Research on the Relationship between Teacher Leaders’ Practice, Teachers’ Practice and Student Outcomes
Teacher leaders – current or former classroom teachers who work with other teachers and educators in their schools or districts to help improve instruction – are a key feature of many school reform efforts. A number of research studies indicate that the work of teacher leaders, particularly when focused on classroom instruction, helps change teachers’ practice in ways that may impact student outcomes.
Findings from Research
The work of teacher leaders, particularly providing instructional support to teachers, impacts teachers’ classroom practice.
Fourteen studies reported on the impact of teacher leaders’ work on teachers’ classroom practice. Of these, eleven studies reported that teacher leaders had influenced instructional practices. In five of these 11 studies, changes in teachers’ “instructional practices” were linked to their use of particular curriculum materials (Adey, 1997; Balfanz et al., 2006; Copeland & Gray, 2002; Gersten & Kelly, 1992; Gillis et al., 1991). In another three studies, teacher leaders were reported to influence teachers’ use of a particular pedagogical strategy, such as the use of assessment data to inform instruction (Roehig et al., 2008), the use of differentiation strategies (Latz et al., 2009) or alignment of instruction to state standards (Blank et al., 2006). Three studies reported that teacher leaders had influenced teachers’ instructional practices, but did not specify the particular practices that had been impacted (Feldman & Tung, 2002; Race et al., 2002; Ryan, 1999). Two studies reported limited impact of teacher leaders on teachers’ practice. One of these studies attributed the limited impact to norms of teacher isolation and lack of shared goals within the school (Vesilind & Jones, 1998). Another study found variability of impact, with some teachers embracing teacher leader practices and evidencing change while others resisted working with the teacher leader altogether (Madsen et al., 1991, 1992). One study (Printy, 2008) found department chairs (teacher leaders) did not effect, and may have even negatively effected, teachers’ adoption of student-centered instructional strategies. In the discussion of findings in this study, Printy (2008) speculated that teachers’ altered their instructional practice based on their relationships to other teachers, rather than the input of administrators, such as principals or department chairs.
Across these fourteen studies, the work of teacher leader focused primarily on providing instructional support to teachers. This support took many different forms, such as observing and giving feedback, providing demonstration lessons, and leading workshops or meeting with groups of teachers. Some of these practices situated teacher leaders in classrooms with teachers (e.g., observing), while others situated them outside the classroom (e.g., meeting with groups of teachers). These studies do not specify whether particular teacher leader practices had greater impact than others. Some studies reported teacher leaders engaged in practices that did not directly address teachers’ classroom practice, but were suggested as impacting the school or classroom culture in which teachers work. Such practices included promoting communication among teachers and with administrators (Vesilind & Jones, 1998); facilitating school-level programmatic or improvement planning (Feldman & Tung, 2002; Ryan, 1999; Vesilind & Jones, 1998); or organizing and conveying materials to teachers (Gillis et al., 1991; Vesilind & Jones, 1998).
The research supporting a relationship between the work of teacher leaders and teachers’ classroom seems to apply across grade spans (five studies focused on elementary school, three on middle school, three on high school, two on middle and high school, and one spanned all grade levels). This set of studies focused more often on science than mathematics (four studies on science, two on mathematics, three on science and mathematics). There is nothing in the studies, however, to suggest that this broadly described relationship wouldn’t hold for mathematics or other areas, as indicated by the four studies that examined teacher leadership outside mathematics/science (Copeland & Gray, 2002; Feldman & Tung, 2002; Roehig et al., 2008; Ryan, 1999).
Teacher leaders’ work occurs in a larger context of conditions that impact teachers’ practice.
Across the fourteen studies that examined the impact of teacher leaders’ practice on teachers’ practice, the amount and duration of teacher leader practices varied, suggesting that a larger context of conditions influences teachers’ practices, in addition to what teacher leaders do. Studies where teacher leaders worked for limited periods (e.g., four half days in a year in Adey, 1997, or bi-weekly contact in a six-week period in Gersten & Kelly, 1992) reported impact on teachers’ practice. So, too, did studies where teacher leaders worked with teachers for long periods (e.g., once or twice per week for a year in Balfanz et al., 2006 or for more than a year in Race et al., 2002).
