Improving Impact Studies of Teachers’ Professional.pdfVIP

Improving Impact Studies of Teachers’ Professional Development: Toward Better Conceptualizations and Measures Laura M. Desimone The author suggests that we apply recent research knowledge to increase student learning;1 in fact, education reform is often syn- improve our conceptualization, measures, and methodology for onymous with teachers’ professional development (Sykes, 1996). studying the effects of teachers’ professional development on teach- Substantial resources are spent on professional development at the ers and students. She makes the case that there is a research consen- local, state, and federal levels; for example, in 2004–2005, the fed- eral government spent about $1.5 billion on professional develop- sus to support the use of a set of core features and a common ment for teachers (Birman et al., 2007). Thus, understanding what conceptual framework in professional development impact studies. makes professional development effective is critical to understand- She urges us to move away from automatic biases either for or ing the success or failure of many education reforms. against observation, interviews, or surveys in such studies. She argues For decades, studies of professional development consisted that the use of a common conceptual framework would elevate the mainly of documenting teacher satisfaction, attitude change, or commitment to innovation rather than its results or the processes quality of professional development studies and subsequently the by which it worked (Frechtling, Sharp, Carey, Vaden-Kiernan, general understanding of how best to