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A long-term study on the effect of a professional development program on science teachers’ inquiry.

1. Introduction

2. the research, 2.1. research background, 2.2. methodology, 2.2.1. research question and method, 2.2.2. participants and research tools, 2.2.3. data analysis.

• Between 1 and 1.5 were characterized as mixed since they covered a range of 25% of the used scale (scale range: 1 to 3, 0.5 out of 2 results in 0.25, which is actually a percentage of 25%);
• Between 1.51 and 2 was characterized as relative innovative since they covered an additional range of 25% of the used scale (scale range: 1 to 3, 0.5 out of 2 results in 0.25, which is actually a percentage of 25%);
• Between 2.1 and 3 was characterized as innovative since they covered a range of 50% of the used scale (scale range: 1 to 3; 1 out of 2 is a percentage of 50%).
• Score differences lower than 0.40, meaning 20% deviation in the two-grade scale used (0.40/2 = 0.2), were indicative of characterizing the practice as mixed (meaning equally traditional and innovative);
• Score differences between 0.41 and 0.80, suggesting a considerable deviation of 21–40%, were indicative of characterizing the practice as relatively innovative or relatively traditional;
• Score differences higher than 0.81, suggesting important deviation between practices, were indicative of characterizing the practice as explicitly innovative or traditional, depending on which practice was, respectively, dominant (innovative or traditional).

4. Discussion

5. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Tsaliki, C.; Papadopoulou, P.; Malandrakis, G.; Kariotoglou, P. A Long-Term Study on the Effect of a Professional Development Program on Science Teachers’ Inquiry. Educ. Sci. 2024 , 14 , 621. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14060621

Tsaliki C, Papadopoulou P, Malandrakis G, Kariotoglou P. A Long-Term Study on the Effect of a Professional Development Program on Science Teachers’ Inquiry. Education Sciences . 2024; 14(6):621. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14060621

Tsaliki, Christina, Penelope Papadopoulou, Georgios Malandrakis, and Petros Kariotoglou. 2024. "A Long-Term Study on the Effect of a Professional Development Program on Science Teachers’ Inquiry" Education Sciences 14, no. 6: 621. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14060621

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Research on Teacher Professional Development Programs in Science

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Science teachers are an essential link between the scientifically oriented citizens of the present and the future. In order to prepare students for the scientific and technological changes of the 21st century, teachers will need ongoing science professional development opportunities. Educational programs that are as dynamic as the societies in which teachers and students live will require new approaches—and research— on professional development. This research should suggest powerful and purposeful ways in which science teachers can enhance, refine, or reconstruct their practice.

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Science Teachers' Learning: Enhancing Opportunities, Creating Supportive Contexts (2015)

Chapter: 6 professional development programs.

Professional Development Programs

This chapter reviews what is known about formally organized programs of professional development in science, which are the focus of the majority of available research on teacher learning. For purposes of this discussion, formal professional development programs are defined as learning experiences for teachers that (1) are purposefully designed to support particular kinds of teacher change; (2) include a focused, multiday session for teachers that takes place outside of the teacher’s classroom or school; (3) may include follow-up opportunities over the school year; and (4) have a finite duration (although they can take place over a period of 2 to 3 years). These kinds of experiences often are provided by organizations or individuals outside of the school system—universities, cultural institutions, publishers, or contracted providers—but may also be provided by states, districts, or schools.

Depending on access, teachers select from various offerings; in one recent study, The New Teacher Project (2015) found that one district had more than 1,000 professional development opportunities listed in its catalog for 1 year. While the professional development landscape sprawls, it is also disjointed and incoherent; school districts rarely have professional development systems that are aligned with the curriculum and/or opportunities that offer teachers increasingly more advanced study over time (e.g., Wilson et al., 2011). Often, teachers must make choices about programs in which to participate with little outside guidance on their relative benefits or on how a set of experiences might fit together to contribute to

FIGURE 6-1 Connecting the dots: Linking teacher learning opportunities to teacher learning to student learning.

achieving a learning goal. For many teachers, the result is a diffuse and uncoordinated set of learning experiences.

