Professional Development Research

2013/11/07 by Heather C. Hill, Mary Beisiegel, Robin Jacob · 358 citations
Decision Sciences · Engineering · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Best practice #Collaborative Teaching and Inclusion #Computer science #Educational Assessment and Improvement #Educational research #Engineering #Engineering ethics #Key (lock) #Knowledge base #Management science #Pedagogy #Political science #Professional development #Psychology #Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

paper · doi:10.3102/0013189x13512674

published in Educational Researcher 42(9), 476-487 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2013/11/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Commentaries regarding appropriate methods for researching professional development have been a frequent topic in recent issues of Educational Researcher as well as other venues. In this article, the authors extend this discussion by observing that randomized trials of specific professional development programs have not enhanced our knowledge of effective program characteristics, leaving practitioners without guidance with regard to best practices. In response, the authors propose that scholars should execute more rigorous comparisons of professional development designs at the initial stages of program development and use information derived from these studies to build a professional knowledge base. The authors illustrate with examples of both a proposed study and reviews of evidence on key questions in the literature.

Citations

• Improving Impact Studies of Teachers’ Professional Development: Toward Better Conceptualizations and Measures
• What Makes Professional Development Effective? Results From a National Sample of Teachers
• Organizing Research and Development at the Intersection of Learning, Implementation, and Design
• Professional Development and Teacher Learning: Mapping the Terrain

Cited by

• Impact of Lesson Study and Fractions Resources on Instruction and Student Learning
• Introducing the Content Acquisition Podcast Professional Development Process: Supporting Vocabulary Instruction for Inclusive Middle School Science Teachers
• The Application of Behavioral Economics to Teacher Professional Development
• The search for evidence-based features of effective teacher professional development: a critical analysis of the literature
• Educators Take Charge: The Potential of Micro-Credentials
• Does reciprocal peer observation promote the transfer of learning to teaching practice?
• Teacher evaluation and training
• A Framework for the Facilitation of Teachers’ Analysis of Video
• An Affinity for Learning: Teacher Identity and Powerful Professional Development
• Adaptive Teacher Professional Development: Crafting Coherence by Surfacing Tensions Through Co-Design With Teachers
• On the Shoulders of Giants: Benefits of Participating in a Dialogic Professional Development Program for In-Service Teachers. [europepmc]
• A Commentary on the Misalignment of Teacher Education and the Need for Classroom Behavior Management Skills. [europepmc]
• Supporting School Mental Health Providers: Evidence from a Short-Term Telementoring Model. [europepmc]
• Learning to Teach Again: What Professional Development Approach Matters? [europepmc]
• Professional development short scale: Measurement invariance, stability, and validity in Brazil and Angola. [europepmc]

Related

• How Does Professional Development Improve Teaching?
• Unveiling Professional Development: A Critical Review of Stage Models
• The search for evidence-based features of effective teacher professional development: a critical analysis of the literature
• Improving Impact Studies of Teachers’ Professional Development: Toward Better Conceptualizations and Measures
• New Directions for the Design and Study of Professional Development