Improving teacher training in Ethiopia: Shifting the

Teaching and Teacher Education 70 (2018) 1e11

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Teaching and Teacher Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

Improving teacher training in Ethiopia: Shifting the content and approach of pre-service teacher education Adrienne E. Barnes a, Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski a, Dawit Mekonnen b, Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi a, * a b

Learning Systems Institute, Florida State University, C4600 University Center, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4459, United States Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

h i g h l i g h t s READ-TA established capacity in literacy content knowledge and pedagogical skill. Teacher educators at the CTEs are striving to incorporate student-centered pedagogy. Participatory training resulted in knowledge retention for the teacher educators. Sustainability depends on teacher education, instructional resources, and pedagogy.

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 9 January 2017 Received in revised form 22 October 2017 Accepted 3 November 2017 Available online 10 November 2017

Teacher education in Ethiopia has undergone multiple reforms, yet primary students still struggle to learn to read. The USAID-funded Reading for Ethiopia's Achievement Developed - Technical Assistance project aimed to reform the primary school curriculum and teacher education to improve instructional approaches to teaching reading and writing. We examine the process and effectiveness of the project's pre-service teacher education component. Impacts on teacher educator pedagogywere observed at Colleges of Teacher Education, including less lecturing and greater use of student-centered teaching and learning approaches. Sustainability depends on the government's efforts to invest in long-term solutions and promote student-centered pedagogy. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Teacher education Teacher training Literacy Ethiopia International education Development education Multilingual education Early grade reading

1. Introduction Over the last 25 years, Ethiopia has experienced policy shifts on curriculum, language, teacher qualifications and pedagogical approaches in addition to a great expansion of the education system. Gross enrollment rates (GER) have jumped from 20 percent in 1992-93 to over 96 percent in 2008-09, with a strong commitment to full enrollment of girls, vulnerable children, and children in rural

* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A.E. Barnes), szuilkowski@lsi. fsu.edu (S.S. Zuilkowski), [email protected] (D. Mekonnen), [email protected]. edu (F. Ramos-Mattoussi). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.11.004 0742-051X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

and pastoralist areas (Method et al., 2010). However, Ethiopia's education system struggles to produce fluent readers. Recent assessments of reading revealed very low skill levels across many parts of the country. The 2010 Mother Tongue Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) results revealed that only 5% of children in first cycle of primary school met the fluency benchmark of 60 words correct per minute, and between 10 and 62 percent of grade 3 students were unable to answer a single comprehension question, depending on region (Piper, 2010; Smith, Stone, & Comings, 2012). This was followed by the 2014 EGRA, which was administered in two Ethiopian languages, Wolayttatto and Hadiyyisa, and similarly found that 36% and 62% of children were unable to answer any reading comprehension questions correctly (RTI International, 2014).

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A.E. Barnes et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 70 (2018) 1e11