In examining the impact of professional development programs in science, the committee focused on outcomes for teachers and students. Outcomes for teachers include the three domains enumerated in Chapter 5 : teachers’ capacity to adapt instruction to the needs of diverse learners, their content knowledge, and their pedagogical content knowledge and actual instructional practices. While the assumption often is made that teachers who develop professional knowledge and practices in each of these domains will have students who learn more, we also were interested in the extent to which the research literature demonstrates improvements in student outcomes. Therefore, we examined the literature for insights that would help us understand these linkages (see Figure 6-1 ). 1

This chapter begins by describing features of effective professional

______________

1 Given our conception of teacher learning as both individual and collective and of teachers as participants in larger communities and contexts, the representation in Figure 6-1 is limited. The linearity of the model illustrated in the figure, while helping us emphasize the logic of connecting teacher learning to teacher outcomes to student outcomes, obscures the fact that we view learning as both iterative and dynamic, and as embedded in contexts that fundamentally shape what teachers learn and how they exercise their knowledge and skill. For the purposes of parsing the research literature, however, we use this relatively simple framing of the process.

development programs, drawing on research that is not specific to science. It then examines existing research on professional development programs for science teachers, with a particular focus on the impact of these programs and the nature of the research base. We then consider an emerging field of research on professional development—online learning—which has the potential to expand learning opportunities for science teachers in new and exciting ways.

FEATURES OF EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

Organized opportunities for teacher development have a long history in the United States, dating to the 19th century and the origins of the current system of schooling (e.g., Clifford, 2014; Warren, 1989). Attention to professional development as a central lever in school reform rose in the last half of the 20th century, linked to curricular innovations following the launch of Sputnik in the late 1950s, to successive large-scale initiatives following passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, and to efforts at systemic and standards-based reform in the 1980s and 1990s.

In recent decades, syntheses of research across multiple subject areas have yielded what Desimone (2009) characterizes as “an empirical consensus on a set of core features and a conceptual framework for teacher learning” (p. 192). Garet and colleagues (2001) analyzed survey responses of a cross-sectional sample of 1,027 mathematics and science teachers who participated in the Eisenhower Professional Development Program and identified three core features and three structural features of effective professional development. The core features were (1) a focus on content (e.g., science or mathematics), (2) opportunities for active learning, and (3) coherence with other professional learning activities. The structural features identified were (1) the form of the activity (e.g., workshop or study group); (2) collective participation of teachers from the same school, grade, or subject; and (3) the duration of the activity. In a related analysis, Desimone and colleagues (2002) analyzed survey responses from a longitudinal survey of teachers in the Eisenhower program and found that the teachers’ participation in professional development that was focused on particular teaching strategies (such as use of technology), specific instructional approaches, or new forms of student assessment predicted their increased use of those practices in the classroom. These effects were independent of teachers’ prior use of the practices, as well as the subject area.

Numerous syntheses have offered other ways to characterize and conceptualize features of effective professional development (e.g., Abdal-Haqq, 1995; Ball and Cohen, 1999; Blank et al., 2008; Borko, 2004; Borko

et al., 2010; Darling-Hammond et al., 2009; Hawley and Valli, 2006; Little, 1988; Loucks-Horsley et al., 1998, 2003; Putnam and Borko, 1997; Wilson and Berne, 1999; Yoon et al., 2007). Drawing on these findings, as well as those of other studies, Desimone (2009) nominated five core features and suggested that they be used to guide research on professional development. We refer to this as the consensus model of effective professional development:

• content focus—learning opportunities for teachers that focus on subject matter content and how students learn that content;
• active learning—can take a number of forms, including observing expert teachers, followed by interactive feedback and discussion, reviewing student work, or leading discussions;
• coherence—consistency with other learning experiences and with school, district, and state policy;
• sufficient duration—both the total number of hours and the span of time over which the hours take place; and
• collective participation—participation of teachers from the same school, grade, or department.

While this consensus view has shaped the design of many professional development programs, it draws on a research base that consists mainly of correlational studies and teachers’ self-reports (Wilson, 2011; Yoon et al., 2007). Few studies have systematically examined each feature to identify variations within and among features and how these variations connect to teacher learning, fewer still have looked at the impact of programs on teaching practice, and even fewer have examined impacts on student learning (Desimone, 2009; National Research Council, 2011). However, recent research has begun to explore these connections (e.g., Heller et al., 2012; Roth et al., 2011). When the elements of the consensus model have been studied using designs that allow for testing of each feature, the results have not consistently supported the model (Garet et al., 2008, 2011; Scher and O’Reilly, 2009), suggesting that these features may capture surface characteristics and not the mechanisms that account for teacher learning.

