Teachers’ collaborative professional development for inclusive education

Abstract

This is a systematic literature review aiming to systematically synthesize research of teachers’ collaborative professional development (CPD) for inclusive education. In total, 21 articles out of 55 from three data-based met the inclusion criteria. Cohen’s kappa was used to measure the agreement, found that the agreement between the raters was 0.72; substantial agreement. The results show that the definition of inclusive education differs, from the right to school attendance to full inclusion by participating in the same classes as other peers in the same age groups and environment. By that, models for collaborative professional development also vary. Most studies were small-scale projects without controls or data showing evidence for enhanced teacher or student outcomes or satisfaction. Accordingly, we could not obtain results showing powerful CPD models. We instead defined research gaps in systematic and evidence-based studies of collaborative professional development models for inclusive education. However, participation in professional development trainings resulted in teachers having more positive attitudes towards inclusive education. Results were also found that show that teachers who were most positive about inclusion also had the highest risks of burnout. Finally, results of the CPDs’ effect on students’ knowledge development in inclusive education was limited.