One of the central issues challenging progress in early grade reading is the complexity of the language landscape in Ethiopia. Currently, more than 20 languages are used as the language of instruction (LOI) for primary grades 1e4, although many students have very little access to reading materials in the LOI. In some regions, the locally dominant language is used for instruction for students attending grades 1e8, whereas others introduce English as a LOI when students reach grade 5. Still other regions use the local language as the LOI for Science and Mathematics courses in upper primary school. Due to this diversity and the extreme budgetary restrictions faced in a low-resource context, most schools lack reading materials printed in the LOI beyond subject-area texts. Beyond language issues, Ethiopia struggles to adequately prepare reading teachers for the classroom, which is hypothesized to be one of the major causes of reading failure in students (Brady & Moats, 1997). Teacher educators are unable to impart foundational literacy skills knowledge and literacy education techniques to student teachers when they themselves have not received adequate training on these concepts (Joshi et al., 2009). Teachers' knowledge of content and pedagogy (Borko, Davinroy, Bliem, & Cumbo, 2000; Moats & Foorman, 2003; Piasta, Connor, Fishman, & Morrison, 2009; Piper & Korda, 2011), and teachers' expectations of student performance (Raban, 2002) are directly related to student achievement (DFID, 2013). As a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual country, Ethiopia has implemented language and education policies that have a profound impact on languages of instruction (LOI) used in the various regions and in teacher education at various levels. Prior to 1994, the language policies adopted by previous governments focused on a language use policy which encouraged the use of Amharic (Getachew & Derib, 2006) in earlier grades (1e6) and English in later grades (7e12). The current government has adopted a very different language policy and has implemented an approach that gives autonomy to regional states for primary education, although the federal government may have a stronger influence in curriculum decision making than regional governments (e.g., UNESCO, 2010). Under this policy, regions are required to use mother tongue languages (MT) as the medium of instruction for the two cycles of primary school (grades 1e4 and grades 5e8), with Amharic and English taught as subjects. In practice, however, some regions begin using English as a language of instruction between grades 5 and 8. (Method et al., 2010). In Ethiopia, primary school teachers are prepared in Colleges of Teacher Education (CTE) while secondary school teachers are prepared in universities. Although there are different selection criteria, the major requirement to be admitted to a CTE is completion of grade 10 with a score of 2.00 on the grade 10 national examination. Students who meet the grade requirement for university preparation will be promoted to grade 11. Most of those enrolled in CTEs are therefore students who could not gain entrance to university preparation programs. Hence, these teacher education programs face many challenges in preparing students to become effective MT educators. The MT teacher education program includes 13 MT courses, a teaching practicum, several courses on general pedagogy and assessment, and science, math, and English language bridging courses. Students graduating from the MT teacher education program are eligible to teach mother tongue languages from grades 1e8 at their regional schools. The graduates of the MT programs are therefore at the front lines of the effort to improve early reading outcomes in Ethiopia. In this paper, we first discuss the literature on teacher training reform and provide contextual background on Ethiopia. We then describe our role in the current teacher training curriculum reforms in Ethiopia and assess the extent to which the new curriculum and training programs have succeeded in changing the content knowledge of teacher educators and the teaching approach taken at

Ethiopian teacher training colleges. Finally, we discuss the successes and limitations of this approach to improving literacy instruction. 2. Background 2.1. Teacher training structures in Ethiopia The Constitution of Ethiopia, approved in 1993, decentralized administrative and policy functions to the regions, including administration and policy for education. The decentralization created nine Regional State Education Bureaus (RSEB) reflecting a regional structure generally based along dominant ethnic lines (Afar, Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR, Benishangul Gumuz, EthioSomali, Harari and Gambella), and two administrative regions (Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa) (Method et al., 2010). Before 2008, teachers for grades 1 to 4 underwent one year of teacher training preparation after completing grade 10. A diploma structure was adopted in 2008, where primary school (grades 1e8) teacher candidates were required to finish grade 10 and then complete three years at one of the 37 colleges of teacher education. These institutions graduated approximately 43,041 students (40% female) in the 2014-15 academic year (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2016). New primary and secondary level teachers are encouraged to continue their education once they enter the field via a two-year induction program. With the expansion of primary education in order to universalize primary education and the relatively high teacher attrition rate (MoE, 2014, 2015), there are shortages of teachers in some regions. Due to this, CTE students are sometimes hired as primary school teachers after their second year at the college of teacher education (and complete the third year via summer in-service). In areas with extreme teacher shortage and teacher attrition, teachers are hired as early as after completing grade 10. For the 2014-15 academic year, more than 2000 teachers were 16e19 years old (MoE, 2016). Despite the numerous education system reforms implemented over the past several decades, as discussed further in the following section, and a national Continuous Professional Development program, teachers in Ethiopia (as well as their students) still view the teaching/learning process as the act of a teacher transmitting knowledge to the students, rather than the students discovering and constructing their own knowledge through participatory learning activities (Zerihun, Beishuizen, & Van Os, 2011). The reality is that CTE instructors (teacher educators) have few classroom and technological resources for their own professional development and instruction; therefore, they continue to train pre-service teachers in (and are primarily using) teacher-centered, non-participatory pedagogy (Frost & Little, 2014; Teshome, 2012) which does little, if anything, to directly address the teaching of early grade reading skills (RTI International & Florida State University, 2013). 2.2. Reforming teacher training Teacher training practices in many East African countries tend to be weak. When teachers are afforded training and education from a college, the focus tends to be on theoretical aspects of teaching rather than methodological concerns, with little if any application to real classroom practices (Moja, 2000; Westbrook et al., 2009). Minimal practical teaching experience and a curriculum of teachercentered instruction (from teacher educators lacking experience in primary schools) dominates many pre-service teacher training programs (Hardman, Ackers, Abrishamian, & O'Sullivan, 2011). Following thessucation policy, various reforms were implemented to improve the skills of primary and secondary teachers, incorporate active learning techniques into classrooms (Mekonnen, 2008; MoE, 2003a), and effect change in pre-service teacher


