Researchers conducted 63 hour-long interviews of public school principals in Connecticut, Washington, and Tennessee, asking them about the formal professional development opportunities they receive from their districts and about the informal learning opportunities they seek out on their own. The team identified participants through publicly available information, recommendations, and their own networks. They balanced the sample for years of experience, locale type, gender, race, and grade level, and interviewed at least eight principals of color in each state. 

State teams uploaded and coded their own transcripts and synthesized data related to research questions, namely modes of professional learning, content addressed in learning opportunities, and combinations of professional learning mode and content leaders perceive as most useful to their practice, to produce summary memos. The memos were used to compare across contexts, noting commonalities within and across states and identifying discrepancies in the data.

To gauge the extent to which the interview data generalize across the United States, the researchers partnered with RAND to survey almost a thousand principals, from all 50 states, through RAND’s American School Leader Panel (ASLP) in January and February of 2025. Principals reported on the kinds of learning opportunities they engage in, the topics they learn about, and the usefulness of what they learn. RAND distributed the survey to 3,121 participants, and obtained 998 complete and 100 partial responses, for a completion rate of 34 percent. Survey responses were weighted to ensure national representativeness.

A final step involved twenty 20– 30–minute interviews with district leaders in the three states representing a range of urban, suburban, and rural settings. District leaders reflected on the team’s main conclusions and their potential implications.