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Factors Enhancing Sustained Use of Research-Based Instructional Practices

Russell Gersten, David Chard and Scott Baker
J Learn Disabil 2000 33: 445
DOI: 10.1177/002221940003300505

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Factors Enhancing Sustained Use
of Research-Based Instructional
Practices
Russell Gersten, David Chard, and Scott Baker
esearch that systematically ana-
lyzes and elucidates the factors
t~- that sustain classroom use of re-
search-based practices has become a
paramount need in special education.
In focus groups conducted with teach-
ers, family members, and researchers,
this topic emerges as a primary source
of disappointment among all three
groups (Gersten & McInerney, 1997).
Two years ago, the Office of Special
Education Programs of the U. S. De-
partment of Education identified the
sustainability of research-based prac-
tices as a major research priority area,
and, for many years, it has been a
major priority of the National Science
Foundation.
Only recently has special education
begun to address the issue of sustain-
ability. To date, special education re-
search has addressed this issue pri-
marily in the form of self-reflective
essays (Abbott, Walton, Tapia, &
Greenwood, 1999; Fuchs & Fuchs,
1998; Gersten, Vaughn, Deshler, &
Schiller, 1997; Mastropieri & Scruggs,
1998; Vaughn, Klingner, & Hughes,
2000; Woodward, 1993). We were able
to locate only empirical study
one on
this topic involving students with
learning disabilities. Klingner, Vaughn,
Hughes, and Arguelles (1999) worked
with teachers for 1 year on reading ap-
proaches they could use in the class-
rooms. Three years after this profes-
sional development experience, nearly
all of the teachers continued using
some of the practices in which they
were trained.
Although reflective essays are often education student populations, al-
illuminating, it is important to cut though we believe the findings have
across the experiences of individual re- direct relevance for the teaching of stu-
searchers and develop a deeper under- dents with LD.
standing of the constellation of factors Although many of the practices in-
that enhance or discourage sustainabil- vestigated in the school-reform studies
ity. A more dispassionate understand- of the 1980s may appear dated, the in-
ing of this topic seems particularly sights generated from this rich body of
important now in light of recent ad- research remain, by and large, relevant
vances in innovative instructional ap- today. In this article, we review key
proaches that benefit students with LD findings from school-reform studies of
and the increasing sophistication and the 1980s and explain their relevance to
effectiveness of teacher professional- special education. We also highlight
development technologies. significant findings from more recent
Determining why teachers decide to studies that help elucidate and flesh
continue or discontinue use of docu- out the earlier findings. Finally, we
mented effective innovative practices identify unresolved issues. In order to
when external support (i.e., active in- effectively articulate the components
volvement of a research team at the of research on sustainability, it is nec-
classroom level) is removed has been essary to restrict the scope of our pre-
the subject of much interest and fasci- sentation. The area we target here is the
nating speculation. However, surpris- sustained use of effective teacher prac-
ingly little empirical research has been tices in the classroom. Other areas in-
conducted. Not only is the long-term volved in the implementation of inno-
sustainability of effective practices un- vative practices in education-such
known, even research regarding how asfamily-centered early intervention,
best to initiate change is still in a rela- transition services, technology use,
tively formative stage. and integration-are fascinating and
Much of what we do know about worthy of serious reflection but lie be-
school change comes from studies con- yond the scope of this article.
ducted in the 1980s, when the federal
government expended considerable
resources on researching the topic of The First Wave of
change and how new approaches be- Change Studies
come incorporated into daily practice
in districts, schools, and classrooms. In their pioneering large-scale study of
Much of this research was conducted innovation, the Rand Change Study,
with student populations considered Berman and McLaughlin (1976, 1978)
to be at risk for school failure. Virtually began to elucidate factors that facili-
none of the studies involved special tated teachers’ implementation of
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445-
446

novel instructional practices. The Rand
study involved the evaluation of many
different types of partnerships be-
tween public schools and local uni-
versities or research-and-development
institutions. Primarily survey-based,
these studies took a broad policy-
analysis approach to examining factors
related to school change. Specifically,
teachers and administrators completed
surveys that addressed their percep-
tions of recently adopted innovations.
For the most part, these survey ques-
tions were quite broad. For example,
they addressed teacher reactions to the
level of support they received when
Another important finding relates large amounts of energy in helping
most directly to our understanding of each school or community discern
sustainability. &dquo;Active commitment&dquo; what its unique problem was drove
on the part of district leadership was schools and communities to do just
essential to project success and long- that and (b) resources were thus dissi-
term stability. However, such commit- pated away from professional devel-
ment was insufficient in those cases opment and support activities.
where the district began its involve- Within a few years of its release,
ment at the point when external fund- however, policy analysts such as Datta
ing for the project ended. Rather, com- (1981) and researchers such as Gersten,
mitment had to be in place from the Carnine, and Williams (1982) disputed
outset of the project as a way to ensure this interpretation of the data gathered
continuity and to &dquo;undergird&dquo; proj- in the surveys, citing methodological
the
ect (McLaughlin, 1990, p. 12). This problems. Although the methodologi-
finding was corroborated in several cal issues cited in the analyses now
other studies (Crandall, 1983; Hall & seem arcane, they resonated with one

implementing a new program.
In the first series of analyses, Berman
and McLaughlin made several inter-
esting and important findings. Rather
unexpectedly, they found that the
amount of resources used to initiate an
innovation bore little relation to the in-
novation’s success. Another emergent
Loucks, 1977; A. M. Huberman &
Miles, 1984).
z
The Finding That Dissipated
Over Time
Berman and McLaughlin (1978) origi-
nally concluded that effective and sus-
of the report’s principal investigators.
In 1990, McLaughlin indicated that she
and colleagues had over-interpreted
their initial finding. The support needed
to sustain effective change (i.e., the in-
fluence of local motivation and mutual
adaptation) might have been erro-
neous. At the least, it was overempha-

finding was that practices that helped
teachers succeed with low-achieving
students promoted the continued use
of those practices.
The researchers also noted that the
scope of an innovation had a tremen-
dous impact on the likelihood that the
innovation would be implemented. At
one extreme, an innovation with a very
broad scope provided little guidance
regarding actual teaching practices
and behaviors. At the other extreme, an
innovation with a narrow scope pro-
vided extensive detail concerning ex-
actly what teachers were to do in the
classroom to implement the innova-
tion correctly. Berman and McLaughlin
tained change efforts emanated from
local motivation and beliefs rather
than externally imposed policy and
that only innovations that were &dquo;mu-
tually adapted&dquo; to meet the unique
needs of a given school or community
had any chance of sustained use. This
remained the most-cited finding of the
initial research report. It questioned
the long-term impact of using trainers
from local universities or laboratories
to provide concrete technical assis-
tance to teachers.
Berman and McLaughlin (1976,
1978) argued that all educational prob-
lems are very complex; therefore, there
are no solutions that will work in large
sized by both the report’s authors and
other policy analysts at the time. Later
research conducted by McLaughlin
and others supported a significant
modification of the original conclu-
sion. For example, Guskey (1986) and
Smylie (1988) found that changes in
teachers’ beliefs and motivation often
followed changes in practice rather
than preceded them. In other words, if
teachers discovered that a particular
practice was effective with their stu-
dents, then the practice enjoyed sus-
tained implementation and teachers’
beliefs were subsequently altered. Even
without extensive mutual adaptation,
a host of research-based practices

(1976,1978) found that if the scope was
too broad or abstract, progress toward
implementation was negligible. They
reasoned that innovations that were
too abstract left teachers grasping for
practical classroom applications. On
the other hand, overly detailed inno-
vations did not succeed in engaging
teachers’ interest. A clear message from
this finding is that it is necessary to
strike a middle ground when estab-
lishing the scope and specificity of pro-
posed innovations.
numbers of schools and communities.
Obviously, this finding was alarming
to the research community as well as to
federal policymakers. If, for example,
the findings of the large-scale effective
teaching research studies and begin-
ning reading studies supported by the
U. S. Department of Education had
only local relevance, the entire nature
of the educational research enterprise
was in question. There were two re-
sults from this &dquo;finding&dquo;: (a) the impli-
cation of the importance of exerting
seemed to be adopted by teachers.
McLaughlin (1990) also reinter-
preted the original Rand study’s find-
ings that (a) locally developed pro-
fessional development or technical
assistance efforts succeed far better
than those developed by outsiders and
(b) outside &dquo;expertise&dquo; rarely led to
long-term of innovative practices.
use
McLaughlin noted that some of the ex-
ternal professional development ap-
proaches used by outside consultants
in the 1970s might have been ineffec-