education, in order to produce higher-quality and better prepared teachers through rigorous training and practical experiences (Hussein, 2011). The system called for instruction to focus on constructivist student teacher learning approaches rather than traditional passive learning methodologies (Teshome, 2012; MoE, 2003b). As is common in sub-Saharan Africa, evaluations of many CTEs in Ethiopia reveal transmission-based learning, wherein students were not afforded opportunities to practically apply theoretical knowledge (Hardman, Abd-Kadir, & Tibuhinda, 2012; Mekonnen, 2008). Teachers' initial training not only impacts the skills the teacher brings to the classroom (Akyeampong, Lussier, Pryor, & Westbrook, 2013.), but also the teachers' ability to benefit from professional development and other teacher support structures (Tatto, Neilsen, Cummings, Kularatna, & Dharmadasa, 1993; Lewin & Stuart, 2003). Just as teachers' knowledge of content and pedagogical skills directly impacts student teacher knowledge and achievement (Ball, Thames, & Phelps, 2008; Feiman-Nemser, 1990), teacher training impacts the knowledge teachers bring to the classroom (BinksCantrell, Washburn, Joshi, & Hougen, 2012). In order to improve the quality of education the students receive, the pre-service teachers must receive research-based training on the components of reading and constructs of language (Binks-Cantrell et al., 2012). Teachers can implement, and are more likely to be successful with, new classroom practices when they have received intensive training and the new classroom practices have been modeled for them (Desimone, Porter, Garet, Yoon, & Birman, 2002; Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001; Snow-Renner, & Lauer, 2005). Unfortunately, teacher educators in sub-Saharan Africa often lack the skills to provide appropriate, research-based instruction to preservice teachers, as they are often overlooked in training programs (Hardman et al., 2012). Providing professional development to teacher educators which includes hands-on cooperative learning opportunities to build academic content knowledge in the context of research-based practices enables those teacher educators to engage in participatory teaching and learning techniques, increase their understanding of effective literacy instruction practices, and apply new skills to the college classroom. Research has shown that teachers tend to be more capable of implementing classroom practices which are modeled for them by trainers or teacher educators (Desimone et al., 2002; Supovitz, Mayer, & Kahle, 2000). In order to align with national policy, preservice and in-service teacher education programs should be preparing teachers to use constructivist approaches via modeling and requiring more participatory teaching and learning techniques, hands-on activities, and interaction with the curricular content. While CTEs may be moving toward more constructive classroom practices (Hunde & Tacconi, 2014), teacher educators' lack of competence, resistance, and limited resource availability contributed to poor implementation of participatory learning approaches (Teshome, 2012), resulting in new graduates knowing only teachercentered pedagogy. As discussed in the literature above, quality teacher training is critical to ensuring that children learn to read in the early grades. In this study, we examine the changes in CTE teacher educators' knowledge and pedagogy over the course of the USAID-funded READ-TA project in Ethiopia, paying particular attention to the process and contextual issues that may in the long run determine the reforms' sustainability. In the following sections, we address these four research questions related to the process of curricular change at Ethiopia's CTEs: RQ 1: How did CTE teacher educator content and pedagogical knowledge change after receiving professional development training on literacy theory and pedagogy?

