Teacher aides (also known as TAs, kaiāwhina, classroom support assistants, learning assistants, or teaching assistants) are adults who support teachers in the classroom. Teacher aides’ duties can vary widely, and often include supporting the teacher in the general classroom environment, providing targeted interventions, and administrative support. In Aotearoa New Zealand, many teacher aides provide Māori cultural leadership and support.

1. Teacher aides can provide a large positive impact on student outcomes, however, how they are deployed is key.

2. The high average impact hides a large variation between the different approaches to teacher aide deployment. Targeted deployment, where teacher aides are trained to deliver an intervention to small groups or individuals has a higher impact, whereas deployment of teacher aides in everyday classroom environments has not been shown to have a positive impact on student outcomes.

3. Access to high quality teaching is the most important lever schools have to improve outcomes for their students. It is particularly important to ensure that when students are receiving support from a teacher aide, this supplements teaching but does not reduce the amount of high-quality interactions they have with their classroom teacher both in and out-of-class.

4. Investing in professional development for teacher aides to deliver structured interventions can be a cost-effective approach to improving student outcomes due to the large difference in efficacy between different deployments of teacher aides.

The average impact of the deployment of teacher aides is about an additional four months’ progress over the course of a year. However, effects tend to vary widely between those studies where teacher aides are deployed in everyday classroom environments, which typically do not show a positive benefit, and those where teacher aides deliver targeted interventions to individual students or small groups, which on average show moderate positive benefits. The headline figure of four additional months’ progress lies between these figures.

Research that examines the impact of teacher aides deployed in everyday classroom environments suggests that students in a class with a teacher aide present do not, on average, outperform those in one where only a teacher is present. This average finding covers a range of effects. In some cases, teachers and teacher aides work together effectively, leading to increases in achievement. In other cases, students, particularly those who are low achieving or identified as having special educational needs, can perform worse in classes with teacher aides.

Where overall negative effects have been recorded, it is likely that support from teacher aides has substituted rather than supplemented teaching from teachers. In the most positive examples, it is likely that support and training will have been provided for both teachers and teacher aides so that they understand how to work together effectively, such as by making time for discussion before and after lessons.

Research which focuses on teacher aides who provide one to one or small group targeted interventions shows a stronger positive benefit of between four and six additional months on average. Often interventions are based on a clearly specified approach which teacher aides have been trained to deliver.

Teachers also report the benefits in terms of workload and reduced stress from working with teacher aides.

There is also evidence that working with teacher aides can lead to improvements in students’ attitudes, and also to positive effects in terms of teacher morale, workload, and reduced stress.

Research based in Aotearoa New Zealand explores the various roles and responsibilities of teacher aides, and affirms the importance of adequate training and support for effective interactions. Local research adds to the global evidence base with a particular focus on the valued role of Māori teacher aides for promoting Māori language and culture in schools.

Teacher aides in everyday classroom environments

The deployment of teacher aides in everyday classroom environments involves them being assigned to a teacher or class to provide support on a regular basis such as working with particular groups of students in the class or with administrative duties or preparation.

The impact of general deployment is typically much lower than structured interventions. The average months progress is 0 months.

The security of the evidence for this approach, however, is very limited due to the small number of studies included so some caution should be exercised with this finding. Studies were not included where the TA was assigned as learning support needs support for an individual student as part of an individual support plan.

This approach typically involves a teacher aide providing additional or intensive support to small groups or individual students in a particular area of the curriculum (such as literacy or mathematics), usually in the form of structured interventions. In all studies, teacher aides received additional training and support to deliver the interventions.

The impact of is typically much higher than deployment in everyday classroom environments. The average months’ progress is 5 months.

Targeted deployment has been more extensively researched than general deployment, but the security of the evidence for this approach is limited due to the number of studies and the limited proportion of independent evaluations.

Teacher aide interventions have an impact through providing additional support for students that is targeted to their needs. In order to have the desired effect schools might consider:

• Careful assessment of students’ needs so that teacher aides support is well targeted
• Training teacher aides so that interactions are high quality – for example, using well-evidenced targeted programmes
• Ensuring that any interventions are well-linked to classroom content and do not reduce high quality interactions with teachers

High quality communication between teacher aides and classroom teachers is likely to support good implementation of teacher aide interventions.

Teacher aide interventions are typically delivered over half-term or term-long periods when adopting a targeted intervention or approach, or across the entire academic year when used as more general deployment.

Overall, the costs of implementing teacher aides interventions are estimated as moderate. The costs associated with the effective deployment of teacher aides arise from staff salary expenses, the majority of which are recurring costs.

While the cost estimate for the effective deployment of teacher aides interventions is moderate, differences in training and resource costs through specific teacher aide taught programmes or interventions means that costs can range from very low to high. Evidence suggests that the more effective approaches are structured and involve high-quality support and training, so it is important that teacher aides have professional development in the pedagogy and content of the specific intervention they are expected to use.

These cost estimates assume that schools are already paying for teacher time to work with and support teacher aides, and the facilities and materials required to implement a TA intervention. These are all pre-requisite costs of using teacher aides interventions, without which the cost is likely to be higher.

Local research:

ERO - Working together: How teacher aides can have the most impact | Education Review Office (ero.govt.nz)

Rubie-Davies, C. M., Blatchford, P., Webster, R., Koutsoubou, M., & Bassett, P. (2010). Enhancing learning? A comparison of teacher and teaching assistant interactions with pupils. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 21(4), 429-449.

Rutherford, G. (2014). Questions of value (s): Neoliberal educational reforms from the perspectives of disabled students and teacher aides. In Tales from school (pp. 239-254). Brill.

Ward, A. (2011). Let’s Talk About Teacher Aides. Kairaranga, 12(1), 43-50.

Rutherford, G. (2009). Curriculum matters for all students? Understanding curriculum from the perspectives of disabled students and teacher aides. Curriculum Matters, 5, 90-107.