Teaching assistants
The true value of teaching assistants
Last year we looked into the role of teaching assistants (TAs) and discussed several recent studies, including the Deployment and Impact of Support Staff in Schools (DISS) project. Here, researchers on the DISS project Professor Peter Blatchford, Dr Anthony Russell and Rob Webster, discuss their work into the impact TAs have on pupil outcomes and teacher workloads
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recent international survey by Giangreco and Doyle (2007) reports a general increase in teaching assistants (TAs) employed in mainstream schools in many countries. But such growth
seems most pronounced in the UK. TA numbers in England and Wales have trebled since 2000, and TAs now comprise a quarter of the workforce in mainstream state schools.
The growth of TAs One principal reason for the increase in TA numbers worldwide is that they have become integral to processes of inclusion of pupils with special educational needs (SEN). In England and Wales at least, another key factor has been the implementation in 2003 of the National Agreement, which sought to raise pupil standards and tackle excessive teacher workload, in large part via new and expanded support roles and responsibilities for TAs and other support staff. There remains much debate about the appropriate role of TAs. There
is ambiguity, because in one sense TAs can help pupils indirectly by enhancing teaching (e.g. by taking on teachers’ administrative duties), but, as we shall see, many TAs have a direct teaching role, interacting daily with pupils (mainly those with SEN), supplementing teacher input, and providing opportunities for one-to-one and small group work.
“Given the scale of the increase in TAs, and their direct, educational role, it is
vital to ask about their impact on pupils’ educational progress”
Given the scale of the increase in TAs, and their direct, educational
role, it is vital to ask about their impact on pupils’ educational progress. Here, we report on the largest study yet conducted on TAs – the five- year Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) project – which described the characteristics and deployment of TAs and other support staff, and addressed TAs’ impact on teachers, teaching and pupils.
The impact of TAs on educational outcomes A main limitation of previous research in this field is the lack of rigorous empirical studies of TA impact when judged in relation to normal forms of deployment, under everyday conditions, over the school year. Such results were provided for the first time by the DISS study. The analysis studied the effects of TA support (based on teacher estimates and systematic observations) on 8,200 pupils’ academic progress in English, mathematics and science. Two cohorts in seven age groups, across 153 mainstream schools, were tracked over one year each. Sophisticated statistical analysis controlled for factors known to affect progress (and the allocation of TA support), such as pupils’ SEN status, prior attainment, eligibility for free school meals, English as an additional language, deprivation, gender and ethnicity. The results were striking: 16 of the 21 results were in a negative
direction; there were no positive effects of TA support for any subject or for any year group. Those pupils receiving the most TA support made less progress than similar pupils who received little or no TA support, even after controlling for factors listed above.
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Before we seek to explain these findings, it is worth addressing what
some might see as contrary results from other studies on TA impact. Reviews by Alborz et al and Slavin et al looked at experimental studies that examined the effect of TAs who deliver (mostly literacy) interventions, and concluded that TAs tend to have a positive impact on pupil progress when they are prepared and trained, and have support and guidance about practice. However, these studies only show what is possible under certain
circumstances, when TAs are trained for a specific task, not what the effect of TAs might be under normal circumstances. We know that TA-led interventions take up only a small part of pupils’ days. A study published in 2010 by the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) reported findings claiming to show a positive effect of
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