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RQ 2: How did CTE teacher educators' retained content and pedagogical knowledge change over the course of one year? RQ 3: How are the content and teaching techniques of the first module being implemented by CTE teacher educators? RQ 4: What are the barriers to full implementation of the new curricula in teacher training colleges? 3. Methods 3.1. READ-TA and curriculum reform Reading for Ethiopia's Achievement Developed e Technical Assistance (READ-TA) is a USAID-funded project aimed at improving the education system in Ethiopia primarily through the creation of a new primary grades (1e8) Mother Tongue curriculum, in-service teacher training, revision of the pre-service teacher education curriculum, and integration of technology into pre-service teacher education classrooms. The five-year project (2012-17) is implemented by RTI International and its partners: Florida State University (FSU), Inveneo/CoreNet, Save the Children, WhizKids, SIL Lead, and Visions in Action to support the Ethiopian MoE in developing a nationwide reading and writing program. READ-TA is expected to reach 15 million children in all schools and all regions of Ethiopia. Technical assistance is provided to Regional State Education Bureaus (RSEBs), Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs) and the Ethiopian MoE. The FSU team of researchers conducted a baseline assessment of pre-service teacher education - focusing on current practices, capacity, and resources available for the support of reading and writing instruction at Colleges of Teacher Education (RTI International & Florida State University, 2013). Based on this assessment, the FSU team supported the reformation of the mother tongue teacher education program and the development of instructional materials and curricula for MT pre-service teachers in English and in seven locally dominant languages, taking into consideration the lack of technology and basic classroom resources at the CTEs. Many of the CTE teacher educators were engaged in the initial step of developing new mother tongue primary materials, and were highly motivated to be involved in reforming the pre-service teacher education curriculum. A highly collaborative approach was used to supporting the development of seven extensive course modules (textbooks) and numerous trainings were offered to build the capacity of the CTE teacher educators. The focus was on improving the quality and efficacy of teacher education in reading and writing instruction in mother tongue in primary grades.1 At the READ-TA project's inception, the FSU team assisted in the revision of the national curriculum for pre-service teacher education - originally developed in English by the MoE's Teacher Development Program and adapted to the seven mother tongue languages in collaboration with the RSEBs and ZEBs. Using the national curriculum for the CTEs, a skeleton draft of each module was written in English by the Reading Specialists from FSU. Each draft was further developed and contextualized by CTE teacher educators. The modules were then adapted into seven of the major mother tongue languages of Ethiopia: Amharic, Tigrinya, Af-Somali, Afaan Oromo, Wolayttatto, Hadiyyisa, and Sidaamu Afoo by mother tongue language experts and CTE teacher educators. These modules included lesson samples from the new primary mother tongue

1 The courses developed for the CTEs included: MT 201: Cognitive Development and Literacy Skills (Module 1); TMT 222: Teaching Reading and Writing in Primary Schools (Module 2); TMT 224: Methods of Teaching Speaking and Listening in Primary Schools (Module 3); TMT 322: Assessing Language Skills and Differentiated Instruction (Module 4); MT 212: Introduction to Language and Linguistics (Module 5); MT 223: Children's Literature in the MT (Module 6); and MT 221: Developing Reading Skills in MT Language (Module 7).

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curricular materials for each region. The English and MT versions were validated by representatives from the seven target languages and various stakeholders: Mother Tongue Task Force (MTTF) members, READ-TA Reading Specialists, RSEB and ZEB members, Gender Specialists, Inclusion Specialists, Measurement & Assessment Specialists, and CTE teacher educators. Upon validation of each MT module version, an interactive, research-based, participatory professional development workshop was attended by approximately 220 participants including College of Teacher Education (CTE) mother tongue language teacher educators, employees of the MoE and RTI, and members of Regional State Educational Bureaus (RSEBs) and Zonal Educational Bureaus (ZEBs). Over the course of the project and several training sessions, 275 individuals received instruction. All CTE teacher educators teaching in the MT Language Program were invited to attend seven nonmandatory training workshops that READ-TA/FSU carried out from 2014 to 2016. These workshops were designed to not only meet the need for content area knowledge, but also the need for knowledge of student-centered, participatory teaching and learning pedagogies. Designed based on the theory that teachers gain more from professional development which is aimed at building content knowledge, pedagogical skills (Garet et al., 2001), and problem-solving skills for concepts which may cause confusion for the students (Blank, de las Alas, & Smith, 2007; Lieberman & Wood, 2002), the week-long professional development trainings engaged the participants in group and pair work, discussions, role-playing, microteaching, and cooperative learning activities. The participants were divided into smaller groups, each with a trainer from FSU and between one and four co-facilitators from each language group. The content of the trainings was built around the learning outcomes of the new CTE curriculum, and the trainers administered a concept knowledge assessment at three points to evaluate participants' understanding and retention of the new concepts. The first module trained was Cognitive Development and Literacy Skills, which focused on brain research and psychological theories of how children learn to read and become literate as they cognitively progress. It was the only module focused solely on theory. The second module revisited and applied the learning theories from the first module for typically-developing learners: Teaching Reading and Writing in Primary School focused more on the methodological side of theory by providing scripted activities for teaching the five areas of reading: phonological awareness, graphophonemic awareness/phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension; as well as writing. Since the term ‘literacy’ includes more than just reading and writing, the third module, Teaching Speaking and Listening in Primary School, presented and applied learning theory to methods of building children's oral language and listening skills. The Assessing Literacy Skills and Differentiated Instruction module introduced techniques for assessing primary students' specific skills in the five areas of reading plus writing, and then followed with instruction on how to apply the information and teaching strategies from the previous three modules to diverse (not typically-developing; i.e., high and low performing) learners. 3.2. Participants and sites In this study, we draw on data collected from CTE teacher educators and CTE students. For research questions 1 and 2, we present findings from knowledge assessments conducted with 198 CTE teacher educators (19% female) from 36 CTEs who attended FSUimplemented training sessions in Addis Ababa August 2014 through December 2015. These teacher educators were speakers of the seven mother tongue languages into which the course materials had been adapted and participated in at least three of the first four professional development trainings.

