Examining the Relations Between Middle School Teacher Preparation, Professional Development, and Student Performance

• In Event: 61.052 - An Analytic Examination of Current Issues in the Middle School Education

Abstract

Teacher preparation programs have historically focused on preparing educators to enter either the elementary or high school classrooms. Educators who found themselves teaching students in grades six through eight were traditionally trained for teaching other grade levels but not specifically the middle grades (McEwin, Dickinson, Erb, and Scales, 1995). Teaching at the middle level requires special skills associated with attitudes and dispositions to successfully work with young adolescents. McEwin et al. (1995) believe that “teachers of young adolescents too often begin their careers having had little or no opportunity to gain the specialized knowledge, skills, attitudes, and dispositions needed to be highly successful. Furthermore, practicing teachers too frequently find little or no opportunity to attend classes that focus on their middle grades teaching specialty. Middle grades teachers, and their students, need and deserve better” (p.16).

The purpose of this study is to examine the relations between middle school teachers’ professional qualifications, professional development, and student performance. The present study uses the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) eighth-grade assessment datasets with the associated teacher contextual questionnaire data to examine these relations. Specifically, items from the eighth-grade teacher questionnaires related to teacher preparation (i.e., degree majors/minors, highest degree earned), credentials and qualifications (i.e., teaching in or out of the field, certified by National Board of Professional Teaching Standards), professional training and experiences are included in the research analyses. The present paper also analyzes demographic variables (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity) at the teacher levels to account for possible group differences. Correlational analyses are conducted to examine the strength and magnitude of the relationships between teacher variables and student performance on NAEP assessments.

Findings from this study suggest that professional development may have a stronger relationship to student performance on NAEP assessments than educational level and professional qualifications alone. Findings also indicate that the experiences of the teacher (i.e., years spent teaching in secondary education level, years taught in subject field) may have stronger relationships on student performance for certain subjects.

This study provides insights into the current development of the middle school teacher preparation and how teacher training may relate to student achievement. There is a large gap in our understanding of how middle school teachers are specifically trained due to a lack of research performed in this field in the last decade. Previous research shows how teacher preparation and professional development at the middle school level was severely lacking and advocated for more substantial and specific training in this area (National Research Council, 2010). The current study can provide insights into how we have developed and exposed areas in need of improvement. Gaining this type of insight can help Institutes of Higher Education modify their programs to better fit the needs of pre-service and in-service educators interested in working at the middle school level, ultimately improving student achievement.

Authors

• Juliann Dupuis, Notre Dame of Maryland University

• Judy H. Tang, Westat