Teachers as team players? Exploring the relationship between collaborative practice, professional development, and work-related stress using diary data

Purpose – This study examines teachers’ collaborative practice during non-instructional work time. It aims to explore teachers’ collaborative practice using diary data, analyze daily and overall relations of collaboration to teachers’ professional development (PD) and work-related stress by disentangling between- and within-person effects, and investigate whether these associations are stronger when including only collaborative activities that focus on further developing educational practice. Design/methodology/approach – The study employed an end-of-day experience sampling method to investigate collaborative activities among primary school teachers in 56 schools in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Data was collected longitudinally over three weeks, with teachers (n = 559) completing daily online logbook entries (n = 7,110). Mixed-effects models were employed for data analysis, exploring between- and within-person effects. Findings – On average, one-third of teachers’ non-instructional activities involved collaboration, but day-to-day variability and differences between teachers were high. Further, teachers who collaborated more overall did not report higher benefits of collaboration for PD or stress levels. However, these associations came to the fore on days when teachers collaborated more than usual. Moreover, favorable effects were identified for collaborative activities focused on advancing educational practices. Originality/value – This study provides a differentiated overview of how teacher collaboration is associated with benefits for PD and work-related stress. It indicates that teachers do not perceive collaboration on exclusively organizational and administrative matters as valuable and beneficial for PD.