Peter Youngs

Teacher Characteristics and Student Achievement Gains: A Review

A large body of studies exists that examines the relationship between student achievement gains and the characteristics of teachers. To help policymakers and researchers use and build on this body of studies, this article reviews the studies systematically and synthesizes their results with deliberate consideration of each study’s qualities. Determinate relationships are described for four categories of teacher characteristics: college ratings, test scores, degrees and coursework, and certification status. The review details the implications of these relationships in light of study limitations and proposes directions for future research.

How Elementary Principals' Beliefs and Actions Influence New Teachers' Experiences.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine (a) ways in which elementary principals in Connecticut influenced the induction experiences of new teachers and (b) how school leaders’ professional backgrounds and beliefs affected their approaches to induction. Research Methods: The study included six elementary principals from three Connecticut districts, and 1st- and 2nd-year teachers, mentors, and other teachers from the principals’ schools. Data collection in 2000-01 involved interviewing principals, beginning teachers, mentors, and other educators; and observing principals’ meetings with new teachers, mentor-mentee meetings, and other induction activities. Findings: The study found that three of the principals strongly promoted new teachers’ instructional growth in their direct interactions with them and by facilitating their work with mentors and grade team members; in contrast, the other three school leaders did not have as much positive impact on new teachers. The article provides evidence that these differences in beginning teachers’ experiences seemed related to variations in the principals’ professional backgrounds; their beliefs and actions regarding leadership, induction, and teacher evaluation; and their responses to district and state policy. Implications: The implications of the study findings are (a) that principals should promote school cultures in which experienced teachers are actively involved in induction; (b) that researchers should examine how school leaders construct their understandings of induction, teacher development, and district and state policy; and (c) that there is a need for quantitative researchers to employ principal leadership as an independent variable that can affect mentor-mentee matches and new teachers’ experiences and retention decisions.

Shaping Professional Development to Promote the Diffusion of Instructional Expertise among Teachers.

This study examines how high-quality professional development can promote the diffusion of effective teaching strategies among teachers through collaboration. Drawing on longitudinal and sociometric data from a study of writing professional development in 39 schools, this study shows that teachers’ participation in professional development is associated with providing more help to colleagues on instructional matters. Further, the influence of professional development on participants’ instructional practice diffuses through the network of helping. These findings suggest that in addition to direct effects, spillover effects of professional development can occur through collegial interactions. Evidence presented in this study potentially helps educational leaders develop high-quality professional development programs and distribute professional development participants within schools to enhance all teachers’ instructional practices.

The Role of School-Based Colleagues in Shaping the Commitment of Novice Special and General Education Teachers

We compare beginning special and general education teachers’ access to school-based colleagues. Our findings demonstrate that colleague relationships are critical for the experiences of beginning teachers, as are the school organizational norms that these beginning teachers experience. For special education teachers in particular, perception of colleague support was a strong predictor of retention plans. Similar results were seen with respect to their perception of the level of collective responsibility among the faculty. Taken together, these results suggest that schools and districts should make efforts to facilitate productive relationships between general and special education faculty, as well as to differentiate induction support for beginning special educators.

Collegial Climate and Novice Teachers' Intent to Remain Teaching.

Using survey data from novice teachers across 99 schools, we estimated multilevel regressions to identify the association between novices’ intent to remain teaching within their schools and their perceptions of the collegial climate. The results suggest that novice teachers who perceive a more positive collegial climate marked by higher degrees of professional fit and collective responsibility among colleagues are more likely to report intent to remain teaching within their schools. The findings from this study have implications for understanding novice teachers’ intended career decisions as a function of their perceptions of the collegial climate within their schools.

Teacher Knowledge and Skill Assessments and Teacher Compensation: An Overview of Measurement and Linkage Issues

This article summarizes the conclusions that the authors have drawn about the measurement quality and potential for linkage with teacher pay of three sets of teacher assessments—those developed or being developed by the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium, the Educational Testing Service, and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. To investigate the feasibility of using these assessments as a framework for a knowledge- and skill-based pay system, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education commissioned a set of papers for a conference in September 1997 on the measurement issues involved in assessing teaching practice to standards and linking these assessments to pay for knowledge and skills. The resulting papers, revised and published as articles in this journal, show that this approach is promising but that in some cases additional research on the measurement quality of the assessments is needed.

