Centre for Program Evaluation—The University of Melbourne
This study examines the impact of the International Baccalaureate’s (IB) professional development (PD) model, practices and services. The multiphase, mixed-methods study included three phases: a literature review, a comparison of the IB’s PD model in relation to best practices, and a study of teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and self-efficacy before and after participating in IB PD. Based on the literature review, the researchers identified nine features of high-quality professional development. In assessing the IB’s professional development model against the nine best practices, findings suggest that IB PD is strongly aligned with the research literature in some areas although there are also clear gaps in other domains. Based on the surveys, for those who participated in IB professional development, positive changes were particularly pronounced for measures of self-efficacy, with medium to large effect sizes. In general, similar changes were not observed for the comparison group. After attending IB professional development workshops, participants, on average, reported significantly higher feelings of general, context-specific and collective self-efficacy, as well as significantly more positive attitudes towards the IB’s approaches to teaching and learning.
