Professional development for classroom management: a review of the literature

Abstract

ABSTRACT The ability of teachers to manage their classrooms is critical to achieving positive educational outcomes for students. Many teachers receive limited pre-service training in classroom management, creating a need for effective in-service professional development (PD). This literature review summarizes the results of 74 empirical studies examining the effects of PD on teachers’ classroom management behaviours. It identifies the characteristics of the existing literature base, the most frequent components of effective PD, and teacher and student outcomes related to PD. The results support a prior review that also suggested effective PD (i.e., desired changes in teacher and student behaviour) is predominantly studied at the elementary school level and, in addition to generic in-service trainings, most frequently includes didactic (direct) instruction, coaching, and performance feedback. These results have important implications for developing effective PD opportunities in the area of classroom management for in-service educators.