Exploring The Relationship Between Professional Development And Student Achievement

Abstract The purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between professional development and student achievement by addressing three major standards of professional learning: content, process, and context. This study included 276 teachers from 28 middle schools. Data from this study was gathered using the Standards Assessment Inventory (SAI) survey instrument designed by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) and publicly available achievement data from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP), a criterion-referenced achievement test. The Standards Assessment Inventory (SAI) was used to examine teachers' perceptions of professional development at the school level. The overall purpose of this study was to collect, analyze, and use existing data to answer the following research question: Based on the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) professional learning standards, is there a positive correlation between teachers' perception of professional development at a school-based level and student achievement? The following sub-questions guided this research: (1) Is there a relationship between the "context" of school-level professional development based on the NSDC standards and student achievement in mathematics and reading/language, as measured by TCAP scores? (2) Is there a relationship between the "process" of school-level professional development based on the NSDC standards and student achievement in mathematics and reading/language, as measured by TCAP scores? (3) Is there a relationship between the "content" of school-level professional development based on the NSDC standards and student achievement in mathematics and reading/language, as measured by TCAP scores?Data for this research was analyzed using statistical computational methods. The results from the data analysis determined that there were several positive significant relationships between the National Staff Development Council standards of professional learning and student achievement.