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tive because of a total failure to &dquo;con-
sider features of the local setting that
demanded modification and special at-
tention&dquo; (p. 14). The rigidity and in-
flexibility of some of the pioneers in
professional development of the 1970s
might have led to short-term use of
their practices and a host of other im-
plementation problems (see, for exam-
ple, Fullan, 1991; Gersten, Carnine,
Zoref, & Cronin, 1986). Since then, ex-
ternal change agents have learned to
adjust implementation to fit the reali-
ties of schools and districts while still
maintaining the integrity of the prac-
tices (Gersten et al., 1997).
McLaughlin’s recantation also re-
flected, we believe, an awareness that,
as Datta (1981) had pointed out a
decade earlier, the study had only
examined a limited range of innova-
tive practices and had &dquo;oversampled&dquo;
those with a strong local development
component and &dquo;undersampled&dquo; those
with experienced professional devel-
opment specialists and networks of
trainers.
Perhaps the most salient finding of
the original Berman and McLaughlin
(1976) report got lost in the shuffle. The
authors reported that sustained use
was directly related to practices that
teachers felt helped them with their
difficult-to-teach students. This find-
ing has direct relevance for special
education.
Despite the methodological prob-
lems, Berman and McLaughlin’s (1978)
study demonstrated that serious re-
search could be conducted on imple-
mentation issues. This led to a wave of
studies in the late 1970s and 1980s, sev-
eral of which directly addressed the
issue of sustained use.
Understanding Sustainability
Via a Wide Range of
Innovations
A strength of the Rand study, as well as
of other early studies of classroom and
school change (Crandall, 1983; A. M.
Huberman & Miles, 1984; Stebbins, St.
Pierre, Proper, Anderson, & Cerva,
1977), is that wide arrays of school im-
provement efforts were examined.
This strength is also a weakness, how-
ever.By including in the same investi-
gation a wide range of practices (from
new models of postsecondary transi-
tion to institutionalization of native
language instruction for students who
are English-language learners to sys-
tems for allowing teachers to better
track students’ daily or weekly aca-
demic progress), it is extremely difficult
to identify factors associated with sus-
tainability that are specific to a partic-
ular innovation. Because of its breadth,
it was impossible for the Rand study to
investigate the relationship between
features of the strategies used to pro-
mote change and the nature of the in-
novations being studied. The inability
to examine this relationship (a draw-
back of many of the early studies) may
have contributed to the confusion in
understanding critical issues sur-
rounding change, as McLaughlin her-
self pointed out in 1990.
As a starting point for addressing the
important distinctions among innova-
tions, it is helpful to differentiate be-
tween two fundamental types of inno-
vation : structural and core-of-teaching.
We define structural innovations as ones
that target noninstructional changes
that may only tangentially affect what
educators teach in their classrooms.
These include co-teaching, institution-
alization of native language instruc-
tion for English-language learners, the
use of special education teachers to
provide postsecondary transition ser-
vices, and a move from period sched-
uling to block scheduling in middle
and high schools. All of these innova-
tions require changes outside of teach-
ers’ instructional practices. Core-of-
teaching innovations target instructional
practices used in teaching the core dis-
ciplines : reading, writing, mathemat-
ics, and science. One reason we em-
phasize this distinction is the largely
autonomous nature of classroom
teaching in both general and special
education (Gersten, Keating, Yovanoff,
& Harniss, 1999; Lortie, 1975; Rosen-
Downloaded from ldx.sagepub.com by Maxim Andreea on October 29, 2014
447
holtz, 1989). In contrast to structural in-
novations, attempts to alter the core of
teaching invariably involve confront-
ing issues of teacher autonomy.
Our distinction bears some parallels
with those made by Ellmore (1996),
who clearly differentiated between
those change efforts that target the core
of teaching and those he referred to as
being more peripheral (e.g., block
scheduling in the middle school, a re-
shaping of transition services, and re-
organizing a secondary school into sev-
eral smaller &dquo;schools within schools&dquo;).
Although such changes may have pro-
found impacts on the lives of students,
we believe teachers respond to them in
fundamentally different ways than
they do to initiatives requiring them to
modify their actual teaching practices.
Ellmore noted that, by and large, those
innovations aimed at the heart of class-
room teaching typically are not as suc-
cessful in being implemented on a
large scale.
Making clear the distinction be-
tween these two types of innovations is
critical in understanding the sustain-
ability of effective innovations. Struc-
tural innovations seem to require more
local knowledge of school culture as
well as district and state policies re-
garding practice. At the building level,
school schedules, chains of com-
mand, time commitments, available re-
sources, and community values heav-
ily influence the kinds of structural
changes that may succeed. For exam-
ple, for school personnel to begin to
implement co-teaching in their build-
ing, they would need to consider the
&dquo;fit&dquo; of the approach with staff size,
class schedules, required financial
commitment, personnel relationships,
and the general logistical complica-
tions associated with moving teachers
and instructional assistants through-
out the building. Similarly, if a system
of monitoring student progress in
reading fluency were to be imple-
mented schoolwide, many structural
changes would have to be considered,
such as monitoring frequency; respon-
sibilities for training and collecting
448
data; organization and analysis of data;
and presentation of data to parents,
teachers, and students.
In contrast, innovations that address
changes in core teaching practices re-
quire very different considerations. For
example, if the goal of the innovation
is to get teachers to integrate phonemic
awareness instruction into their read-
ing and language arts programs, pro-
fessional development efforts should
target teachers’ current knowledge of
phonemic awareness, how it can be
taught most effectively, how to assess
if students are learning what they need
to know, and how to provide more fo-
cused instruction for those students
who are experiencing difficulties. Sim-
ilarly, if a school planned to implement
mathematics instruction to meet the
standards published by the National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics
(1989), or wanted to shift science in-
struction from predominantly text-
book and paper-and-pencil approaches
to hands-onapproaches (Ellmore, marily through the National Diffusion
1996), teachers would have to trans- Network. Multiple research and evalu-
form how they think about and imple- ation groups (Crandall, 1983; A. M.
ment mathematics and science instruc-
tion. It would require that they learn
not only new approaches to teaching
math and science, but also instruc-
tional planning and management in
order to accommodate the new peda-
gogical approaches while maintaining
effective instruction for students with
learning difficulties.
Distinguishing between these two
types of innovation leads to more per-
tinent areas of emphasis. For structural
innovations, local knowledge (Golden-
berg & Gallimore, 1991) and the align-
ment between the innovation and the
characteristics of a particular school
are critical. In contrast, for core-of-
teaching innovations, teacher under-
standing and willingness to consider
new content and pedagogical ap-
proaches are critical, while knowledge
of local school culture may be only
minimally important. However, knowl-
edge of school culture and norms and
of the personalities of a district’s key
players will always be useful in any
Downloaded from ldx.sagepub.com by Maxim Andreea on October 29, 2014
type of change, even efforts that deal
with of teaching innovations.
core
Having made this distinction, we
must now consider which factors facil-
itate and which hinder the implemen-
tation and sustained use of core-of-
teaching innovations. To this end, we
will explore alternative routes to initi-
ating changes in core-of-teaching prac-
tices, including a historical account of
implementation research and its
lessons for sustainability and the ef-
forts of contemporary research on
teacher understanding and practical
knowledge.
The&dquo;High Road&dquo; to Sustainable
Implementation
Some of the earliest studies that con-
sidered the issue of sustained use of
core-of-teaching variables were the
Dissemination Efforts Supporting
School Improvement (DESSI) studies
that examined validated projects, pri-
Huberman & Miles, 1984; Loucks, 1983)
conducted this series of frequently
cited studies. Using both qualitative
and quantitative methodologies, they
provided a rich picture of factors re-
lated to implementation of validated
innovations and factors that facilitated
their sustained use. Of the various
analyses conducted on these data, the
one by A. M. Huberman and Miles is
most relevant to our discussion of sus-
tainability, because their sites were in
the third or fourth year of implemen-
tation and were receiving no external
support. Consequently, the authors
were able to draw inferences concern-
ing low- versus high-sustainability
sites.
A. M. Huberman and Miles (1984)
examined school improvement proj-
ects at 12 sites in 10 states. The im-
provement models varied consider-
ably, ranging from efforts to improve a
school’s environment to specific aca-
demic interventions. We are most in-
terested in the latter. In Project Catch-
Up, for example, one rural school in
the southeastern region of the country
adopted a pull-out remedial lab using
a diagnostic-prescriptive approach to
teaching reading and mathematics. In
another project, a small school district
in one of the Plains states adopted the
Exemplary Center for Reading Instruc-
tion (ECRI) program, a highly struc-
tured reading and language arts pro-
gram in Grades 2 through 6. A third
project was identified through the Ti-
tle IV-C program and was developed
locally, similar to those projects in the
Rand study discussed earlier. This proj-
ect also focused on reading but was
designed to replace the English cur-
riculum in Grades 9 through 12. These
three examples provide an idea con-
cerning the range of the projects exam-
ined in this research. Although the var-
ied designs of these projects do not
allow us to draw conclusions about
specific innovations, many of them
were focused on the core of teaching.
One of the most important findings
of the A. M. Huberman and Miles
(1984) study was that there are differ-
ent pathways to sustained use. The au-
thors began their conclusion this way:
&dquo;One path to high levels of sustained
use stemmed from administrative
mandate; another went via strong user
commitment and practice mastery&dquo;
(p. 277). It is important to note that
practice mastery invariably resulted
from strong levels of ongoing technical
assistance during the early years. Of
these two paths to sustainability, the
latter path led to better implementa-
tion. It was this path that A. M. Huber-
man and Miles called &dquo;the high road to
success&dquo; (p. 193).
This road to success may be optimal
for both pragmatic and professional
reasons. Pragmatically, administrators
and administrative fiats come and go,
and those who rely on top-down man-
dates as a sole source of sustainability
are invariably frustrated (Fuchs &
Fuchs, 1998; Gersten, 1990). The major
problem with the &dquo;top-down&dquo; path or
&dquo;low road&dquo; to sustained implementa-
tion is that typically it depends on con-