Person-Organization Fit and Research on Instruction:

Research from industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology indicates that outside of K–12 education, employees’ sense of fit with their organizations is often associated with job satisfaction, performance, commitment, and retention. Person-organization (P-O) fit has been conceptualized as the degree of congruence between an individual’s values, goals, and/or cognitive skills and abilities and the characteristics or requirements of their workplace. This essay reviews research from I-O psychology on how P-O fit predicts key outcomes for workers outside of K–12 education and discusses recent studies of P-O fit and teacher commitment and retention. We then theorize ways in which P-O fit can be used in research on teachers’ instruction, using research on teachers’ enactment of ambitious mathematics instruction as an example. Finally, the essay concludes by identifying directions for future research.

The Influence of University Courses and Field Experiences on Chinese Elementary Candidates’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching

In this article, we draw on survey data to investigate associations between Chinese elementary teaching candidates’ mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) and their experiences in mathematics courses, mathematics methods courses, and student teaching. In our study, we found that (a) Chinese teaching candidates’ completion of courses in number theory and mathematical reasoning, (b) their exposure to certain topics and learning experiences in mathematics methods courses and general pedagogy courses, and (c) the extent to which candidates had full instructional responsibility during student teaching were associated with significantly higher levels of MKT in number and operations (N&O). At the same time, our analyses also revealed that candidates’ MKT was not affected by the overall number of university-level mathematics courses that they had completed or the overall length of their student teaching (including weeks when they did not have full responsibility for instruction).

When policy instruments combine to promote coherence: an analysis of Connecticut’s policies related to teacher quality

This paper explicates the elements of several policy instruments used in Connecticut, the political conditions under which they were chosen, and their intended targets and expected effects on teacher quality and student learning. The purpose of the paper is to explain how the Connecticut General Assembly (CGA) and the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) were able to implement and sustain a set of integrated policies related to teaching and learning over a 20‐year period from 1985 to 2005. We argue that this occurred for three primary reasons. First, the state legislature combined changes in teacher certification requirements in the 1980s with significant increases in teacher salaries in order to build strong political support among teachers and teacher union leaders for the new requirements. Second, in the 1980s and 1990s, CGA and CSDE repeatedly combined policy instruments in ways that involved multiple stakeholders and strong elements of capacity‐building, thereby increasing their likelihood of success. Third, several policies enacted in Connecticut in the 1990s were directly connected to and strongly reinforced each other.

How Labor Management Relations and Human Resource Policies Affect the Process of Teacher Assignment in Urban School Districts

Purpose: This study examined how labor–management relations between school districts and teacher associations seem to affect teacher contract provisions regarding the role of seniority in teacher assignment and how contract provisions and teacher assignment policies seem to affect beginning teachers’ perceptions about their work environments. Research Method/Approach: The study took place in five urban districts in a Midwestern state. In each district, we interviewed the human resource director and teacher association president, surveyed novice teachers in Grades 1 to 8, and examined the district’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA). We used district case reports to identify linkages between labor–management relations and contract provisions regarding teacher assignment. We drew on survey data to examine how these factors affected beginning teachers’ perceptions of their work environments. Findings: In four districts, the CBAs featured flexible language regarding the role of seniority in teacher transfer decisions. Principals had significant autonomy over teacher assignment, and assignment practices in these districts seemed fairly effective. In contrast, the CBA in the fifth district had rigid language pertaining to the role of seniority in transfer decisions and principals felt extremely constrained in making hiring decisions. Furthermore, analyses of the survey data suggested that beginning teachers in District D were less satisfied with their working conditions than novices in the other districts. Implications for Research and Practice: When districts and teacher associations engage in collaborative bargaining and adopt CBAs that provide principals with flexibility with regard to teacher assignment decisions, effective teacher assignment practices are likely to result.