Testing the Effectiveness of Professional Development in Academic Vocabulary on Observed Teaching Practice and Academic Vocabulary Knowledge of English Learners in 8th Grade Social Studies Classrooms - Final Performance Report

Q: What is the primary objective of the TSG professional development project?

To examine whether TSG professional development increases teachers’ use of academic vocabulary instruction aligned with the TSG model and improves student academic vocabulary and content knowledge compared with “business as usual.”

Q: What were the key findings at the teacher level?

The TSG PD produced significant impacts on observed vocabulary instruction, measured by OMVI, including sizable positive effects on both Teacher-Directed Vocabulary Instruction and Interactive Vocabulary Instruction scales.

Q: Why were student-level impacts not observed?

The report hypothesizes that teachers may not have consistently applied learned practices, and informal interviews indicated they faced large effort demands and competing time pressures to cover required history content for state testing.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Maya Linwood

Final Performance Report evaluating the Teacher Study Group (TSG) professional development program targeting eighth grade American History teachers working with current or former English learners. Using an IES What Works Clearinghouse-aligned research design, the study analyzes teacher outcomes, including observed vocabulary instruction measured by OMVI, and student outcomes on academic vocabulary and social studies content knowledge. Teacher-level impacts were significant, with strong OMVI effect sizes, while student-level effects were nonsignificant; challenges in data collection and implementation demands are discussed.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

I. Accomplishments

A. What are the major goals of the project?

B. What was accomplished under these goals?

Activities Completed Since the Last APR

Activities Completed Since the Beginning of the Project

Testing the Effectiveness of Professional Development in Academic Vocabulary on Observed Teaching Practice and Academic Vocabulary Knowledge of English Learners in 8th Grade Social Studies Classrooms Effective Teachers and Effective Teaching – Goal 3 Replication Study (R305A150463) Final Performance Report I. Accomplishments A. What are the major goals of the project? Using a research design that meets the IES What Works Clearinghouse evidence standards, researchers will report the results of analyses examining the impact of the Teacher Study Group (TSG) professional development (PD) program targeting eighth grade American History teachers working with a large number of current or former English learners. Researchers will report statistical significance and effect sizes of the PD impact on teacher outcomes (i.e., observed vocabulary instruction) and on student outcomes (i.e., academic vocabulary and content knowledge) . Research questions include: 1. To what extent does teacher participation in TSG, compared to the “business as usual”condition, result in greater use of academic vocabulary instruction aligned with the TSG PD model after the completion of the program? 2. To what extent does teacher participation in TSG, compared to the “business as usual”condition, result in better student academic vocabulary? 3. To what extent does teacher participation in TSG, compared to the “business as usual”condition, result in better student content knowledge? (exploratory) 4. To what extent does teacher participation in TSG, compared to the “business as usual”condition, result in better student grades in their American History class? (exploratory) B. What was accomplished under these goals? The TSG PD program resulted in significant impacts at the teacher level on observed teaching practice as measured by Observation Measure for Vocabulary Instruction (OMVI; g = .809; p = .0001). Specifically, the Hedges’ g for two OMVI subscales was .926 (p < .0001) on the Teacher-Directed Vocabulary Instruction and .650 (p = .0021) on the Interactive Vocabulary Instruction Scale. There were, however, no impacts at the student level for the main student sample or for the ELL subsample on the Academic Vocabulary measure or the Assessment of Social Studies Knowledge (ASK) Content Knowledge measure. Effect sizes ranged from .02 to .07 and were nonsignificant. We were unable to explore the impact of the TSG PD program on student grades as most of the schools in the study did not provide these data. On the positive side, we heard many positive comments about the benefits ofthe TSG PD program from some participants. For example, in one school district in Texas, teachers indicated that their students benefitted from the program and that this was evident from their performance on vocabulary tests routinely given in American History classes. Significant impacts at the teacher level demonstrate that the TSG PD program can successfully bring about change in the vocabulary teaching practices of 8th grade social studies teachers. Teachers were able to take what they learn in the PD sessions and apply it in their classrooms. We hypothesize that the lack of impacts at the student level could be a result of teachers not consistently using the practices they learned to teach vocabulary to their students. Informal interviews with teachers indicated that they were overwhelmed with the level of effort that was required to develop the materials to supplement texts and other readings (e.g., developing studentfriendly definitions, identifying examples and non-examples, creating activities to reinforce student learning) that were necessary to implement the rich vocabulary instructional practices they learned in the PD sessions. Another potential reason was evident from the informal interviews. Teachers indicated that they were under pressure from competing demands and had to balance the extent to which they devoted time for teaching voca

FAQs

What is the primary objective of the TSG professional development project?

To examine whether TSG professional development increases teachers’ use of academic vocabulary instruction aligned with the TSG model and improves student academic vocabulary and content knowledge compared with “business as usual.”

What were the key findings at the teacher level?

The TSG PD produced significant impacts on observed vocabulary instruction, measured by OMVI, including sizable positive effects on both Teacher-Directed Vocabulary Instruction and Interactive Vocabulary Instruction scales.

Why were student-level impacts not observed?

The report hypothesizes that teachers may not have consistently applied learned practices, and informal interviews indicated they faced large effort demands and competing time pressures to cover required history content for state testing.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Maya Linwood