CTE teacher educators were also interviewed and observed onsite at their CTEs in December 2014; this data is used to address RQs 3 and 4. In most CTEs, only one teacher educator taught MT201 (Cognitive Development and Literacy Skills), the base literacy acquisition theory course, so that individual teacher educator was asked to participate. All the teacher educators approached consented. The 16 interviewed teacher educators, all of whom were also observed, had a mean of 5.7 years of experience teaching in CTEs (range 1e15 years). Almost two-thirds had experience teaching in a primary school. Of those with primary school experience, the mean years of language teaching was seven. The majority of the teacher educators were male. The CTE student teacher focus group participants were selected randomly from those who volunteered after the class observation. The student teacher focus group participants included a larger percentage of women. All focus group members gave oral consent to participation. 3.3. Procedures The trainings of CTE teacher educators were conducted by reading specialists from FSU and language-specific co-trainers (teacher educators who worked with the reading specialists to develop the new CTE curriculum modules). Participants in the workshop were provided with hard copies of the module in English and one of seven mother tongues (depending upon the language they taught), a hard copy of the training guide with images of PowerPoint slides and related teacher educator's notes, and electronic copies of the module, training guide, PowerPoint presentations, and various supporting resources and documents. Throughout the training, the reading specialists and their cofacilitators were able to engage participants in participatory learning activities in both English and the mother tongue. The participants completed a concept sort knowledge assessment three times at trainings subsequent to MT201. This assessment tool was developed by Dr. Marion Fesmire at FSU based on current research strategies for instructing and assessing vocabulary (e.g., Baumann & Kame'enui, 2012; Edmonds & Briggs, 2003). The assessment tool consisted of a matrix of concept names, definitions, and examples of practice. The participants were asked to identify the components of reading instruction then match the definitions and examples to each component. The assessment was completed both before and after receiving professional development training on methodology associated with reading and literacy instruction, and at a one-year follow-up. The initial administration (December 2014, at the beginning of training workshop for Module 2) served to capture the knowledge level of the participants six months after receiving the MT201 training (theory) but before receiving methodology training, the second administration (December 2014- after completion of training workshop for Module 2) captured knowledge gained from methods training, and the third administration (December 2015) captured long-term retention of knowledge. Participants were unaware of the follow-up assessment and were therefore unable to study previous materials. The new version of MT201 was taught for the first time in the September 2014eJanuary 2015 semester. In November 2014, we trained a group of seven CTE teacher educatorsdone for each language of instructiondin a three-day monitoring and evaluation workshop. During this workshop, two training visits were made to CTEs in the Oromia region. All the CTE teacher educators trained were male, despite our attempts to include female participants, and were native speakers of the languages of instruction in their regions. The trained evaluators then collected data in CTEs in their regions in January 2015, near the end of the semester. The evaluators conducted the interviews and focus groups in either the local language


