Does the Match Matter? Exploring Whether Student Teaching Experiences Affect Teacher Effectiveness

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanley

Explores whether student teaching experiences influence later teacher effectiveness by using data from six Washington State teacher education programs. The study examines how the placement context and cooperating teacher mentoring relate to subsequent outcomes. Findings indicate that teachers are more effective when current-school student demographics resemble those of the school where student teaching occurred. Results suggest placing student teachers in demographically similar schools to improve later teacher and student outcomes.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages35

Reading Time1 h 28 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Research question and data sources

Key findings and implications

American Educational Research Journal April 2017, Vol. 54, No. 2, pp. 325–359 DOI: 10.3102/0002831217690516 􀀂 2017 AERA. [http://aerj](http://aerj).[aera.net](aera.net) Does the Match Matter? Exploring Whether Student Teaching Experiences Affect Teacher Effectiveness Dan Goldhaber American Institutes for Research John M. Krieg Western Washington University Roddy Theobald American Institutes for Research We use data from six Washington State teacher education programs to investigate the relationship between teacher candidates’ student teaching experiences and their later teaching effectiveness. Our primary finding is that teachers are more effective when the student demographics of their current school are similar to the student demographics of the school in which they did their student teaching. While descriptive, this suggests that the school context in which student teaching occurs has important implications for the later outcomes of teachers and their students and that teacher education programs and school districts should consider placing student teachers in schools that are similar to the schools in which they are likely to teach once they enter the workforce. DAN GOLDHABER serves as the director of National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) at American Institutes for Research and the director of the Center for Education Data & Research (CEDR) at the University of Washington Bothell. His work focuses on issues of educational productivity and reform at the K–12 level; the broad array of human capital policies that influence the composition, distribution, and quality of teachers; and connections between students’ K–12 experiences and postsecondary outcomes. JOHN M. KRIEG is professor of economics and director of the Office of Survey Research at Western Washington University. His research interests involve educational policy, teacher labor markets, and unionization in higher education. RODDY THEOBALD is a senior researcher in CALDER at American Institutes for Research, 3876 Bridge Way N. , Suite 201, Seattle, WA 98103; e-mail: [rtheobald@air.org](rtheobald@air.org. His)[. His](rtheobald@air.org. His)[ ](rtheobald@air.org. His)research interests are in teacher education, teacher evaluation, special education, and teacher collective bargaining. Goldhaber et al. KEYWORDS: educational policy, student teaching, teacher education/ development Introduction It is well documented that teacher quality is the most important schoolbased factor associated with improving student achievement. Differences in teacher effectiveness (effectiveness and quality are used interchangeably here) swamp the impact of other in-school investments on student test achievement.1 Although teacher quality is critically important, the policy mechanisms through which it may be cultivated have proved elusive. For example, teacher effectiveness is only weakly related to readily quantifiable teacher credentials like licensure status and degree level (Aaronson, Barrow,& Sander, 2007; Goldhaber, 2002; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005) . Moreover, the empirical literature about policies designed to affect teacher quality—such as pay for performance (e.g. , Fryer, Levitt, List, & Sadoff, 2012; Glazerman & Seifullah, 2010; Goldhaber & Walch, 2012; Springer et al., 2011) and professional development (e.g., Hill & Ball, 2004; Jacob & Lefgren, 2004)—focuses almost exclusively on in-service teachers (and the findings are mixed) . This focus on in-service interventions ignores the reality that a considerable amount of our country’s investment in teacher workforce development occurs before teachers enter the workforce; our back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that annual costs of teacher education a decade ago were about $6.7 billion, while annual professional development costs from the same time period were about $13 .6 billion.2 For greater than 80% of U.S. teachers (Feistritzer, 2010), this investment occ

FAQs

What relationship does the article investigate between student teaching and teacher effectiveness?

It studies how candidates’ student teaching experiences—both where they occur and the mentoring by cooperating teachers—relate to later teaching effectiveness.

What is the primary finding of the study?

Teachers tend to be more effective when the student demographics of their current school are similar to those of the school where they completed student teaching.

Why do the authors argue school placement matters for teacher education programs?

Because student teaching context appears to carry implications for later teacher and student outcomes, the study suggests aligning placement schools with the demographics teachers are likely to face in their future workforce roles.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanley