A Closer Look at Coaching: What do Coaches and Teachers do in the MyTeachingPartner Coaching Model?

The present dissertation takes a multi-study approach to explore coaches’ and teachers’ behaviors in the implementation of a coaching intervention, MyTeachingPartner (Pianta et al., 2008), and their association with positive changes in teachers’ practice. Study 1 assesses coaches’ ability to provide objective and valid ratings of teacher-child interactions. Study 1 finds that coaches do provide valid ratings of teacher-child interactions that correspond well with observers’ ratings of teacher-child interactions. However, coaches also show a tendency to rate teachers with whom they have higher-quality relationships as showing higher-quality teacher-student interactions. Study 2 examines the variation in coaches’ implementation of MyTeachingPartner by looking at specific features of the model, the association between this variation and changes in teachers’ ability to analyze their interactions with children, their self-efficacy and their observed teaching practice, and the ways in which these associations outcomes vary as a function of teachers’ years of education and their level of observed practice at the beginning of the intervention. Findings indicate that although variation in coaches’ implementation is minimal, it was significantly associated with changes in teachers’ outcomes. Study 3 looks to the teacher’s side of the coaching dyad by examining how teachers analyze their practice during coaching conferences, as well as the degree of change in teachers’ analysis and its associations with teacher and classroom characteristics, and changes in practice during the process. Study 3 finds that although teachers engage in certain features of analysis, most teachers did not assess the effectiveness of their practice during the coaching conference, and teachers’ display of analysis remained stable across the coaching conferences. Teachers that analyze their practice more were also found to have less years of experience and to be teaching more challenging classrooms.