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TopResearch On Effective Teachers’ Professional Development
Although the long term effects of teachers’ professional development seem complex to determine (cf. Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010), and several barriers to teachers professional development have been identified (Diaz-Maggoli, 2004), there are many studies trying to establish what makes professional development effective (Boyle, While, & Boyle, 2004; Boyle, Lamprianou, & Boyle, 2005; Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birmann, & Yoon, 2001; Penuel, Fishman, Yamaguchi, & Gallagher, 2007). Studies have also been trying to establish if there is a relationship between different characteristics of professional development and student achievement (Huffman & Thomas, 2003; Johnson, Kahle, & Fargo, 2006; Shymansky, Yore, & Anderson, 2004; Yoon, Duncan, Lee, & Shapley, 2008). As previously noted, there are many stakeholders concerned with teachers’ professional development and there are different ways of conceptualising professional development (Desimone, 2009), as well as different ways of conceptualising what should be measured as its outcome (Wayne, Yoon, Zhu, Cronen, & Garet, 2008).