tinued support from administrators,
who often switch schools or positions
and/or adapt to shifts in state and na-
tional policies (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1998;
Fullan, 1990). Unless additional &dquo;grass-
roots&dquo; supports are available, imple-
mentation will rarely exist for the long
term. This approach also underesti-
mates the complexity of the ongoing
development of teacher knowledge
and practice. It tends to embrace a lin-
ear model of professional development
(Malouf & Schiller, 1995) in which
teachers first receive information from
outside sources and then are expected
to implement the new instructional ap-
proach or validated procedure in the
classroom. Its greatest shortcomings
are that it often fails to provide suffi-
cient time for teachers to develop prac-
tice mastery and to &dquo;think through&dquo;
the change effort (see Note).
A. M. Huberman and Miles’ (1984)
high road does provide reason for op-
timism. Their finding that teachers
who reach practice mastery on a par-
ticular innovation or set of innovations
are likely to continue using the inno-
vation for a sustained period of time
has been independently replicated.
In the 1980s, we examined whether
teachers used direct instruction tech-
niques years after external funding
was removed and the SRA Reading
Mastery no longer served as the school
curriculum. We documented how
teachers continued to use the empiri-
cally based teaching approaches such
as instruction driven by specific objec-
tives ; explicit teaching of strategies;
regular use of cumulative review; and
frequent, immediate feedback to stu-
dents (Kinder, Gersten, & Kelly, 1989),
even though there was no external in-
centive to do so. However, only those
teachers who were deemed proficient
at the time of the original project used
these teaching techniques. In other
words, this study served as an inde-
pendent replication of the A. M. Hu-
berman and Miles (1984) finding that
practice mastery is one essential com-
ponent for sustained use. The power of
practice mastery to sustain core teach-
ing innovations is made evident by the
fact that teachers still acknowledge
that they use many of the effective
teaching techniques learned over a
decade ago despite the decidedly di-
minished importance placed on these
techniques in many educational cir-
cles.
Effective teaching techniques that
dominated professional development
during the late 1960s and 1970s did not
fully meet the criteria for the high road
to sustained use, however. Profes-
sional development experts failed to
ensure that teachers adequately under-
stood how these techniques could
meet the learning needs of their stu-
dents. Stated differently, they failed to
create a learning environment in which
teachers would demand to learn these
techniques because they understood
(a) that the benefits were for students
and (b) why those benefits could be ex-
pected (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1998).
In those days, professional develop-
ment involving effective teaching tech-
niques was often based on one-shot, in-
service presentations or teacher guides
that focused almost exclusively on the
measurable dimensions of the behav-
iors needed to &dquo;implement&dquo; the proce-
dure correctly. Remarkably, they gave
short shrift to the underlying princi-
ples that were the reasons why teach-
ers would want to use those behaviors
in the first place.
Kennedy (1991) noted how many
change agents of the 1970s and 1980s,
especially those with a strong behav-
ioral or technical orientation, often
promoted innovations that had limited
lasting impacts. Perhaps what also de-
tracted from a focus on teacher con-
ceptual understanding was that the
effective teaching approaches them-
selves were mostly derived from a the-
oretical orientation based primarily on
observations of effective classrooms
(Anderson, Evertson, & Brophy, 1979;
Evertson, Anderson, Anderson, & Bro-
phy, 1980; Good & Grouws, 1977;
Stallings, 1980). Over the past decade,
many efforts have focused more on en-
suring teacher understanding of inno-
Downloaded from ldx.sagepub.com by Maxim Andreea on October 29, 2014
449
vations (Ball, 1990; Richardson, 1994;
Saunders & Goldenberg, 1999). How-
ever, it is still common for professional
development experts to try to train
teachers in the behavioral components
of an innovation without fully articu-
lating their own assumptions as to
why it is a superior teaching method
(Kennedy, 1991, p. 6) and without in-
fluencing teacher beliefs and under-
standing accordingly (Richardson,
1994).
Teacher Understanding
Kennedy (1991) noted that in the 1970s
and 1980s researchers seldom &dquo;took
into account the deeply-held and tacit
convictions that teachers brought with
them&dquo; (p. 23). More recent research on
teacher change has shifted, however, to
include teacher understanding as part
of the conceptual framework underly-
ing successful innovations. The impor-
tance of understanding teachers’ im-
plicit as well as explicit beliefs and
convictions has been stressed convinc-
ingly by Pajares (1992) and Richardson
(1994).
A. M. Huberman and Miles (1984)
used the term teacher understanding in
their broad implementation study but
not in the same way it was commonly
used in the 1990s. They exclusively de-
fined it in the context of procedural
knowledge. In other words, if a teacher
was confused about the steps in the
process of learning a particular ap-
proach, he or she was considered to
have low understanding. Similarly, the
broader view of teacher understanding
did not play a role in the research on ef-
fective teaching, which focused almost
exclusively on mastery of teaching
procedures.
Of course, teacher understanding
and teacher behavior do not develop
independently. For example, when in-
novations that target core-of-teaching
variables are well implemented, there
is almost always a corresponding
change in the way teachers think about
teaching and learning. This may be
450

