Thinking Like a Researcher: What Novice Teacher-Researchers Can Learn From Surveys About Teacher Professional Development

• In Event: Filling the Theory-to-Practice Gap: Teaching Educational Research to Teachers in Professional Graduate Programs

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW
Schools in the United States spend $18 billion annually on teacher professional development (PD) (Horn & Goldstein, 2018). Thus, school leaders must continuously evaluate the impact PD has on teachers and students. Most evaluations of PD are based on surveys of teachers’ perceptions of usefulness (Penuel, Fishman, Yamaguchi, & Gallagher, 2007) or quality (Miles, Slagter Van Tryon, & Mensah, 2004).

Through frequent PD surveys, teachers become familiar with survey structures, composition, and purposes. Therefore, surveys represent a comfortable methodological option for teachers who, as graduate students, may be conducting research for the first time. However, little is known of how teachers learn about survey methods through experiences as respondents, or how their ideas about surveys transfer when they are positioned as researchers.

The current study was designed to answer two questions: (a) What can novice teacher-researchers learn from surveys that have been used to evaluate PD? (b) How can PD surveys be used to support novice teacher-researchers in designing appropriate surveys and collecting meaningful data?

METHODS
Participants were full-time educators and graduate students in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at a large university in the southern United States. The study was situated in a graduate survey research course.

Data included surveys produced by teachers after completing six scaffolded tasks (see Table 1 for descriptions) which guided them through analyzing, evaluating, and revising post-PD surveys and follow-up surveys associated with a three-day in-service PD on English Language Proficiency standards. As teachers worked on these tasks, they were reminded to assume the perspective of researchers/survey-designers as opposed to respondents.

After revised surveys were submitted, participating teachers responded to a survey about their experiences completing the scaffolded tasks. Thematic analysis was used to identify patterns, consistencies, and inconsistencies in the revised surveys and teachers’ responses to the final survey.

FINDINGS
Teachers encountered challenges involving Fowler’s (2013) characteristics of effective surveys (timing of administration, sample design, question design, complete instrument design, data collection, analysis). However, providing teachers with Fowler’s criteria introduced common vocabulary, allowing them to communicate questions/ideas with the professor more confidently. Consequently, the professor could provide more targeted support and feedback. Evidence suggests that this process bolstered teachers’ self-efficacy in designing and administering effective surveys.

SCHOLARLY SIGNIFICANCE
Using PD surveys to teach about survey-design, data collection, and analysis draws on teachers’ lived-experiences and invites them to understand surveys from a “scholarly” perspective. It simultaneously supports their development as novice-researchers and gives them the tools to promote their professional development.

When teachers transfer knowledge of high-quality survey-based research methods from graduate coursework to PK-12 classrooms, the implications for professional development are immense. After all, “one of the most important resources for sustaining professional development in teaching is getting feedback from students” (Ganguly, 2010, p. 9). Furthermore, students recognize when teachers take-up feedback from mid-course surveys (Hunt, 2003), which results in “a friendlier, more open teaching and learning environment” (p. 19). However, more research is needed to determine whether knowledge of survey-based research acquired in graduate coursework transfers to teaching contexts.

Author

• Janet Penner-Williams, University of Arkansas