Teacher Professional Development and Self-Efficacy During the Advanced Placement Science Reform: A Longitudinal Perspective

• In Event: A Multifaceted Perspective on Current Approaches for High-Quality Teacher Professional Development

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to test associations between various well-known PD quality characteristics (e.g., PD is content focused) and teacher self-efficacy (TSE) to better understand teacher learning by using large-scale longitudinal data.

Perspective. TSE is important for the teaching profession as it often relates with teacher burnout (e.g., Akça & Yaman, 2010), job satisfaction(e.g., Troesch & Bauer, 2017), classroom teaching, and student learning (e.g., Lumpe et al., 2014). As suggested in prior research, high-quality PD (i.e., PD that is content focused, incorporates active learning, or supports collective participation) can change teachers’ attitudes and beliefs (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Desimone, 2009). Whereas earlier studies indicated positive effects of PD on proximal outcomes like TSE (e.g., Ross & Bruce, 2007), evidence is scarce on which and how high-quality PD characteristics are related to TSE (Rutherford et al., 2017), which is the focus of this study. We examine the following research questions (RQs):
(RQ1) What are the reciprocal associations between the quantity of PD and TSE?
(RQ2) What are the reciprocal associations between teachers’ perceived quality of PD and TSE?

Methods and Data. This study is connected to a longitudinal National Science Foundation-funded research project aiming to better understand teachers' PD patterns and their relations to student achievement in response to the Advanced Placement (AP) program (Fischer et al., 2018). This study uses data from 2014 and 2015 for both AP Biology and AP Chemistry including data from N = 2,064 teachers (67% female; detailed sample description in Table A). As TSE is a multidimensional construct (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007), we focused on the Instruction dimension utilizing a four-item scale (.62≤ω≤.68; all items in Table B). PD quality was assessed using five items regarding the five quality dimensions stated by Desimone (2009). We used the items both individually but also formed a latent variable composed of them. PD quantity was assessed with a single item. Control variables included teachers’ age, gender, teaching experience and school SES. We conducted structural equation models (Geiser, 2013) in Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017) with a full information maximum likelihood (FIML) missing data approach (Graham, 2012).

Results. We found a high temporal stability of TSE (for more detailed results see Figure A to F). Also, the number of PD participations was significantly (p < .001) associated with TSE. Similarly, PD quality (in particular, characteristics such as active learning) was predictive for teachers’ quantity of PD participation. However, the PD quality criteria were not directly significantly associated with TSE. Interestingly, a mediation pattern emerges: Teachers attending higher quality PD subsequently attend more PD and were thus more likely to also show higher TSE. Notably, our findings were robust across both disciplines.

Scholarly Significance. This study attempts to bridge the gap in the literature examining relationships of PD quality characteristics and TSE. Preliminary findings suggest associations that supports research highlighting the importance of PD for promoting TSE providing further evidence of the validity of PD quality characteristics (Desimone, 2009).

Authors

• Tim Fütterer, University Tübingen

• Nicolas Huebner

• Barry J. Fishman, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Arthur Eisenkraft, UMass Boston

• Christian Fischer, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen