Relationships between primary school teachers' perceived learning outcomes of collaboration, foci and learning activities

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Highlights

  • Collaborative teacher learning at primary schools was investigated.

  • Learning outcomes were related to activities and foci of collaboration.

  • Engaging in collaborative activities related positively to learning outcomes.

  • Activities and foci of collaboration had an effect on learning outcomes.

Abstract

The importance of teacher collaborative learning is generally accepted. Nevertheless, little is known about what such collaborative learning looks like or what teachers learn from their collaborations during their everyday work. By comparing teacher learning within different contexts of collaboration across a large variety of schools, the present study hopes to show how collaborative learning varies in form and effect in different contexts of collaboration. The present study examined primary school teachers' perceived learning outcomes in relation to the frequency with which teachers perceived learning activities to occur in their collaboration with colleagues, as well as in relation to different foci of their collaboration. Three different foci as context of teacher collaboration were distinguished: (1) implementing new lesson materials, (2) implementing a new teaching approach, and (3) teaching a particular grade level group. A questionnaire was administered to 411 teachers from 49 schools, asking for their perceptions of the frequency of collaborative learning activities within three different foci as context of collaboration, and their perceived learning outcomes in these contexts. Findings show that engaging in collaborative activities related positively to learning outcomes in all foci. The least learning outcomes were perceived within the collaboration focussing on teaching a particular grade level group. Learning activities and foci of collaboration had both a unique as well as a joint effect on learning outcomes.

Introduction

Collaboration of teachers in the practice of their everyday school context is recognised as a crucial factor in teacher learning (McLaughin and Talbert, 2006, Richardson and Placier, 2001, Westheimer, 2008). During collaboration teachers can undertake activities like exchanging ideas or experiences and as a result of these activities teachers can learn individually, but a group of teachers can also develop new and shared understandings (Crossan et al., 1999, Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Although collaboration has been recognised as a powerful context for teacher learning, relatively little is known about actual collaborative learning in school contexts and about how learning activities undertaken in collaboration with colleagues are related to learning outcomes (Borko, 2004, Hindin et al., 2007, Little, 2002). The absence of this knowledge can be explained by the fact that most studies on teacher learning exclusively focussed on investigating the learning activities (Hoekstra, Korthagen, Brekelmans, Beijaard, & Imants, 2009). The few studies that explicitly addressed the relationship between learning activities and learning outcomes mainly focussed on teachers' individual learning outcomes, even though they measured learning in the context of collaboration (e.g., Bakkenes, Vermunt, & Wubbels, 2010). In addition, most studies were small-scale qualitative research studies and as a result these studies restricted themselves to one specific collaborative context within one particular school. The distinguished types of learning activities and learning outcomes as a result of these studies were informative with respect to the specific contexts within which these were investigated. Nevertheless, these specific contexts can differ to a large extent within and between schools and, as a result, the distinguished learning activities and learning outcomes are difficult to compare between studies (Borko et al., 2010, Stoll and Louis, 2007). Thus, little can be inferred as to how various contexts are related to learning activities and outcomes.

Comparison of collaborative contexts is complicated as these may differ from case to case regarding the dimensions of focus and setting. In many studies, the focus of collaboration refers to a specific innovation in the school, while the setting refers to the size and nature of the group of teachers involved and formal and informal structures within and across schools (Doppenberg, den Brok, & Bakx, 2012). In the present study it is assumed that different contexts of collaboration can be compared between schools, taking into account teachers' perceived learning activities and learning outcomes, for one dimension of collaboration at a time. Results of a previous interview study (Doppenberg, Bakx, & den Brok, 2012) showed that in various collaborative settings, different types and amounts of learning activities and learning outcomes were perceived. Whereas the previous study focussed on the setting of collaboration, the present study emphasizes the focus of collaboration.

As such, the present questionnaire study aims to contribute to a better understanding of collaborative learning by investigating primary school teachers' perceived learning outcomes in relation to unique and joint associations with teachers' perceived collaborative learning activities and foci of collaboration, taking into account differences between schools. To make it possible to compare collaborative learning processes between schools, a scope that encompasses and compares multiple foci of collaboration seems necessary, and can be regarded as a valuable addition to the existing line of research (Borko et al., 2010).

Section snippets

Collaborative learning activities

Studies on teachers' learning activities show that the types of collaboration distinguished by Little (1990) are generally accepted and can be used to categorise collaborative learning activities (e.g., Henze, 2006, Kwakman, 2003). Little (1990) distinguished four types of collaboration based on the degree of interdependency and collegiality: (1) storytelling and scanning, (2) aid and assistance, (3) sharing and (4) joint work. The first category, ‘storytelling and scanning’, refers to

Sample

To obtain a large sample for the study, primary school leaders in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands were contacted via various communication methods, such as telephone conversations and email. School leaders who had agreed to participate subsequently distributed the questionnaires to the teachers working at their schools. A total of 411 teachers from 49 primary schools agreed to participate and completed the questionnaire.

The number of teachers employed at the participating schools

Individual learning outcomes

Table 5 presents the results of the multilevel analyses for the individual learning outcomes. The empty model shows that almost 13% of the differences in individual learning outcomes were related to differences between schools, and over 87% to differences between teachers within schools.

The final model shows the relation of learning activities and foci of collaboration with individual learning outcomes, taking into account the overlapping effect of teacher background variables. The model shows

Conclusion and discussion

The aim of this study was to get a better understanding of teachers' perceived learning outcomes in relation to collaborative learning activities and foci of collaboration, taking into account differences between schools.

Overall, it can be concluded that the frequency with which teachers perceived collaborative learning activities was positively associated with the perceived learning outcomes. This conclusion confirms that teachers who collaborate more often with each other, create more

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