Teacher-Level Traits as Moderating Factors of Professional Development

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This professional development (PD) study investigated the role of teachers’ initial receptive language skills on the implementation of language enhancement strategies. Head Start lead (n=12) and assistant (n=9) teachers received PD designed to increase their use of language enhancement strategies. Results indicated that teachers’ receptive vocabulary scores did predict their pretest language strategy usage; F(1, 19) = 6.40, p < .05, accounting for 25.2% of the variation in the frequency of language enhancing strategy. Additionally, there was a significant difference detected by role at pre-intervention indicating that assistants delivered fewer language enhancement strategies compared to lead teachers M = 41.25 (SD = 16.16) vs. M = 25.67 (SD = 11.98). However, post-intervention means demonstrated a closing of the gap between lead and assistant teachers’ implementation of language enhancement strategies. Results interpreted by discussing the importance of examining the moderating impact of teacher-level traits in evaluating the effectiveness of PD.