Abstract
<p style="text-align:justify">Over the last two decades, research has reached the conclusion that educator teamwork is necessary to ensure the achievement of school goals. No attempts, however, have been made to provide integrative evidence regarding its contribution to school effectiveness. To fill this void, the authors review two decades of professional team research in the context of schools. Specifically, the article has two objectives: (1) To review the existing conceptualizations of the terms 'team' and 'teamwork' in the school context; (2) To provide a systematic review of the impact of teamwork on school effectiveness. The systematic search resulted in 23 papers reporting three non-empirical and 20 empirical studies. The results of the review revealed a lack of agreement concerning the conceptualization of the terms 'team' and 'teamwork', which may affect comparability among studies. Furthermore, no comprehensive picture emerges regarding the consequences of teamwork for the individual teacher, the team, or the school as a whole. Indeed, studies refer to a wide range of variables within different contexts and configurations. This review contributes several important insights that may set the agenda for the next wave of research on teamwork in schools.</p>
Highlights
During the last few decades, schools have incorporated various forms of professional teamwork and collaborative work into their practices, with the hope of improving outcomes, such as student achievements, school climate, and teacher satisfaction (Park et al, 2005; Pounder, 1999; Ronfeldt et al, 2015)
Despite the wide consensus regarding the benefits of integrating teamwork into schools, the present literature review reveals that what we really know about teamwork in schools is fragmented, incoherent, and inconsistent
Despite the theoretical and empirical evidence supporting the advantages of teamwork for promoting school effectiveness, there is an urgent need to encourage synthesis of evidence
Summary
During the last few decades, schools have incorporated various forms of professional teamwork and collaborative work into their practices, with the hope of improving outcomes, such as student achievements, school climate, and teacher satisfaction (Park et al, 2005; Pounder, 1999; Ronfeldt et al, 2015). The implementation of various forms of educator teamwork in schools aims to contribute to the effectiveness of the school’s work and to organizational success, while negating the aforementioned unfavorable effects of the individualistic aspects of educators’ work. Even though educators' teamwork has the potential to contribute to teaching quality and to school effectiveness (Park et al, 2005; Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2007), not all schools implement it, and when implemented, it does not always lead to success (Mintrop & Charles, 2017; Mizel, 2009). Gathering individuals together in the same room is not enough in order to translate the multiple resources they offer into effective teamwork (Mizel, 2009; Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2007)
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