Coaching and Coursework Focused on Teacher–Child Interactions During Language/Literacy Instruction: Effects on Teacher Outcomes and Children’s Classroom Engagement

ABSTRACT

A sample of 496 early childhood teachers was assigned randomly in two phases to a series of professional development (PD) interventions. Phase I intervention was a 14-week course on effective teacher–child interactions. Participants were then re-randomized into Phase II intervention, which consisted of individual, interactions-focused coaching. Impacts of the course, coaching, and their combination were evaluated relative to business-as-usual controls on knowledge of effective interactions, skill in detecting effective interactions, observed teacher–child interactions, beliefs about intentional teaching, and children’s classroom engagement. Research Findings: Teachers exposed to the course demonstrated greater knowledge of and skills in detecting effective teacher child-interactions, and displayed higher quality instructional support in their interactions with children during the year following the course. Teachers who received coaching were also observed to display higher levels of instructional support and children in their classrooms displayed more positive engagement with adults. However, neither teachers nor children appeared to gain additional benefit from the combination of the course and coaching. Practice or Policy: The results have important implications for efforts to systematically and efficiently improve the quality of early childhood programs through the delivery of PD that is directly aligned with teachers’ classroom interactions.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the generous programs and teachers who participated in this study. We are grateful to John Sideris, Marcia Kraft-Sayre, Amanda Williford, Sarah Hadden, Allison Leach, Anne Henry, Wanda Weaver, Terri Sabol, Faiza Jamil, Tammy Mintz, Jill Haak, Tess Krovetz, Catherine Worrell, and Heather Ortiz for their contributions to our work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. As reported in other published work (e.g., Sabol et al., 2022), the full NCRECE sample involves more children than reported in this paper. This is because teacher ratings and direct assessments were conducted with all eligible children; however, inCLASS observations were only conducted for half of that sample, leading to the smaller sample size in the current study.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant [R305A060021] to the University of Virginia – funding the National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education (NCRECE). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the U.S. Department of Education.