Do less effective teachers choose professional development does it matter?

Area of Science:

• Educational research
• Teacher professional development
• Program evaluation

Background:

• State policies mandate continuing education for in-service teachers to improve quality.
• Previous effectiveness studies of professional development programs often assume normal distribution of teacher quality.
• Voluntary or targeted participation in professional development may introduce selection bias, potentially invalidating prior findings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an empirical framework for evaluating professional development programs with non-random treatment assignment.
• To account for teacher prior effectiveness as a factor influencing professional development participation.
• To control for selection bias in assessing professional development program outcomes.

Main Methods:

• An empirical framework was developed to evaluate professional development programs with potentially non-random participation.
• Teacher prior effectiveness was incorporated as a variable influencing participation.
• A matched sample based on propensity scores was generated to control for selection bias.
• The program's effect was estimated after controlling for selection bias.

Main Results:

• Less effective teachers were found to be more likely to participate in the examined professional development program.
• Correcting for this selection bias led to different conclusions about the program's effectiveness compared to analyses that ignored participation patterns.
• The study highlights the impact of teacher selection on the perceived effectiveness of professional development.

Conclusions:

• Standard evaluations of professional development may be unreliable due to unaddressed selection bias.
• Accounting for teacher selection is crucial for accurate assessment of professional development program effectiveness.
• Policy recommendations based on biased evaluations may be premature and ineffective.