ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
This article is part of the Research TopicUnleashing Potential in Changing Times: Professional Networks and Learning Communities in Professional DevelopmentView all articles
Building Educators' Confidence and Skill in Improvement Science: A Longitudinal Study of the STEM PUSH Network
Provisionally accepted
Yiwen Lin1,2*
Jennifer Iriti1,2
Jennifer Zoltners Sherer1,2
Danielle Judith Lowry1,2
Christopher Sean Matthis1,2Alison Slinskey Legg1,3- 1University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, United States
- 2University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, Pittsburgh, United States
- 3University of Pittsburgh Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, Pittsburgh, United States
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Networked Improvement Communities (NICs) are a promising strategy for professional learning and educational change. However, limited empirical research has quantitatively examined how network participation cultivates educators' improvement science capacities. This study draws on four years of longitudinal data from the STEM PUSH Network—a NIC designed to broaden participation in STEM through collaboration with leaders of pre-college STEM programs. We investigate how deliberate practice and social learning, two central components of the NIC model, shape the development of improvement science confidence and skill. Our findings show that social learning is most strongly associated with educators' confidence in using improvement tools, while meaningful participation in structured improvement groups predicts demonstrated skill. We also find that network tenure—longer-term engagement and sustained exposure to improvement work—is critical for both outcomes. Together, these findings offer the first quantitative and longitudinal evidence of the distinct and nuanced ways NIC participation shapes practitioners' confidence and skill in improvement science. We conclude by discussing implications for future research and practice in the design and facilitation of Networked Improvement Communities.
Keywords: Networked improvement community, Improvement science, Professional learning community, Research Practice Partnership, improvement science skills, improvement science confidence, Social learning
Received: 22 Aug 2025; Accepted: 11 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, Iriti, Sherer, Lowry, Matthis and Legg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yiwen Lin, yil552@pitt.edu
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