Consider duration—perhaps the most consistently reported key feature of effective professional development, and perhaps the most difficult element of the consensus model to specify. Studies vary in the number of hours of participation found to be associated with changes in instruction, as well as in the period over which teachers were engaged. Desimone’s (2009) review suggests the need for at least 20 hours of professional development time spread out over at least a semester. Kennedy’s (1999) review of mathematics and science professional development indicates

that 30 hours or more of participation was associated with positive effects on student learning. A review of projects funded by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Local Systemic Change through Teacher Enhancement Program suggests that changes in teaching practice were evident only after 80 hours of participation, and changes in investigative culture only after 160 hours (Supovitz and Turner, 2000).

Duration may be a proxy for how intensely a teacher engages with a new idea, or it may be related to a teacher’s persistence in trying out new practices until they work. It appears likely that the school and district context, a teacher’s entering knowledge and skill, the type of knowledge that is emphasized (e.g., using a device, knowing a fact, understanding a concept), and the networks in which a teacher participates all influence how readily a professional development experience leads to changes in a teacher’s knowledge and practice.

The contribution of program duration to changes in teachers’ knowledge and practice also appears to be interdependent with other key features of the learning opportunity. In their analysis of a survey of California mathematics teachers’ participation in professional development and classroom practice, Cohen and Hill (2001) conclude that “time spent had a potent influence on practice” (p. 88), but only if the time was spent on content, curriculum, and student tasks. Similarly, the national survey of teachers conducted for an evaluation of the Eisenhower professional development programs (Garet et al., 2001) revealed that the “duration” of professional development (defined in terms of both total contact hours and span of time over weeks or months) achieved its effect primarily through other program features (in a program of longer duration, for example, the greater likelihood that teachers would experience active forms of professional learning).

The consensus model has informed the design of professional development programs in science. In two recent reviews of science professional development (Capps et al., 2012; van Driel et al., 2012), most of the programs studied reflected the consensus model. Across the studies reviewed by van Driel and colleagues (2012), for example, all of the programs stressed active learning, often including inquiry-based activities, and most entailed some degree of collaborative participation and aimed for extended duration.

IMPACT OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS IN SCIENCE

The committee examined the impact of professional development in science on outcomes that align with the logic model in Figure 6-1 : teachers’ outcomes, including knowledge and beliefs about adapting instruc-

tion to students’ backgrounds and needs, content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and instructional practices; and students’ learning and engagement. Our review of the research on professional development programs in science was aided by five recent reviews of the related research literature: Capps et al. (2012), Gerard et al. (2011), Luft and Hewson (2014), Scher and O’Reilly (2009), and van Driel et al. (2012). These reviews differ in scope and focus, but together they cover much of the research on professional development in science published in peer-reviewed journals in the last decade. We also examined studies published after these reviews were conducted.

From an initial pool of 145 available evaluations, Scher and O’Reilly (2009) eventually were able to use only 18 studies: 7 in mathematics, 8 in science, and 3 that concerned mathematics and science. The authors focused on experimental or quasi-experimental evaluations of mathematics and science professional development that had been conducted since 1990. None of the evaluated programs involved a one-shot workshop; all of the programs took place over one or several academic years. Only one study was a randomized controlled trial. Capps and colleagues (2012) reviewed 22 studies published during 1997-2008 covering 17 distinct professional development programs (in some cases, multiple studies addressed the same program). The authors focused on professional development emphasizing the use of inquiry in science classrooms. The review by van Driel and colleagues (2012) included 44 studies (excluding informal in-service and preservice education studies) published from 2007 to 2011. Luft and Hewson (2014) reviewed 50 studies published after 2003 in science education and major education research journals. And Gerard and colleagues (2011) reviewed 43 studies of professional development in technology-enhanced, inquiry-oriented science, focusing on how the professional development enhanced teachers’ support for students’ pursuit of scientific investigations.

