Teacher Collaborative Learning, Organizational Support, and Teacher Outcomes

• In Event: Teacher Prepreration and Student Achievement in Afrikan Schools

Proposal

Background
Fueled by the reform goal of improving student achievement through instructional changes within a climate of increasing global competition and accountability, teacher collaborative learning (TCL) has gained attention as a driver of instructional improvement in many countries (Boeskens et al., 2020). Although various models of TCL exist (Stoll et al., 2006), what is common across these models is that teachers share the goal of improving student learning and engage in collaborative inquiry into teaching and student learning to achieve the goal.
Although TCL is a promising approach to improving teacher instruction and student learning, most previous studies focused on single countries, and no previous studies have examined the relationships among school organizational support, teachers’ engagement in TCL, and teacher outcomes across different educational systems and cultural contexts. Given that the educational expense is limited in many countries, identifying an effective professional learning approach and support for the approach is an important step toward the evidence-based teacher protest and can contribute to “THE POWER OF PROTEST”.
This comparative study used survey data from nationally representative samples of lower secondary principals and teachers from 46 educational systems that participated in the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) in 2018 to address the following questions:
1. How does the frequency of teachers’ participation in teacher collaborative learning (TCL) differ across 46 educational systems?
2. How is the frequency of TCL associated with teacher outcomes (i.e., self-efficacy, collective improvement effort, and job satisfaction) in these educational systems? And how are two elements of school support structure—time/material resources and principal instructional leadership—associated with the frequency of TCL in these educational systems?
3. Do the associations among school organizational support, teachers’ engagement in TCL, and teacher outcomes vary by individualism vs. collectivism cultural context?

Methods
We used data from the 2018 TALIS administered by OECD. To address RQ1, national mean frequencies of teacher engagement in five TCL activities were computed and compared among 46 educational systems.
To address RQ2, multiple regression analyses were conducted to find the relationships between TCL participation and five teacher outcomes for each of 40 educational systems and the relationship between two elements of the school organizational support and TCL participation for each of 37 educational systems. Teacher outcomes were measured by teacher report of their self-efficacy in motivating students, managing classrooms, and teaching strategies, collective improvement effort, and job satisfaction (taking the mean response of all items). School organizational support was measured by teacher-reported information on whether they received each of the resources for PD and a mean score of principal report of their participation in six instructional leadership activities.
To address RQ3, multiple regression analyses in pooled teacher samples were conducted to investigate whether the associations among school organizational support, frequency of TCL participation, and teacher outcomes vary by different cultural contexts. The moderator variable was the score of the Individualism Versus Collectivism (IDV) of Hofstede’s (2020) cultural dimension. The scale of IDV scores ranges from 0 to 100. A high score on the IDV dimension indicates a tendency toward individualism and 50 is used as a mid-level. In this study, we recoded those educational systems with a score under 50 as Collectivist (N= 22) and above 50 as Individualist (N=23). Teacher and school background characteristics were included in all multiple regressions as controls.

Results
For RQ1, the international mean indicates that, across the 46 educational systems, discussing student learning is the most common TCL activity (17.9 times a year) while observing instruction with feedback is the least common one (4.6 times a year).
For RQ2, the results showed that in all 40 educational systems, higher frequency of TCL participation was significantly associated with higher levels of teachers’ self-efficacy in motivating students, managing classrooms, and teaching strategies, collective improvement effort, and job satisfaction. Moreover, teachers who received materials needed for the PD activities were more likely to participate in TCL activities with a significant and positive association in 24 (65%) out of 37 of educational systems. Also, non-monetary professional benefits and non-monetary rewards had a significant and positive association with TCL participation in more than 40% of educational systems. This study also found that in 11 (30%) educational systems, teachers with a principal who frequently engages in instructional leadership activities are more likely to report frequent TCL participation.
For RQ3, the results showed that among all teachers across all educational systems, there were significant and negative interactive effects between TCL participation and IDV on teacher collective improvement effort and self-efficacy in teaching strategy. Specifically, compared to collectivistic educational systems, individualistic educational systems had a weaker relationship between TCL participation and teacher collective improvement effort/self-efficacy in teaching strategy.
Moreover, among all teachers across all educational systems, there were significant and negative interactive effects between materials needed for PD activities and IDV and between non-monetary rewards and IDV on TCL participation. Specifically, compared to collectivistic educational systems, individualistic educational systems had weaker relationships between the provisions of these two resources and TCL participation.

Discussion
This study demonstrated that more TCL participation might facilitate positive teacher outcomes in all educational systems. Moreover, some school organizational support may play a more important role in facilitating TCL than other resources do in many countries.
This study also showed that compared to collectivistic educational systems, individualistic educational systems have a potentially weaker effect of providing organizational support. The results may be explained by the buy-in process of TCL among teachers in the collectivist culture. In collectivist cultures, collaborative activities are highly valued (Zhang et al., 2020). As a result, teachers are quite accustomed to working together in their daily work and any school resource can maximize its effect when teachers value the collaborative opportunities. Although it is hard to change the overall culture of individualist countries, it is still possible to change the culture within schools in those individualist countries. School leaders should consider cultivating the collective identity of their teachers and creating a more collaborative climate within the schools.

Authors

• Xiaonan Jiang, Florida State University

• Motoko Akiba, Florida State University