Study Questions

Key Findings

How prevalent among public school principals is participation in different professional development activities, and how does the prevalence of various activities vary with school characteristics and principal experience?

In 2017–18, most public school principals (95 percent) with at least one year of experience at their current school reported participating in professional development during the prior school year (data not shown; see table 1 at https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2020045). The most prevalent type of professional development activity reported by these principals was participating in workshops or conferences in which they were not a presenter (94 percent), and the least prevalent activity was taking university courses related to their role as principal (19 percent; FIGURE 1). For activities likely to have been part of district-sponsored professional development activities, 67 percent reported visits to other schools designed to improve their own work as principal, and 52 percent reported participating in mentoring and/or peer observation and coaching of principals.
Professional development activities that are likely to have been part of district-sponsored professional development showed considerable variation by the community type of the school. Principals in city schools more often reported participating in visits to other schools designed to improve their own work as principal than did principals in suburban, town, or rural schools (78 percent compared with 59 to 69 percent). Principals in city schools also more often reported participating in mentoring and/or peer observation and coaching of principals than schools located in other types of communities (59 percent compared with 45 to 51 percent; FIGURE 2).

How prevalent among public school principals is participation in professional development in various topics, and how does this prevalence vary with school characteristics and principal experience?

Over 80 percent of public school principals who participated in professional development did so in supporting effective instruction (92 percent), analyzing and interpreting student achievement data (86 percent), and safety or school climate (85 percent; FIGURE 4). School improvement planning was studied by 77 percent of these principals, 65 percent learned about school management and policy, 54 percent learned about social services for students, and 49 percent studied human resource management.
Topics related to planning and management were more prevalent among public school principals in city schools than in suburban, town, or rural schools. Those in city schools more often reported learning about school improvement planning (83 percent compared with 74 to 77 percent), school management and policy (72 percent compared with 62 to 64 percent), and human resource management (60 percent compared with 40 to 50 percent) than did principals in schools located in other types of communities (FIGURE 5). In addition, professional development related to providing social services for students was more common for principals of city schools than for principals of town or rural schools (60 percent compared with 51 and 47 percent, respectively).