




































BECE. Newsletter 

Vol.8, No.1, 2021 1066 

 

 

 

 

The Effects of Teacher Professional Development on 

Student Achievement 

By Wei, Y. 
Correspondence to: Wei, Y., China Institute for Educational Finance Research, 

Peking University, China. Email: ywei@ciefr.pku.edu.cn 

OST of the previous empirical studies on teacher professional devel-

opment mainly focused on the impacts of professional development 

activities on teachers themselves, while fewer analyzed the impacts on stu-

dents. Based on the standardized test scores of more than 40,000 high school 

students in Beijing from 2016 to 2019 and the questionnaire survey data col-

lected from about 2,000 teachers, researchers used a value-added model to 

examine the value-added effects of teachers on students’ academic achieve-

ment, and further analyzed the effects of teachers’ participation in district-

level and school-based teaching research activities on students’ academic 

achievement. The results of the study are as follows: 

 The degree of participation in regular teaching and researching 

activities district-level on average, feathered teaching and re-

searching activities, and activities related to effective profession-

al development elements have a significant positive relationship 

with the value-added of students’ achievement. 

 Generally speaking, the average degree of participation in 

school-based teaching and researching activities, formal and in-

formal exchanges among teachers, and the value-added of stu-

dents’ performance have a significant positive relationship. 

This research also has certain limitations. In order to accurately evalu-

ate the impact of teachers’ professional development activities on students’ 

academic performance, and revealing the mechanism and influence path of 

which, hence further study should focus on specific teachers’ professional 

development activities and relevant design considerations. In addition, stu-

dents’ achievement and teachers’ effectiveness are affected by various fac-

tors, therefore, it is also important to combine quantitative and qualitative re-

searches, collecting multi-dimensional teacher data, so as to more objectively 

evaluate the effects of teachers’ participation in professional development ac-

tivities on students’ achievement. 

 

Source: Education & Economy, 2021; 37(1):74-82+96. 

M 


