The South Carolina PET Study: Teachers' Perceptions and Student Achievement

This article presents the results of 3 related studies of a statewide implementation of a staff development program based on the work of Madeline Hunter. The Program for Effective Teaching (PET) was begun in South Carolina in 1984. Typically, teachers attend 6-8 days of instruction in pedagogy interspersed with practice, observations, and conferences over a minimum of 4-5 weeks. Following this initial training, observations and follow-up coaching conferences are supposed to continue, with the principal typically acting as the coach. The 3 studies we discuss involved questionnaire data concerning 199 PET teachers' perceptions of initial training and the quantity and quality of follow-up coaching, data on the effects of PET on student achievement, and analyses of the relations of training and coaching variables to achievement. The 199 PET teachers were subdivided into 3 groups based on the number of years since training was completed: 2 years, 53 teachers; 1 year, 79 teachers; and training completed the previous year, 67 teachers. In some analyses the responses of these teachers and the test performance of their students were contrasted with the same measures for a sample of 62 teachers who had not received PET training. The primary results were that the training was well received by the teachers, that follow-up coaching was limited in quantity and not always consistent with Hunter's recommendations, and that student achievement was not affected. Recommendations for those contemplating a large-scale implementation of the Hunter model are offered.