Loes de Jong, Tom Wilderjans, Jacobiene Meirink, Wouter Schenke, Henk Sligte and Wilfried Admiraal
In professional learning communities (PLCs), teachers collaborate and learn with the aim of improving students' learning. The aim of this study is to gain insight into teachers'…
Abstract
Purpose
In professional learning communities (PLCs), teachers collaborate and learn with the aim of improving students' learning. The aim of this study is to gain insight into teachers' perceptions of their schools' changing toward PLCs and conditions which support or hamper this change.
Design/methodology/approach
Questionnaires were completed by a total of 2.111 teachers from 15 Dutch secondary schools for three years. With the use of multilevel regression analyses, the research questions were answered.
Findings
Although the development of a school toward a PLC seems to be a slow process, the findings demonstrate the influence of school conditions on this development. Human resource management (HRM) stands out, as this school condition has a direct and longitudinal effect on the change.
Practical implications
The main recommendation is to embed PLC elements in HRM policies such as facilitating teachers to collaboratively work and learn and aligning teachers' professional development with schools' vision and ambitions.
Originality/value
PLCs have been studied occasionally in longitudinal in-depth case studies or in large-scale, cross-sectional research. This large-scale longitudinal study provides insights into the sustainability of schools as PLCs and the school conditions that are associated with sustainability.
Details
Keywords
Rita Vermeulen and Wilfried Admiraal
The purpose of this exploratory research is to test the model of training transfer as a two‐way process.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this exploratory research is to test the model of training transfer as a two‐way process.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on self‐report data gathered from 58 to 44 respondents in a field experiment, it is argued that there is not just learning in the context of training and not just application in the context of work. For training design may ask for performance during training, and data show significant further learning of skills in the context of work.
Findings
The overall results of the data analysis suggest support for transfer as a two‐way process. Data show a dip in transfer in the first interval, three weeks after training. In the longer term (one year), transfer restored significantly.
Practical implications
Discusses how to combine learning and performance, in the training context and the work context.
Originality/value
The usual view of transfer is one‐way (from training to work; from learning to application), while transfer may be a two‐way process. A presented model is put to the test.
Details
Keywords
Wilfried Admiraal and Ditte Lockhorst
Teacher communities might create excellent conditions for teacher learning in schools, such as a teacher dialogue. The way teachers perceive and interpret these conditions seems…
Abstract
Purpose
Teacher communities might create excellent conditions for teacher learning in schools, such as a teacher dialogue. The way teachers perceive and interpret these conditions seems to be crucial for their effects on learning. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test the Sense of Community in School Scale (SCSS).
Design/methodology/approach
The SCSS was completed by a sample of 271 Dutch school teachers and student teachers and related to self‐reported opportunities for teacher dialogue. It was hypothesized that sense of community and teacher dialogue were related, that teachers showed a stronger sense of community than student teachers, and that their sense of community was stronger related to teacher dialogue for teachers than for student teachers.
Findings
Teachers showed higher scores on two of the six scales of the SCSS (group identity and meaningful relationships). For both teachers and student teachers, three aspects of sense of community (shared interaction repertoire, tolerance of individual differences, and meaningful relationships) were positively related to teacher dialogue, with stronger relations with two other aspects (group identity and shared domain) for teachers than for student teachers.
Research limitations/implications
Although SCSS showed promising results, more technical research should be done to ensure its construct validity, differential validity and predictive validity.
Originality/value
Teaching is still seen as isolated work. More insight in how to ascertain collaborative workplace conditions in school might further ideas on workplace learning for school teachers.