Reflecting the trend in the general literature on professional development, few studies included measures of all three outcomes for teachers (their knowledge and beliefs about adapting instruction to students’ backgrounds and needs and about pedagogical content knowledge, and their practice), and none systematically examined each feature of the consensus model. Many studies relied on teachers’ self-reports through questionnaires and interviews. A small number of studies employed rigorous designs—the use of control or comparison groups, random assignment, or large numbers of teachers across different schools or districts. Fewer studies measured student outcomes, so it is difficult to make a strong argument for effects on student learning and achievement. For example, from the original 145 evaluations that Scher and O’Reilly identified for their

meta-analysis, only 18 were left in the pool after the authors reviewed the rigor of the designs and the technical quality of the reported research.

While the committee drew on a wide range of literature concerning science teacher learning, for the analysis reported here we emphasized studies that employed comparative designs or included relatively large numbers of teachers drawn from more than one school or district. We also gave particular attention to studies that examined changes in both instructional practices and student outcomes.

Changes in Teachers’ Knowledge and Beliefs

Changes in knowledge and beliefs as a result of participation in a professional development program are widely reported in the literature. Teachers’ knowledge for science teaching—content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge—is measured in a variety of ways, including tests, interviews, and surveys. Teachers’ beliefs are measured using surveys or interviews.

Of the 22 studies reviewed by Capps and colleagues (2012), 8 report enhanced teacher knowledge as a result of professional development focused on inquiry; however, only 6 of those include measures of teacher knowledge (content knowledge or knowledge of process skills or inquiry) both before and after the professional development experience (Akerson and Hanuscin, 2007; Akerson et al., 2009; Basista and Matthews, 2002; Jeanpierre et al., 2005; Lotter et al., 2006, 2007; Radford, 1998; Shepardson and Harbor, 2004; Westerlund et al., 2002). Two additional studies report on teachers’ knowledge during their first year of participation in professional development, but knowledge before participation was not measured; rather, the results reported are based on teachers’ own perceptions of their change in knowledge (Lee et al., 2005, 2008). Four studies reviewed by Capps and colleagues report positive changes in teachers’ beliefs as a result of participation in professional development in science (Basista and Matthews, 2002; Johnson, 2007; Lee et al., 2004; Luft, 2001).

Among the 44 studies reviewed by van Driel and colleagues (2012), 4 focused only on teachers’ knowledge or beliefs. These studies included relatively small numbers of teachers and used surveys, interviews, and reflective journals to measure outcomes.

Numerous studies reviewed by Luft and Hewson (2014) investigated the effects of professional development on teachers’ knowledge and beliefs. For example, several qualitative studies found shifts in teachers’ understanding of the nature of science through professional development (e.g., Akerson et al., 2009; Lederman et al., 2002; Posnanski, 2010).

Fewer studies examined the impact of professional development in science on teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. One such study

found that professional development could lead to changes in teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for argumentation (McNeill and Knight, 2013). This study examined how three professional development programs impacted 70 elementary, middle, and high school teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge related to scientific argumentation. Pre- and post-assessments, video recordings of the professional development workshops, artifacts produced by the teachers during the professional development, and classroom learning tasks related to student work were used to assess two elements of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge: (1) knowledge of students’ conceptions for argumentation, and (2) knowledge of instructional strategies for argumentation. The researchers found that the workshops led to teachers’ increased pedagogical content knowledge in relation to scientific argumentation with regard to the structural components of students’ writing. But teachers struggled to analyze classroom discussions in terms of both structural and dialogic characteristics of argumentation, had difficulty applying the reasoning component of argumentation to classroom practice, and found designing argumentation questions to be challenging.

In another study reporting on the impact of professional development in science on teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge outcomes, Roth and colleagues (2011) examined upper-elementary teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge related to student thinking and the coherence of science activities and ideas. The researchers used a video analysis task that engaged teachers in watching video clips of science lessons pre-, mid- and postprogram. Teachers then wrote an analysis of anything of educational interest regarding the teaching, content, context, and/or students. Teachers in the treatment lesson analysis program became more analytical and made more comments about the science content and about pedagogical content issues after program participation relative to teachers in a comparison group that focused only on deepening teachers’ content knowledge.

Studies on teachers’ beliefs have varied over time. Most studies suggest that professional development programs can shape teachers’ beliefs (Jones and Leagon, 2014). Lumpe and colleagues (2012), for instance, studied the beliefs of more than 30 elementary teachers in a state-wide professional development program. They reported that elementary teachers who participated in more than 100 contact hours displayed significant gains in their beliefs. Larger studies related to teachers’ beliefs and professional development tend to focus on elementary and middle school teachers, which is potentially a result of the widespread use of the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI) (Enochs and Riggs, 1990, Luft and Hewson, 2014).

