Impacts of an American teacher professional development program on student achievement

By Carmen Pannone, University of Cagliari, Italy

Recently, the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) produced a systematic review on the effectiveness of Reading Apprenticeship, a professional development program that can be delivered online or in person. The program leads teachers to help their students develop reading comprehension and acquire interest, engagement, and confidence in reading. It also aims to enhance social-emotional learning, as well as academic achievement in math, reading, science and social sciences for middle and high school students. This review focuses on the effects on academic achievement.

Five out of the nine studies located from a literature search met the WWC inclusion criteria. The selected studies were randomized control trials involving a total of 22,176 American students in grade 7-9. The most assessed outcomes were reading comprehension (n=5) and literacy achievement (n=3); mathematics achievement was assessed by two studies; science, general academic achievement, social sciences, and vocabulary were assessed only by one study, and life sciences by another one.

The results from one study showed that Reading Apprenticeship had a statistically significant positive effect on science achievement (ES=+0.11) and on general academic achievement (ES=+0.07, p=0.02). In the other domains, the overall effects of the program were not statistically significant (p>0.05), but the program seemed promising for life sciences (ES=+0.16), social studies (ES=+0.15), literacy achievement (ES=+0.04), and reading comprehension (ES=+0.04), with no effects on vocabulary nor on mathematics.