The Impact of Five Hours vs.Ten Hours of Teacher Professional Development on Student Achievement

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether providing teachers with a set number of professional development hours would impact students’ achievement on Student Learning Outcome assessments. Teachers were randomly selected to participate in either a five-hour professional development group or a ten-hour professional development group. Both groups of teachers administered a pretest to students prior to receiving professional development and a posttest after receiving a month of professional development. The design of this experiment was quasi-experimental using a pretest and posttest comparison to examine the data. Achievement gains from pretest to posttest were compared between students in the five-hour and ten-hour groups. The gains in the five-hour group were greater. In order to completely understand the impact that professional development has on student achievement, more comprehensive research should be considered.