In the world of education, there are few pedagogical topics as sensitive as the nature of staff development. Because public education is funded by the taxpayers, every member of a community has made an investment in their local school system. When a school district makes decisions about the best types of staff development activities, they are making choices that resonate on a number of levels: quality of instruction, use of financial resources, and use of time. If the staff development activities that a district chooses do not positively impact classroom instruction in some way, then it is important for that district to reevaluate the methods that it uses to make those choices. The purpose of this research project is to find out the relationship between professional development and improvement in student learning in the classroom. This relationship is the central one for designers of staff development sessions, and it is one with which school district administrators still struggle (Guskey and Yoon, 2009, p. 495).
There are almost as many proposed paradigms for staff development design as there are theorists about education, but four specific areas of concern have arisen in research over the past decade. The first is the focus on one-day (or two-day) workshops that provide a one-time infusion of information, perhaps even with a helpful binder or set of activities on a website, without any follow-up communication from the presenter or requirements for the teachers who sat in the class. While these classes can impart valuable information, at times they recycle hackneyed strategies, and in either event, the lack of follow-up means that the format can be less than rewarding (Guskey, 2003, p. 748). Another point of contention can be the “outside expert,” who might possibly bring new insights into a district but will most certainly be more expensive than an in-house professional. However, the freshness of an outside perspective can make the investment in the logistics worthwhile (Holloway, 2000, p. 81). A third area of concern has to do with the amount of time available for staff development. In just about every state, teachers are required to attend a number of contract days, and a specific number of those days are designated as work days or staff development. While this is the most common time for teachers to receive staff development, this time goes quickly, as schools must also use it to familiarize teachers with new procedures and to provide mandatory updates in such areas as special education. Although some researchers have found that more time does not help improve the outcomes of staff development (Kennedy, 1998, p. 6), that may come from a lack of quality programming; we believe that the variable of additional time merits further study. The fourth area of concern has to do with the types of activities that take place during a staff development session (whole-group lecture, interactive discussions, or such trendy activities as “gallery walks” and “think-pair-share”). The trends in this element of staff development tend to be cyclical; while past researchers have found no link between a specific activity type and improved learning (Easton, 2004, p. 22), we feel that this is also a variable worth of further study.
For this project, we will be interviewing a group of professionals in Oman about the quality of their staff development. The eventual plan will be a survey of 30 multiple choice questions measuring these four areas of interest. Specifically, the questions will help answer these four larger research questions:
1. Is there an alignment between learning outcomes, teaching and learning and assessment methods employed in the staff development courses?
2. Do assessment methods (MCQ and Checklist) test higher cognitive levels?
3. What are the perceptions of the participants of the staff development courses about the assessment method employed?
4. What are the perceptions of experts/faculty of those courses about the assessment methods employed in the assessment?
The members of the sample will all have taken staff development courses at the same training facility in Oman. We plan to recruit respondents by getting permission from the central administration to send out an email to all eligible professionals; given the academic nature of the community, we feel confident that the vast majority of the potential respondents will take part in the survey, as we believe they will find staff development improvement to be an important topic. We will use an online survey instrument to collect and sort the data. We have not yet decided the precise regression method that will be most suitable but plan on including that method as part of the next phase of the project. Choosing professionals who have taken the training and going through the organization’s administration to get permission to run the survey will help ensure quality of answers. We plan to use the data from the surveys to formulate our recommendations about staff development improvements for future training sessions, so that the investments of time and resources will receive their optimal return.
Works Cited
Easton, L., ed., 2004. Powerful designs for professional learning. Oxford, Ohio: National Staff
Development Council.
Guskey, T., 2003. What makes professional development effective? Phi Delta Kappan 84: 748-
750.
Guskey, T. and Yoon, K., 2009. What works in professional development? The Leading Edge
March 2009: 495-503.
Holloway, J., 2000. The promise and pitfalls of site-based management. Educational Leadership
57: 81-82.
Kennedy, M., 1998. Form and substance in inservice teachers education. Research Monograph
No. 13. Madison, Wisconsin: National Institute for Science Education, University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