Often, the authors of these studies provided a discussion that set the findings of impact on teacher practice in the larger context of conditions supportive of change in schools, of which teacher leader actions were a piece. Feldman and Tung (2002) and Adey (1997), for example, discuss teacher leaders and teachers sharing a common vision for instruction as part of this context, or studies describe teacher leaders as part of a broader intervention intended to impact teachers’ classroom instruction (for example, Blank et al., 2006 and Balfanz et al., 2006). In these fourteen studies, the context or conditions that shape teacher leader practice (e.g., the norms of interactions about what teacher leaders believe they can and cannot say or do in their work with teachers) was not the focus of inquiry and the studies do not investigate how these conditions contribute to the impact of teacher leader practice on teacher practice. Additional research is warranted to examine how teacher leadership interacts with contextual conditions to impact classroom instruction.
Teacher leaders’ practice is related to positive student outcomes
Eleven studies examined the relationship between teacher leaders’ practice and student outcomes; findings from these studies suggest that a positive relationship exists, although these studies examined different aspects of this relationship. Three studies reported on the effects of comprehensive school reform efforts, which included a teacher leadership component, on student learning outcomes. All three studies described school reform efforts that utilized teacher leaders in addition to other strategies, such as the use of a new curriculum (Balfanz et al., 2006), professional development workshops for teachers and changes in the structure of the school day (Ruby, 2006), or a training program for school administrators (Weaver & Dick, 2009). Balfanz et al. (2006) reported that, in a study of middle school mathematics, students in treatment schools outperformed students in control schools on district and state benchmarks. Ruby (2006) found that middle school science students in treatment schools demonstrated significantly greater improvement on district standardized tests than students in the matched control schools. Weaver and Dick (2009) reported that elementary and high school students in schools where the intervention had been fully implemented scored above the state averages on standardized tests in mathematics. These studies were not designed to measure the unique contribution of teacher leadership to improved student outcomes. The reports of positive impact on student learning in these studies suggest that teacher leadership was a factor in changing instruction to lead to stronger student performance in mathematics and science. However, additional research is needed to isolate the effect of teacher leadership on student learning and to understand its role in a broader set of school reform strategies.
Three studies that looked at the relationship between teacher leaders’ practice as teachers in their own classrooms and outcomes from their students each reported a positive impact on student outcomes. Johanson et al. (2001) used comparison groups of mathematics and science students to look at student attitudes towards these subject areas; Shanahan et al. (2006) compared results on state tests in mathematics of students of teacher leaders with average student scores at the district and state levels. Yager (2009) compared student performance on an assessment of student understanding of science concepts in teacher leader classrooms to students in other classrooms in the same school. In these studies, the teacher leaders are treated as classroom teachers, thus the intervention of their teacher leader practices are essentially their own classroom teaching practices. An untested assumption is that what teacher leaders are able to do in their own classrooms (with the reported impact on their students) has implications for other classroom teachers and, presumably, what teacher leaders might do to support those teachers to improve classroom practice.
Five studies examined teacher leaders as part of the school infrastructure that impacts what happens in classrooms and, therefore, outcomes for students. These studies examined teacher leadership relative to other school leaders, such as principals, as part of a school culture that affects student outcomes. Hofman et al. (2001) reported higher scores on a standardized mathematics exam in schools in which the department heads (i.e., teacher leaders) exert influence on school policy. Ryan (1999) reported that, in the three schools studied, teacher leaders influenced student opportunities to learn by providing classroom teachers with instructional and material support. Leithwood and Jantzi (1998, 2000) found that principal leadership had a stronger effect than teacher leadership on student identification with the school (one aspect of their student outcome variable), and that teacher leadership no longer correlated with variations in student engagement when family educational culture was taken into account. Leithwood and Mascall (2008) reported that collective leadership, which included teacher leadership in addition to leadership by all school personnel, accounted for the largest amount of variation in student achievement scores, compared to other factors such as socio-economic status. None of these studies examined the direct impact of teacher leadership on student learning, and instead investigated how teacher leadership affected the conditions for student learning at the school level. This theoretical assumption about the role of teacher leadership to impact student outcomes merits closer examination in future research.