why A. M. Huberman and Miles (1984) velopment efforts than on the behav- while also helping them to connect
cast teacher understanding in light of ioral practices that would be used in those principles to the complex class-
procedural knowledge. Teacher under- the classroom. It soon became clear, room environment (Cohen, 1990; Wil-

standing that develops through accu- however, that insufficient emphasis on liams & Baxter, 1996). The ambitious
rate implementation of innovation has classroom application left teachers nature of this challenge has made im-
been documented in projects focused struggling with a range of problems as- plementation of reform-based instruc-
on changing student social behavior sociated with day-to-day instruction, tional practices problematic.
(e.g., Cheney, Barringer, Upham, & including a lack of adequate materials Similar reforms that were part of
Manning, 1996). In the course of work- and strategies for adapting instruction special education, such as work in
ing toward procedural fidelity, teach- to meet the needs of a range of learners. teacher planning and curricular modi-
ers come to learn a great deal about In the 1990s, sustained use of re- fications (Deshler, Ellis, & Lenz, 1996;
how their actions influence the social forms was an integral part of the Schumm et al.,1995), have not been as
behavior of their students. reforms themselves. In other words, re- problematic. Although these reforms
Consider, for example, the change in forms constituted attempts to rethink- were also quite conceptual in nature

understanding that occurs when teach-
ers implement a strong phonemic
awareness program (Baker & Smith,
1999). As children become more
knowledgeable about word structure
and how this can be manipulated or
&dquo;played with,&dquo; teachers’ conceptual
understanding of what they are teach-
ing and why they are teaching it de-
velops quickly. Consequently, they are
more interested in continuing the in-
in many cases from the ground up-
how to teach particular content.
Reforms for teaching history, for exam-
ple, started by reexamining the very
basis for teaching historical knowl-
edge, resulting in the development of
new content standards. These stan-
dards included an emphasis on read-
ing primary documents and studying
history from multiple perspectives
rather than taking a static view of his-
(e.g., promoting teacher understand-
ing of how to identify and teach big
ideas as well as how to make accom-
modations for students with LD or
other at-risk students) they also in-
cluded explicit procedural guidelines
that addressed day-to-day implemen-
tation issues. Another important facet
of these reform efforts in special edu-
cation was that they encouraged teach-
ers to think about how they could

struction. Also, deepening conceptual
understanding can spur refinements in
teaching practice that lead to addi-
tional increases in student learning
(Marks & Gersten, 1998). Although this
type of change in teacher understand-
ing should not be underestimated, it is
also important to remember that it can
be imperfect (Ball, 1990; Cohen, 1990;
Williams & Baxter, 1996).
Examples of this imperfection can be
seen in contemporary efforts. In the
late 1980s and throughout the 1990s,
many educational reforms differed
from earlier efforts in several respects.
They were less behavioral in nature
and tended not to be supported by
prior research on classroom effective-
ness. Rather, they were based on re-
search in developmental psychology
torical events. With this approach to re-
form, concern focused more on devel-
oping teachers’ knowledge of what is
important in the content area rather
than on procedures of how to teach it.
Many reforms of the early 1990s
often represented such radical depar-
tures from what teachers had been
doing in their classrooms that they
were required to rethink all aspects of
their professional knowledge, includ-
ing general pedagogical knowledge
such as classroom management and
learner characteristics, subject matter
knowledge such as identifying and
teaching the big ideas of a content area,
and pedagogical content knowledge
that focused on ways to conceptualize
the teaching of a particular subject
(Ball, 1990; Lampert, 1990; Williams &
apply important instructional ideas or
principles to a number of different so-
lutions. For example, Fuchs and Fuchs
(1998) realized very early that teachers
require more than just deep under-
standing of students’ learning needs to
successfully implement new innova-
tions. They also need a menu of ideas
for actually adapting instruction to
meet those needs. Fuchs and Fuchs
tried to allow for shifts in the activity
structures of classrooms to accommo-
date teachers’ understanding and
predilections while simultaneously
promoting the implementation of spe-
cific procedures that would influence
student learning.
One important result of professional
development research in the 1990s was
a broadened awareness of the critical

(e.g., National Council of Teachers of
Math standards) or on theories ema-
nating from cognitive psychology (e.g.,
Vygotsky’s zone of proximal develop-
ment). Consequently, the emphasis
was more on developing teachers’ un-
derstanding of the underlying theories
that drove pedagogical and curricular
Baxter, 1996). These reforms required
that teachers understand their profes-
sion at a level not easily attained
(Cohen, 1990). Consequently, teachers
were constrained by their current
knowledge and beliefs (Cohen & Ball,
1990). The challenge of these reforms
has been to facilitate teachers’ under-
role teacher understanding plays in the
sustained implementation of innova-
tive practices. Moreover, there is a
growing sense of the importance of in-
tegrating the underlying concepts that
drive instruction with the practice or
craft knowledge teachers bring to bear
as they work to implement innovative

recommendations and professional de- standing of underlying principles instruction practices (Malouf & Schil-

