The Impact of a Virtual Coaching Program to Improve Instructional Alignment to State Standards

Abstract

This study assesses the impact of a 2-year virtual coaching program on teacher and student outcomes. The program—Feedback on Alignment and Support for Teachers (FAST)—was intended to deepen teachers’ understanding of their state’s standards and improve the alignment of their instruction with the standards. Relying on a multisite school-level randomized controlled trial, we assessed the impact of the FAST program in fourth-grade math and fifth-grade English language arts (ELA). We found that the program had a positive impact on the alignment of teachers’ instruction with state standards for both math and ELA teachers (effect sizes = 0.70 and 0.40, respectively), although the impact was statistically significant only for math teachers. In contrast to a growing body of evidence on the benefits of instructional coaching, the program’s impact on student achievement, was in the negative direction for both fourth-grade mathematics and fifth-grade ELA (effect sizes = −0.07 and −0.10, respectively), although the impact on achievement was statistically significant only for ELA. These results suggest that improving instructional alignment alone may not be sufficient for improving student achievement.