IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp11731.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Teaches the Teachers? A RCT of Peer-To-Peer Observation and Feedback in 181 Schools

Author

Listed:
  • Murphy, Richard J.

    (University of Texas at Austin)

  • Weinhardt, Felix

    (European University Viadrina, Frankfurt / Oder)

  • Wyness, Gill

    (University College London)

Abstract

It is well established that teachers are the most important in-school factor in determining student outcomes. However, to date there is scant robust quantitative research demonstrating that teacher training programs can have lasting impacts on student test scores. To address this gap, we conduct and evaluate a teacher peer-to-peer observation and feedback program under Randomized Control Trial (RCT) conditions. Half of 181 volunteer primary schools in England were randomly selected to participate in the two year program. We find that students of treated teachers perform no better on national tests a year after the program ended. The absence of external observers and incentives in our program may explain the contrast of these results with the small body of work which shows a positive influence of teacher observation and feedback on pupil outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Murphy, Richard J. & Weinhardt, Felix & Wyness, Gill, 2018. "Who Teaches the Teachers? A RCT of Peer-To-Peer Observation and Feedback in 181 Schools," IZA Discussion Papers 11731, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11731
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp11731.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven G. Rivkin & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain, 2005. "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(2), pages 417-458, March.
    2. Harris, Douglas N. & Sass, Tim R., 2011. "Teacher training, teacher quality and student achievement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 798-812, August.
    3. Victor Lavy, 2009. "Performance Pay and Teachers' Effort, Productivity, and Grading Ethics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1979-2011, December.
    4. Scott E. Carrell & Mark Hoekstra & Elira Kuka, 2018. "The Long-Run Effects of Disruptive Peers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(11), pages 3377-3415, November.
    5. Daniel Aaronson & Lisa Barrow & William Sander, 2007. "Teachers and Student Achievement in the Chicago Public High Schools," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 95-135.
    6. Angrist, Joshua D & Lavy, Victor, 2001. "Does Teacher Training Affect Pupil Learning? Evidence from Matched Comparisons in Jerusalem Public Schools," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 343-369, April.
    7. Robert W. Fairlie & Jonathan Robinson, 2013. "Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Home Computers on Academic Achievement among Schoolchildren," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 211-240, July.
    8. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2633-2679, September.
    9. Jesse Rothstein, 2015. "Teacher Quality Policy When Supply Matters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(1), pages 100-130, January.
    10. Kane, Thomas J. & Rockoff, Jonah E. & Staiger, Douglas O., 2008. "What does certification tell us about teacher effectiveness? Evidence from New York City," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 615-631, December.
    11. Krueger, Alan B & Whitmore, Diane M, 2001. "The Effect of Attending a Small Class in the Early Grades on College-Test Taking and Middle School Test Results: Evidence from Project STAR," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(468), pages 1-28, January.
    12. C. Kirabo Jackson & Elias Bruegmann, 2009. "Teaching Students and Teaching Each Other: The Importance of Peer Learning for Teachers," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 85-108, October.
    13. Muralidharan, Karthik & Sundararaman, Venkatesh, 2011. "Teacher opinions on performance pay: Evidence from India," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 394-403, June.
    14. Jonah E. Rockoff, 2004. "The Impact of Individual Teachers on Student Achievement: Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 247-252, May.
    15. Hanushek, Eric A. & Woessmann, Ludger, 2015. "The Knowledge Capital of Nations: Education and the Economics of Growth," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262029170, December.
    16. Neal, Derek, 2011. "The Design of Performance Pay in Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 495-550, Elsevier.
    17. Avinash Dixit, 2002. "# Incentives and Organizations in the Public Sector: An Interpretative Review," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 696-727.
    18. Eric A. Hanushek & Steven G. Rivkin, 2010. "Generalizations about Using Value-Added Measures of Teacher Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 267-271, May.
    19. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2008. "Can Principals Identify Effective Teachers? Evidence on Subjective Performance Evaluation in Education," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 101-136.
    20. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2011. "Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 39-77.
    21. Brian Jacob & Jonah E. Rockoff & Eric S. Taylor & Benjamin Lindy & Rachel Rosen, 2016. "Teacher Applicant Hiring and Teacher Performance: Evidence from DC Public Schools," NBER Working Papers 22054, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. John P. Papay & Eric S. Taylor & John H. Tyler & Mary Laski, 2016. "Learning Job Skills from Colleagues at Work: Evidence from a Field Experiment Using Teacher Performance Data," NBER Working Papers 21986, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Simon Burgess & Shenila Rawal & Eric S. Taylor, 2021. "Teacher Peer Observation and Student Test Scores: Evidence from a Field Experiment in English Secondary Schools," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(4), pages 1155-1186.
