Effectiveness of researcher- and teacher-trained teachers in the domain of reading

Abstract

Observational learning seems to be a successful approach for improving students’ performance. For pre-university education, it resulted in positive effects on writing performance: students learn by watching and reflecting on the teacher’s or a peer’s task performance. This pedagogy seems promising for reading strategy education for pre-vocational students as well. In the current research a first group of pre-vocational teachers were trained by researchers in how to put observational learning into practice in the teaching of reading. These teachers in their turn each trained one or more colleagues in how to apply this approach. Using a cross-legged panel design, we studied the effects of both training conditions on teacher approach and on reading proficiency of pre-vocational students.