Looking across these results, there is evidence that professional devel-

opment programs in science can enhance teachers’ knowledge of science content and teachers’ beliefs. However, it is difficult to determine what features of the programs are most important in enhancing teachers’ knowledge or fostering positive beliefs.

Changes in Instructional Practice

Most professional development programs in science are intended to catalyze changes in teachers’ instruction, and researchers may use direct classroom observations, teachers’ self-reports, or, less frequently, students’ reports to document such changes. Even when instructional changes are observed, it often is difficult to determine what elements of the professional development program were most important in catalyzing the observed changes. Many studies examining instructional changes involved a small number of teachers and did not employ a control or comparison group.

Of the studies reviewed by Scher and O’Reilly (2009), five examined the effects of professional development on teachers’ practice. In general, the research found positive effects on teachers’ instruction in three studies that examined mathematics and science professional development and one study of science professional development (Lott, 2003). The pooled effect size for the relationship between professional development and teacher instruction was more pronounced than that for professional development and student learning, leading the researchers to conjecture that professional development may have a stronger effect on teacher practice than on student learning. However, the small number of studies that provided sufficiently rigorous evidence on these relationships inhibits the ability to make any causal claims.

Among the studies reviewed by Capps and colleagues (2012), 14 document changes in teachers’ instruction as a result of professional development focused on inquiry-based instruction. Eleven of these studies used classroom observation to assess changes, while 2 (Jeanpierre et al., 2005; Lee et al., 2004) used both teachers’ self-reports and classroom observation. Lee and colleagues (2004) found that teachers’ self-reports of instructional changes conflicted with direct observations, with teachers reporting changes that were not then observed. In contrast, Jeanpierre and colleagues (2005) found that self-reports and observations were consistent and reflected changes in teachers’ practice.

Of the studies reviewed by van Driel and colleagues (2012), 25 measured changes both in teachers’ knowledge and in their instruction, but did not employ measures of students’ learning. Most of these studies involved fewer than 20 teachers and included some form of direct class-

room observation. All of the studies showed a positive effect of professional development on teachers’ instruction.

Of the studies reviewed pertaining to newly hired teachers of science (Luft and Hewson, 2014), six observational studies found changes in beginning teachers’ instruction as result of participating in professional development. Borman and Dowling (2008) investigated the results of a professional development program that supported teachers in using inquiry in the classroom. The study involved 80 schools, with approximately half not participating in the professional development program. New teachers who participated in the program had positive student scores, while more experienced teachers had negative effects.

In a review of programs designed to further teachers’ use of technology to support inquiry in science, Gerard and colleagues (2011) found that for programs that lasted 1 year or less, teachers’ use of technology in the first year after participating in the program was influenced primarily by technical and instructional challenges related to implementing the technology in the classroom for the first time, rather than by the design of the professional development program. When professional development was sustained beyond 1 year, teachers and researchers were able to overcome these kinds of challenges.

In one of the few large-scale studies that included teachers from multiple schools and districts, Banilower and colleagues (2007) found that participation in professional development programs in science was positively related to teachers’ attitudes toward science instruction and their perceptions of their preparedness with respect to pedagogical and science content knowledge (see Box 6-1 ). In addition, teachers were more likely to implement a set of instructional materials if they had received training in the use of those materials. Professional development around instructional materials also was associated with increases in the amount of instructional time devoted to science and was positively correlated with teachers’ use of teaching practices aligned with standards.

Few studies of instructional change in response to professional development in science have used control or comparison groups. Grigg and colleagues (2013) report on a 3-year large-scale randomized trial in the Los Angeles Unified School District focused on studying the effects of a professional development program concerning inquiry science on the instruction of 4th- and 5th-grade teachers in 73 schools. During the study, the school district introduced another district-wide professional development initiative on scientific inquiry. The researchers found that the two interventions increased the frequency of inquiry-based science teaching, and the impact of the professional development was selective: teachers tended to display instructional change in those areas of scientific inquiry that were more emphasized in the professional development. For

BOX 6-1 A Large-Scale Study of Professional Development

Banilower and colleagues (2007) drew on a large-scale study from the Local Systemic Change Initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF began this initiative (through its Teacher Enhancement Program) in 1995. The initiative’s primary goal was to improve instruction in science, mathematics, and technology through teacher professional development within schools or school districts. By 2002, NSF had funded 88 projects that targeted science or mathematics (or both) at the elementary or secondary level (or both). The projects were designed for all teachers in a jurisdiction; each teacher was required to participate in a minimum of 130 hours of professional development over the course of the project. The initiative also emphasized preparing teachers to implement district-designated mathematics and science instructional materials in their classes (Banilower et al., 2006).

