A Global Measure of Professional Learning Communities

• In Event: The Significance of Collaboration in Education From a Global Stance

Abstract

Professional learning communities (PLCs) has received considerable attention in research as well as in school practice since the late 1990s. While PLCs have been positively associated with a variety of outcomes, differences in the way the concept is operationalised, and the fact that most of the research is related to specific national contexts, makes it difficult to accumulate and compare research. In order to give PLC research an international scope, the aim of this paper is to develop a global measure of PLCs. Multi-level confirmatory factor analysis is applied to develop a measure in the Teaching and Learning International Survey 2018, which fits the data of 42 countries/economies. Strengths, limitations, international comparability and possibilities for future developments are discussed.

Author

• Anders Astrup Christensen, Aarhus University