    24. Derek Neal, 2011. "The Design of Performance Pay in Education," NBER Working Papers 16710, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Matthew P. Steinberg & Lauren Sartain, 2015. "Does Teacher Evaluation Improve School Performance? Experimental Evidence from Chicago's Excellence in Teaching Project," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 10(4), pages 535-572, October.
    26. Eric S. Taylor & John H. Tyler, 2012. "The Effect of Evaluation on Teacher Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3628-3651, December.
    27. Robert J. Barro, 2001. "Human Capital and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 12-17, May.
    28. repec:tpr:journl:edfpol:v:10:y:2015:i:4:p:535-572 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liebowitz, David D., 2021. "Teacher evaluation for accountability and growth: Should policy treat them as complements or substitutes?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    2. Knutsson, Daniel & Tyrefors, Björn, 2024. "Labor market effects of a youth summer employment program in Sweden," Working Paper Series 2024:5, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    3. Díaz, Juan & Sánchez, Rafael & Villarroel, Gabriel & Villena, Mauricio G., 2021. "Effects of Measures of Teachers' Quality on Tertiary Education Attendance: Evaluation Tests versus Value Added," IZA Discussion Papers 14277, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Holmlund, Helena & Häggblom, Josefin & Lindahl, Erica, 2024. "The Boost for reading," Working Paper Series 2024:6, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    5. Briole, Simon & Maurin, Eric, 2019. "Does Evaluating Teachers Make a Difference?," IZA Discussion Papers 12307, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    2. Koedel, Cory & Mihaly, Kata & Rockoff, Jonah E., 2015. "Value-added modeling: A review," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 180-195.
    3. Dhushyanth Raju, 2017. "Public School Teacher Management in Sri Lanka," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 18(1), pages 39-63, March.
    4. Roland G. Fryer, 2011. "Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from New York City Public Schools," NBER Working Papers 16850, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Hanushek, Eric A. & Rivkin, Steven G. & Schiman, Jeffrey C., 2016. "Dynamic effects of teacher turnover on the quality of instruction," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 132-148.
    6. Michael Bates & Michael Dinerstein & Andrew C. Johnston & Isaac Sorkin, 2022. "Teacher Labor Market Equilibrium and Student Achievement," CESifo Working Paper Series 9551, CESifo.
    7. Hanushek, Eric A., 2011. "The economic value of higher teacher quality," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 466-479, June.
    8. Goldhaber, Dan & Walch, Joe, 2012. "Strategic pay reform: A student outcomes-based evaluation of Denver's ProComp teacher pay initiative," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1067-1083.
    9. Alexis Le Chapelain, 2014. "Market for education and student achievement [Marché de l’éducation et réussite scolaire]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03510563, HAL.
    10. Pope, Nolan G., 2019. "The effect of teacher ratings on teacher performance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 84-110.
    11. Sean Corcoran & Dan Goldhaber, 2013. "Value Added and Its Uses: Where You Stand Depends on Where You Sit," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(3), pages 418-434, July.
    12. John P. Papay & Eric S. Taylor & John H. Tyler & Mary Laski, 2016. "Learning Job Skills from Colleagues at Work: Evidence from a Field Experiment Using Teacher Performance Data," NBER Working Papers 21986, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Matthew A. Kraft & John P. Papay & Olivia L. Chi, 2020. "Teacher Skill Development: Evidence from Performance Ratings by Principals," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 315-347, March.
    14. Papay, John P. & Kraft, Matthew A., 2015. "Productivity returns to experience in the teacher labor market: Methodological challenges and new evidence on long-term career improvement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 105-119.
    15. Balch, Ryan & Springer, Matthew G., 2015. "Performance pay, test scores, and student learning objectives," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 114-125.
    16. Roland G. Fryer, Jr & Steven D. Levitt & John List & Sally Sadoff, 2012. "Enhancing the Efficacy of Teacher Incentives through Loss Aversion: A Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 18237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Johnston, Andrew C., 2021. "Preferences, Selection, and the Structure of Teacher Pay," IZA Discussion Papers 14831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Jian Zhang & Songqing Jin & Wei Si, 2020. "Incentivising teachers? Evaluating the incentive effect of China’s teacher performance‐based compensation reform in rural China," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 64(1), pages 171-188, January.
    19. Simon Briole, 2019. "From Teacher Quality to Teaching Quality: Instructional Productivity and Teaching Practices in the US," Working Papers halshs-01993616, HAL.
    20. Eric S. Taylor & John H. Tyler, 2011. "The Effect of Evaluation on Performance: Evidence from Longitudinal Student Achievement Data of Mid-career Teachers," NBER Working Papers 16877, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    RCT; teachers; education; peer mentoring;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • M53 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Training

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11731. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.