Job -embedded staff development and its impact on teacher instruction and student performance

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between quality staff development and improved student learning as reflected by increased standardized test scores in reading. The study examined the effect of structured job-embedded staff development on student performance. The causal comparative design was used to examine the linkage between job-embedded learning and subsequent improvement to teacher classroom instruction and student learning outcomes. The National Staff Development Council (NSDC) Standard Assessment Inventory was used to measure the perceptions of teachers related to characteristics of effective development and how their participation in the learning has affected their content knowledge and classroom practices. The assessment instrument was administered to 344 junior high teachers across eight campuses in an urban Texas school district. Teachers in three of the junior high school campuses served as the treatment group, and the other five campuses were the control group. The reading scores of students in the treatment and control groups were compared in order to determine whether teachers who participated in job-embedded staff development attained different standardized test scores from those who did not.;The analysis of the survey data indicated a significant difference between teachers who participated in job-embedded staff development and those who participated in the traditional model. The data indicated significant differences on five constructs of the SAI survey: leadership, learning community, resources, collaboration, and equity. Additionally, an analysis of 2008 TAKS reading data comparing campuses of similar student demographics revealed that the job-embedded campuses had higher scale mean scores than did the traditional campuses. The study also revealed that job-embedded staff development accompanied by coaching had an impact on teachers' perceptions and classroom practices, thus impacting student performance.