or Amharic, according to the preferences of the participants. The evaluators also observed one session of MT201 at each CTE. In sum, the data collection team conducted 17 classroom observations, 16 teacher educator interviews, 2 focus groups with teacher educators, and 7 focus groups with students (Fig. 1). Following the CTE visits, the evaluators wrote detailed reports including English translations of notes from the focus groups and open-ended interview questions. Further detail on the analysis of the data is provided below. 3.4. Measures We developed the knowledge assessment based on a teaching and assessment strategy for topic vocabulary called concept sorting (Baumann & Kame'enui, 2012; Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2007), and is commonly used to assess understanding of how terms and phrases are conceptually related to one another. This researcher-created concept sort assessment (see appendix) served as identical pretest, posttest, and one-year follow up assessments to the methods module. Six conceptual areas were assessed in the concept sort: 1. Phonological Awareness, 2. Graphophonemic Awareness, 3. Fluency, 4. Vocabulary, 5. Comprehension, and 6. Writing and Spelling. Identical forms were used for each administration of the assessment. The participants were asked to sort into separate groups the name of the concept, the definition of the concept, and four characteristics of research-based instruction. Each conceptual area was scored 0e6, with Writing/Spelling 0e5 as the header was provided as an example, resulting in a possible total score range of 0e35. These raw scores were used for analysis. This assessment included terms and phrases associated with pedagogical content related to these six areas of instruction and used by the worldwide community of literacy researchers and taught in the CTE teacher educator training course, therefore construct validity was determined to be high. Additionally, the reliability analysis revealed Cronbach's alpha for the sample was 0.89. We used a mixed-methods approach to examine the implementation of the core mother tongue reading module. The data collection instruments for the observations, interviews, and focus groups were developed specifically for this study, and focused on fidelity of implementation of the module as well as teaching quality more broadly. The observation and interview instruments gathered both qualitative and quantitative data, while the focus groups were solely qualitative. All instruments were evaluated for face and content validity by Ethiopian project personnel prior to usage, and piloted in the Amhara and Oromia regional states. For the purposes of this study, we use the following operational definitions: teacher educator content knowledge refers to the teacher educators' knowledge of the five major areas of reading instruction (phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension) as well as writing, and the research-based pedagogical approaches most appropriate for each area of instruction; teacher educator retained knowledge refers to the content and pedagogical knowledge that was remembered after twelve months without training on the areas of reading instruction. 3.5. Data analysis A paired-samples t-test was used to compare pretest and

MT201 Training (Aug '14)

MT201 Teaching (Sept '14 to Jan '15)

MT201 Data Collecon Training (Nov '15)

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posttest scores to answer question 1 (N ¼ 152). In order to answer question 2, a repeated-measures ANOVA was used to compare scores for the pretest, posttest, and the follow-up assessment (N ¼ 99). Listwise exclusion was used for missing data points. For the implementation arm of the study, the qualitative data from the interviews, observations, and focus groups was translated into English by the trained evaluators and reviewed by the project manager. It was then analyzed using Atlas.ti version 7, applying both emic and etic codes. Etic codes included topics covered in the trainings and various resource constraints that were expected, such as limited access to projectors for use of slides. Emic codes that were developed during analysis included problems that the teacher educators had with the texts, such as mistranslations, for example. The descriptive statistics from the quantitative data for research questions 3 and 4, including the closed-ended items from the observations and the interviews, were analyzed using Stata version 13. 4. Findings 4.1. How did CTE teacher educator content and pedagogical knowledge change after receiving professional development training on literacy theory and pedagogy? Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics for the knowledge assessment. All data used are normally distributed despite minor floor effects on the pretest and minor ceiling effects on the posttest. Table 2 displays the results of a paired samples t-test for pre-test and post-test. A significant effect was observed (N ¼ 152; p < .001; effect size ¼ 2.11). Since one of the language groups, Af-Somali, did not arrive until the second day of training, pre/post (and follow-up) effects could not be analyzed for this group, leaving six of the seven mother tongue language groups in the analysis set. In comparisons of the pretest, the Wolayttatto group was significantly higher than two of the other language groups: Amharic (p ¼ .003) and Sidaamu Afoo (p ¼ .012). However, this was not surprising as the entire Wolayttatto group was from one CTE, Arbaminch, whose dean released them to work on module development for a longer amount of time than any other group of teacher educators during the first year of the project. Even though the Wolayttatto language group scored significantly higher than two language groups at pretest, there were no significant differences between any language groups at posttest, with five of the six groups exhibiting statistically significant gains at the p < 0.05 statistical significance level. The sixth group, Hadiyyisa, was composed of just three participants and also gained, but with marginal statistical significance (p ¼ 0.08). 4.2. How did CTE teacher educators' retained content and pedagogical knowledge change over the course of one year? Using the data for those participants for whom we collected all three waves of data (N ¼ 99), we ran a repeated measures ANOVA (pre-test, post-test, and follow-up, with a Bonferroni correction) to test for time wave effects. We found that wave 2 (post-test) was significantly higher than both wave 1 (pretest; p < 0.001; effect size ¼ 2.26) and wave 3 (one-year follow-up; p < 0.001; effect size ¼ 0.87). However, wave 3 (one-year follow-up) was also