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ler, 1995). Rarely, ifever, have profes-
sional development efforts success-
fully achieved this type of integration.
We believe that some research teams
in special education have begun to en-
gage in this type of complex profes-
sional development framework. For
example, Englert and her colleagues
(Englert & Tarrant, 1995) worked on
long-term and extensive professional
development activities with their proj-
ect teachers that have resulted in mul-
tifaceted literacy interventions for stu-
dents with and without LD. However,
important aspects of Englert and Tar-
rant’s work with teachers need to be
considered in making generalizations
about the utility of their professional
development model. First, although
much of the research Englert and Tar-
rant conduct is in general education
settings, it is frequently the case that
students with LD receive innovative
instructional interventions in special
education classrooms rather than in
general education settings. Second, the
model they use is very intensive for a
small group of teachers, and there is lit-
tle in the work they do with teachers
that provides any kind of blueprint for
the way these activities could be ex-
tended to larger numbers of teachers
without extensive costs.
Recent research by Birman, Desi-
mone, Porter, and Garet (2000) rein-
forces and extends earlier findings. In
their extensive study of effective pro-
fessional development projects that
were part of the Eisenhower Profes-
sional Development Program, they
noted that three features were essential
for success: (a) intensity and duration
of professional development, (b) pro-
fessional development content that
was relevant and research based, and
(c) opportunities for active learning on
the part of teachers (e.g., role playing a
lesson, joint planning of curriculum,
critique of videos or lessons). It is im-
portant to note that Birman et al. found
that these factors were linked to effec-
tiveness regardless of the philosophi-
cal orientation of the professional de-
velopment effort.
Teacher Efficacy Research
A major part of 1980s research con-
cerned teachers’ sense of efficacy, de-
fined as teachers’ perceptions about
their ability to teach their students
(Ashton & Webb, 1986; Gibson &
Dembo, 1984). A host of findings have
linked teacher efficacy with positive
student outcomes and teacher commit-
ment (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Berman &
McLaughlin, 1978; Coladarci, 1992;
Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Greene, An-
derson, & Loewen, 1988; Hoover-
Dempsey, Bassler, & Brissie, 1997; Hoy
& Woolfolk, 1990; Soar & Soar, 1982).
Most germane to our discussion of sus-
tainability of innovative practices is the
finding that teachers with a greater
sense of efficacy are more likely than
their peers to adopt proposals associ-
ated with well-articulated innovations
and ongoing staff development pro-
grams (Berman & McLaughlin, 1976;
Guskey, 1986; Poole, Okeafor, & Sloan,
1989; Rose & Medway, 1981; Smylie,
1988). This finding implies that the
teacher efficacy construct is far more
important than what was previously
referred to as &dquo;teacher attitudes and
beliefs.&dquo; These constructs were much
more general in nature and lacked the
explanatory power that has been asso-
ciated with teacher efficacy (Sparks,
1983). In our view, one reason that
teachers’ attitudes towards an inno-
vation prior to engaging in the change ef-
fort were not significantly correlated
with the extent of use was that teach-
ers frequently had little knowledge on
which to base their opinions. Sparks
(1988) and subsequent researchers
(Guskey, 1990) found that teachers’ at-
titudes are shaped only after they’ve
had a chance to really use an innova-
tive practice.
Other studies have examined the ef-
fects of school context variables on
teacher efficacy. For example, Smylie
(1988) reported that the proportion of
low-achieving students in a teacher’s
classroom had a negative effect on the
teacher’s sense of efficacy, whereas in-
teractions with colleagues about in-
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451
struction seemed positively related to a
teacher’s personal efficacy.
Role of Professional Discourse
Communities in Enhancing
Sustained Use
The importance of collegial networks
for sustained use of research-based
practice has been increasingly empha-
sized in the professional development
research. Little (1993) cited several
benefits. These include developing &dquo;a
norm of informed and steady experi-
mentation&dquo; in teaching (i.e., opportu-
nities to experiment with new tech-
niques, evaluate their impact, and then
refine instruction based on the data). In
addition, she noted how collegial net-
works can increase teacher capacity by
allowing teams of teachers to capitalize
on joint expertise. For example, those
teachers with extensive skills or inter-
est in the writing process can share
their knowledge with peers in a much
more collegial, practical, useful fashion
than in a brief visit from an outside
consultant with expertise in writing.
Similarly, as teachers begin to imple-
ment reforms in the teaching of math-
ematics, those individuals with facility
in the more abstract algebraic aspects
underlying arithmetic can share their
expertise with colleagues in a fashion
that is far less intimidating and poten-
tially more grounded in the realities of
day-to-day teaching than in a univer-
sity course.
McLaughlin (1994) reported that
many teachers not only fail to sustain
effective practices but often feel fa-
tigued by, and unable to accommodate,
the challenging students in their class-
rooms. She noted, however, that one
factor that distinguished teachers who
felt overwhelmed by challenging stu-
dents from teachers who felt they
could meet those students’ needs was
&dquo;membership in some strong profes-
sional community&dquo; (p. 33). Profes-
sional communities seem to provide
teachers with an avenue of profes-
sional development that in many ways
is more authentic than traditional pro-
452

fessional development. For example, if
a teacher has an idea for a new peda-
gogical approach, he or she might turn
to the professional community (e.g.,
International Reading Association) to
get feedback, suggestions, recommen-
dations, or resources.
In their recent study of the vagaries
of schoolwide reform in seven urban
districts, David and Shields (1999)
found that in the few schools with sus-
tained change in teaching practice, col-
legial professional development com-
munities were almost always present.
These professional development or
learning communities &dquo;involve(d) en-
tire faculties over a period of many
years and include(d) opportunities to
tal or school level typically are not en- standing of the &dquo;end users,&dquo; in this
couraged or supported, at least ini- case, teachers. Analogous to Erikson’s
tially, by larger organizations. Rather, (1963) stages of development, teachers
they tend to evolve at a grassroots level also progress through a series of stages
when the &dquo;right&dquo; combination of teach- as they develop from newcomers fresh
ers are in close proximity to each other. out of a preservice program to sea-
Once in place, however, school- or soned teachers with multiple years of
district-level professional organiza- experience in the classroom (M. Hu-
tions are sustained by administrative berman, 1995). Knowledge of these
support as well as various logistical stages should influence the nature of
concerns, such as time and a place to teacher development activities for dif-
meet. ferent teachers.
State, regional, national networks,
or M. Huberman (1995) described teach-
in contrast, provide a clearer structure ers’ careers in terms of a stage model.
in which teachers can share and refine The first stage, during the first 3 years
their ideas about timely and important of teaching, is characterized as a &dquo;sur-
professional issues. These networks vival&dquo; and &dquo;exploration&dquo; stage. This is
also serve to rejuvenate professional a time when teachers hunger for a cur-

