Identifying information friction in teacher professional development: insights from teacher-reported need and satisfaction

ABSTRACT

Professional Development (PD) is regarded a critical channel through which teacher instructional effectiveness improves. However, research shows that teacher discontent with PD is widespread. Bridging literature in organisational decision and labour economics, this study theorises that variation in how schools collect, process and respond to information on teacher needs can influence the degree of information friction in PD provision. Applying a two-step empirical analysis to the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2013 and 2018 United States sample (n = 4,336), findings reveal that teachers demonstrate high levels of concentrated PD need, yet schools do not meet these reported needs. Regression analysis results show that those schools demonstrating higher degrees of plurality in leadership and school autonomy are more effective in addressing teacher needs, while the effect of principal-staff interaction is more complex. Findings contribute new evidence on information friction in teacher PD provisionand identify effective management means in addressing information problems in school settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional development
• teacher satisfaction
• school management
• information economics
• TALIS

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to seminar participants at Teachers College of Columbia University, conference participants at the 62^nd Annual Meetings of the Comparative International Education Society and four anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback. All errors are our own.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Shaanxi Province Planning Committee on Educational Sciences[Grant ID: SGH21Q017].