research is minimal. The current study explores how one effective model, ExCELL (Wasik & Hindman, 2011), increases teachers’ knowledge and, in turn, improves their practice. Questions include: 1) How does teachers’ knowledge change after ExCELL PD?, 2) Do background factors (e.g., experience, education) correlate with initial or end-of-year knowledge?, and 3) Do teachers with more knowledge have better practice, accounting for experience and education?

In total, 12 Head Start lead teachers received a language and literacy PD intervention over one academic year. Most (90%) were women and African American (80%). Half (50%) had associate’s degrees, and half had bachelor’s degrees.

In fall (pre-test) and spring (post-test), teachers completed the Teacher Knowledge Assessment (TKA; Hindman & Wasik, 2014), a 15-item multiple-choice measure asking teachers about their views on how children develop and can be taught vocabulary (7 items), phonological (3 items) , alphabet (3 items), and decoding skills (2 items). Some items targeted broad practices (e.g., “How often should you assess children’s vocabulary learning?”) whereas some were quite specific (e.g., “How many questions should you ask before a book reading?”) Teachers also completed a background questionnaire and were observed in fall and spring for a morning of instruction, which was scored using the CLASS Instructional Support measure.

In fall, teachers demonstrated relatively low scores on the knowledge measure (M=6.67 points out of a possible 15, SD=1.89, range=4 to 9). In spring, after the intervention, the total score was overall slightly higher (M=7.67 out of 15, SD=1.37, range=6 to 10), although not significantly (p=.462). Change was apparent on just four items, all of which were quite specific in nature. One item targeted the best way to help a child appropriately pronounce a new word (17% answered the item correctly in the fall, and 33% answered it correctly in the spring), and three other three items involved how many questions to ask before (50% correct to 100% correct), during (33% correct to 50% correct), and after book reading (rising from 17% correct to 83% correct).

T-tests showed that holding a master’s degree was not related to higher TKA scores in fall or spring (p>.500). Similarly, zero-order correlations revealed no links between TKA scores and years of experience in fall or spring (p>.500).

Partial correlations, accounting for experience and education, showed that teachers’ knowledge in fall was not related to their practice (r=-.17, p=.740). Teachers’ knowledge in spring was, however, closely related to their practice (r=.84, p=.038).

This study suggests that the 15-item TKA can be a useful tool to measure preschool teachers’ language and literacy knowledge, although teacher knowledge may be hard to change. Yet, meaningful changes in practice may occur as teachers gain very specific knowledge about practices.

Authors

• Annemarie H. Hindman, Temple University

• Barbara Wasik, Temple University