Same program, different outcomes: Understanding differential effects of teacher professional development programs

In recent decades, promising frameworks of critical features of high-quality teacher professional development (PD) programs have been proposed.

However, recent studies have shown it to be remarkably difficult to affect instructional practices, even when the offered PD is designed in relation to such frameworks.

Using a mixed-methods design to analyze video recordings of ~170 lessons by, 200 interviews with, and 150 collegial discussions among mathematics teachers who have participated in a Swedish national-scale PD program, we contribute to research that has the potential to refine these critical features.

Particularly, we adhere to two calls in the research literature. Firstly, previous studies of teacher PD have emphasized average effects. We complement these studies by examining between-teacher differences in the PD’s effects.

Preliminary results indicate that these differences cannot be explained by seemingly evident factors, such as teachers’ education or knowledge for teaching.

We therefore emphasize teachers’ visions of high-quality instruction, a construct shown to have explanatory power in current studies of teacher PD.

Secondly, as research on teacher PD has mainly stressed teachers’ cognitive constructs, studies adhering to the context of the PD’s implementation are needed.

We complement previous studies by exploring how instructional visions constituted in PD materials, teachers, and the national context may explain the effects of PD.