learn new content knowledge and
teaching strategies, to learn from col-
leagues [italics added], and to have help
available at the school site from staff
developers, the principal and peers&dquo;
(p. 42).
Lord (1991) and Lieberman and
McLaughlin (1992) discussed the posi-
tive effects of teacher collaboratives
centered on subject matter teaching in
mathematics, science, and language
arts. They noted, how, for example, the
intellectual stimulation can provide
great spillover effects onto how teach-
ers convey subject matter. Little (1993)
described a group of teachers who
were struggling with how to effec-
tively teach students to edit and revise
their first drafts, a chronic problem in
the teaching of expressive writing. In a
joint project with the Philadelphia
Public Library, these teachers studied
how 20th century writers revised their
work. The potential for enhancement
of classroom teaching should be clear.
Effective communities exist at many
different levels: within a school de-
partment ; at schoolwide or district lev-
els ; or at state, regional, or national
levels (McLaughlin, 1994). Examples of
state, regional, and national profes-
sional organizations are the New York
Council for Children with Behavior
Disorders, the Bay Area Writing Proj-
ect, and the Association for Direct In-
struction. Professional communities
commitment to a particular teaching
approach. This rejuvenation function
can powerful
exert a influence
on sus-
tainability issues, exemplified by the
as
Bay Area Writing Project. Members of
this community regularly receive up-
dates related to practice and recom-
mended changes in their teaching
while simultaneously soliciting teach-
ers’ viewpoints and evidence of suc-
cessful implementation. This kind of
professional network sends a clear
message to its members that they are
valued professionals and can make im-
portant contributions to their profes-
sion (McLaughlin, 1994). Examples of
such professional networking abound-
groups centered on the National Coun-
cil of Teachers of Math framework, the
Association for Direct Instruction, and
the Educational Research and Devel-
opment group of the American Feder-
ation of Teachers. As teachers forge re-
lationships with their colleagues and
find an avenue to discuss their con-
cerns regarding instructional ap-
proaches, they may become more cer-
tain of their practice and, consequently,
feel more efficacious.
Understanding the Stages of
Teacher Development
One of the few empirical findings of
the last 5 years is the idea that the
effectiveness of teacher development
riculum to guide their instruction.
Teachers frequently feel vulnerable
during this period and thus will search
for ways to survive in the classroom.
Sometimes this survival mode results
in greater openness to trying new ap-
proaches in the
hope that something
will help stabilize their instruction.
However, they may turn to a new in-
structional approach because of the at-
tention it receives rather than the
weight of evidence supporting its ef-
fectiveness.
Many preservice programs do not
provide adequate experiences with
curriculum development and modifi-
cation. Consequently, new teachers
tend to believe that the established cur-
riculum is sufficient. In contrast, more
experienced teachers are skeptical re-
garding curricular or instructional in-
novations. This &dquo;I’ve seen it all&dquo; way of
thinking is sometimes expressed as a
challenge to teacher development ef-
forts and the sustainability of those
efforts.
The second stage of M. Huberman’s
model (1995), the &dquo;stabilization&dquo; stage,
occurs during the 4th to 6th years of
teaching. During this time, teachers
make a commitment to teaching as a
career rather than seeing it as a step to
something else. This decision helps
teachers gain a stronger sense of the
roles they play in their schools and
moves them toward mastering instruc-

that are established at the departmen- is intimately linked with our under- tional practices. As Huberman so