Concept Sort Pretest (Dec '14) Fig. 1. Timeline of research phases.

Concept Sort Posttest (Dec '14)

MT 201 Data Collecon (Jan '15)

Concept Sort Follow-up (Dec '15)

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Table 1 Descriptive statistics for knowledge assessment. Variable

N

Valid Listwise

Min

Max

Mean (SD)

Skewness

Kurtosis

Pretest Wolayttato Sidaamu Afoo Hadiyyisa Amharic Afan Oromo Tigrigna ANOVA set

167 3 8 3 92 45 16 99

e 3 5 1 58 19 13 99

0 15 1 14 2 0 4 1

31 30 18 19 26 31 27 30

13.2 22.3 9.75 16.3 12.2 14.2 16.3 13.5

(6.19) (7.51) (5.39) (2.52) (5.59) (6.67) (6.20) (5.78)

0.41 0.19 0.11 0.59 0.32 0.48 0.03 0.34

0.02 e 0.03 e 0.39 0.26 0.31 0.01

Posttest Wolayttato Sidaamu Afoo Hadiyyisa Amharic Afan Oromo Tigrigna Af Soomali ANOVA set

178 4 11 3 93 47 14 6 99

152 3 5 1 58 19 13 0 99

11 19 11 22 11 18 18 25 12

35 35 34 32 35 35 35 26 35

26.1 27.8 22.7 27.7 25.5 26.8 29.2 25.7 26.8

(6.25) (6.90) (6.71) (5.13) (6.72) (5.42) (5.67) (0.52) (6.05)

0.27 0.53 0.22 1.09 0.22 0.07 0.82 0.97 0.36

0.69 0.63 0.21 e 0.91 0.99 0.49 1.88 0.74

Follow-up Wolayttato Sidaamu Afoo Hadiyyisa Amharic Afan Oromo Tigrigna Af Soomali ANOVA set

128 3 9 1 72 23 15 5 99

99 3 5 1 58 19 13 0 99

7 19 8 24 7 8 17 11 8

35 34 35 24 30 34 32 25 34

20.9 (6.32) 27.0 (7.55) 20.3 (8.23) 24.00 (–) 20.3 (5.59) 19.3 (6.38) 26.7 (4.85) 15.8 (5.45) 21.6 (5.75)

0.08 0.59 0.23 e 0.40 0.41 0.76 1.64 0.15

0.60 e 0.18 e 0.46 1.30 0.90 3.006 0.53

Table 2 Change over time: Paired-samples T-Tests. Variable

N

difference

95% CI Lower

95% CI Upper

t

df

p

posttest-pretest Wolayttato Sidaamu Afoo Hadiyyisa Amharic Afan Oromo Tigrigna

152 3 8 3 81 43 14

12.98 8.33 14.25 11.33 13.09 12.81 13.43

11.99 0.74 9.02 3.85 11.71 10.94 9.81

13.96 15.92 19.48 26.51 14.48 14.68 17.04

26.13 4.72 6.45 3.21 18.83 13.80 8.03

151 2 7 2 80 42 13