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nicely stated, &dquo;With greater ease in
more complex or unexpected class-
room situations, teachers describe
themselves as consolidating, then re-
fining, a basic set of instructional
repertoires on which they can, finally,
rely&dquo; (p. 197). It is also during this pe-
riod that teachers typically receive
tenure and therefore feel more a part of
the larger professional community and
have a greater sense of commitment.
Between about the 7th and 20th
years, there is a period of stability
during which teachers begin to make
changes in their repertoires to increase
their effectiveness. M. Huberman (1995)
referred to this as the &dquo;experimentation/
diversification&dquo; stage. Teachers at-
tempt a &dquo;series of modest, largely pri-
vate experiments with new materials,
different pupil groupings, new assign-
ments, different combinations of les-
sons and exercises&dquo; (p. 198). Whether
these experiments stem from teachers’
motivation to improve or their fear of
getting burned out is not clear. It is
probably some combination of both
factors. What is more clear is that
teachers at the experimentation/
diversification stage work with pared-
down lessons and very familiar in-
structional routines that allow them to
try new activities, whereas beginning
teachers struggle with the lesson plans.
Understanding the stages of teacher
development tempers our generaliza-
tions about sustainability. For example,
whereas research suggests that innova-
tions require a concreteness in order
for them to be adopted and used as de-
signed, for veteran teachers this con-
creteness must not exclude flexibility.
Innovations that do not provide for
teacher adaptation are unlikely to be
implemented and extremely unlikely
to be sustained over time. As with any
career professional, the first few years
in a position are very different from
later years. The perspective of a new
teacher toward his or her students and
his or her sense of efficacy, motivation,
and interests are likely to be vastly dif-
ferent from those of a seasoned teacher.
These differences reflect a much broader
professional change that has implica-
tions for professional development
and the sustainability of innovative
practices.
Implications for Practice
Increasingly, researchers, policymak-
ers, and leaders of advocacy groups are
questioning the rate and degree to
which educational research is trans-
lated into classroom practice and, fur-
ther, the degree to which educational
innovations are sustained (Cuban,
1990; Fuchs & Fuchs, 1994; Malouf &
Schiller, 1995). In fact observations con-
cerning the gap between research and
practice in education have become a
mainstay of contemporary literature.
The prevalence of faddism and the fail-
ure to utilize empirical research as a
foundation or core for reforms con-
tinue to plague education (Carnine,
1995; Kauffman, 1993). Perhaps the
most trenchant analysis of some of the
underlying causes of these interrelated
and distressing problems was made by
Stanovich (1993), who noted that &dquo;ad-
herence to a subjective, personalized
view of knowledge is what continually
leads to educational fads&dquo; (p. 287).
Focus groups with teachers and
parents-as well as our ongoing work
in schools-have yielded several re-
curring themes:
1. Teachers are eager to learn about
and implement practices that are
feasible and sustainable;
2. Teachers are starving for interven-
tions that are documented as effec-
tive for all students (special and
general education); and
3. Teachers and parents crave instruc-
tion that yields documented out-
comes for students in a context
that supports learning and social
growth. Given the nature of these
themes, creating professional de-
velopment conditions that facilitate
high degrees of implementation
and sustained use of effective
classroom practices is paramount
in educational research and prac-
tice.
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453
Gage (1997) argued that there is an
education knowledge base that should
inform the work of teaching and future
research. He discussed the ideas of re-
searchers and journalists who in the
early 1980s suggested that no useful,
generalizable knowledge to improve
teaching and educational outcomes
had come out of the profession. Gage
noted that by 1997 his earlier predic-
tion that data would emerge over time
to support research had been &dquo;re-
soundingly upheld by the hundreds of
meta-analyses that have been reported
in the intervening years&dquo; (p. 19). Gage’s
point was that these meta-analyses in-
dicated that &dquo;many generalizations in
education do hold up across many
replications with high consistency.
That high consistency across replica-
tions has occurred despite the fact that
replications inevitably differ in the per-
sons studied, in the measurement
methods used, in the social contexts in-
volved, and in other ways&dquo; (p. 19).
Research in special education has
contributed substantially to the knowl-
edge base on effective educational
practices. Numerous recent meta-
analyses (e.g., Mastropieri, Scruggs,
Bakken, & Whedon, 1996; Swanson &
Hoskyn, 1998) have been conducted
and have led to confirmations that
seminal studies and semi-systematic
replications converge to form a consis-
tent knowledge base that generalizes
across student, teacher, and environ-
mental variables (e.g., see Forness,
Kavale, Blum, & Lloyd, 1997, for a re-
view of meta-analyses in special edu-
cation). To some extent, convergence in
findings is also reflected in a recently
reported research synthesis with
English-language learners (Fitzgerald,
1995).
It is important to consider the point
Stanovich (1993) made when he sug-
gested that many educators are not
aware of this knowledge base. If they
are aware of it, he continued, they fre-
quently believe, as many researchers
did in the 1980s, in &dquo;a personalistic
view of knowledge acquisition: the be-
lief that knowledge resides within par-
ticular individuals who then dispense
454
it to others&dquo; (p. 287). This tendency to
view findings as subject to complex in-
teraction effects makes generaliza-
tions to educators’ particular schools,
classrooms, and students next to
impossible.
Even when there is an awareness of
the existing knowledge base, sustain-
ing implementation in classrooms is
infinitely more complicated than tell-
ing teachers and others that there is a
knowledge base on effective practices
and they should be using it. One factor
is that classrooms are extremely com-
plex places. As Brown (1992) noted,
&dquo;classroom life is synergistic&dquo; (p. 121),
which is to say it generally does not re-
semble the controlled environment for
experimental studies from which the
knowledge base in special education
has in large measure been developed.
Such instances typically marshal a
great deal of resources to conduct stud-
ies of limited duration to answer very
specific questions.
We believe the body of research on
sustainability makes significant contri-
butions to providing researchers, poli-
cymakers, and administrators with
ways to help teachers enhance their
teaching repertoires with research-
based strategies and techniques. In the
Appendix we list a series of practices
and principles that appear to be linked
to supporting sustained use of research-
based practices. We do not presume
that consideration of these factors will
guarantee sound implementation or
sustained use. However, they do pro-
vide a starting point for improving the
chances of professional development
efforts to enhance classroom instruc-
tion by implementing effective instruc-
tional approaches and sustaining these
approaches rather than building them
up only to see them fail.
Clearly, despite nearly 30 years of re-
search on sustainability, our under-
standing of the factors that promote
sustainable use of instructional prac-
tices can best be described as &dquo;emerg-
ing.&dquo; Still, there is sufficient evidence
to allow us to offer principals, instruc-
tional leaders, and professional devel-
opment coordinators a series of ques-
Downloaded from ldx.sagepub.com by Maxim Andreea on October 29, 2014
tions and action items to consider
when engaging in professional devel-
opment efforts they hope will lead to
sustainable change.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Russell Gersten, PhD, is a professor of special
education at the University of Oregon and the
president of Eugene Research Institute. He has
conducted more than 30 research studies ad-
dressing the educational needs of English-
language learners and students at risk for school
failure or with learning disabilities. David J.
Chard, PhD, is an assistant professor of special
education at the University of Texas at Austin.
His current research interests include research
in professional development in early reading
and analysis of children’s discourse in mathe-
matics classrooms. Scott Baker, PhD, is a full-
time researcher at Eugene Research Institute
and the University of Oregon. His research in-
terests include students with learning disabili-
ties, instruction and assessment with English-
language learners, and translating research to
practice. Address: Russell Gersten, Eugene Re-
search Institute, 132 E. Broadway, Ste. 747,
Eugene, OR 97401; e-mail: rgersten@oregon.
uoregon.edu
AUTHORS’ NOTES
1. This research was supported in part by
Grant No. H023D970415 from the Research
to Practice Division, Office of Special Edu-
cation Programs, U.S. Department of Edu-
cation.
2. We wish to thank Jonathan Flojo and
Shanna Hagan Burke for their assistance in
the development of the manuscript.
NOTE
Contemporary "top-down" models, such as
those in use in early reading initiatives in Cali-
fornia and Texas, are attempting to combine ele-
ments of both. At this point in time, it is unclear
how successful these efforts will be.
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