In addition to providing professional development for teachers, the Local Systemic Change Initiative promoted efforts to build a supportive environment for improving instruction in science, mathematics, and technology. The initiative’s projects were expected to align policy and practice within targeted districts and to engage in a range of activities to support reform. Those activities included

• building a comprehensive, shared vision of science, mathematics, and technology education;
• conducting a detailed self-study to assess the system’s needs and strengths;
• promoting active partnerships and commitments among an array of stakeholders;
• designing a strategic plan that included mechanisms for engaging teachers in high-quality professional development activities over the course of the project; and
• developing clearly defined, measurable outcomes for teaching and an evaluation plan that would provide formative and summative feedback.

Banilower and colleagues (2007) analyzed the results for 18,657 teachers across 42 different projects involving science teachers in grades K-8 to examine the impact on teachers’ attitudes, perceptions of preparedness, and classroom practices of professional development that was content based, situated in classroom practice, and sustained over time. The professional development model used in the projects targeted all teachers in a jurisdiction and emphasized preparing them to implement project-designated materials.

example, analysis of classroom observations showed increases in scientific questioning and in students formulating explanations using evidence. There was no increase in students connecting explanations to scientific knowledge, an aspect of scientific inquiry less emphasized in the professional development programs.

A small number of studies have explicitly compared different models of professional development in science. In one such study, Penuel and colleagues (2009) compared three different professional development programs in earth science for teachers from 19 middle schools in a large urban district. Teachers were randomly assigned to one of three program models or a control group. The three professional development programs differed in how teachers were engaged in designing, adopting, or adapting curriculum materials. All of the programs had a positive impact on how teachers planned and carried out their instruction. However, none of the teachers in any of the three programs or the control condition used students’ preconceptions in class, and there were no differences in whether they elicited students’ prior ideas about the concepts taught that day.

Findings across studies suggest that participation in professional development can lead to changes in teachers’ instructional practice, but that those changes often are tightly linked to the aspects of instruction emphasized in the professional development.

Changes in Student Outcomes

As noted above, few studies of professional development for science teachers have measured student outcomes, although this trend is gradually shifting. Nine of the studies reviewed by Capps and colleagues (2012) report enhanced student learning. Two of these studies did not use a control or comparison group, and a third used only a posttest. Only 6 of the 44 studies reviewed by van Driel and colleagues (2012) directly assessed student learning, while 9 asked teachers to report on whether their students had benefited. All 6 of the former studies showed a positive effect on student learning. The review by Gerard and colleagues (2011) indicates that students’ science learning experiences were enhanced for more than 60 percent of teachers who participated in professional development programs that (1) helped the teachers elicit students’ ideas and support them in using evidence to distinguish among ideas and in reflecting on and integrating ideas; and (2) were sustained for more than 1 year.

Scher and O’Reilly (2009) located 18 studies that provided sufficient evidence for inclusion in their meta-analysis (8 of these were in science, and 3 included mathematics and science teachers). The researchers found a positive effect on student achievement, stronger for mathematics than for science programs. They also report that mathematics professional development taking place over multiple years had a more pronounced effect on student achievement than 1-year programs; they did not find the same result in their analysis of the science professional development evaluations. Among the mathematics professional development programs, the

researchers also found a more pronounced effect on student achievement for those programs that focused on content and pedagogy, not pedagogy alone. A similar trend was noted for science, but not as strong statistically. Mathematics professional development programs that included coaching as part of the intervention also had a more pronounced effect. None of the science professional development programs studied included a coaching component.

In general, across all five of the literature reviews the committee consulted, the studies that employed a control or comparison group (thereby allowing for stronger inferences about the effect of the professional development program itself on observed outcomes) report evidence for positive effects on student learning, including among students from economically disadvantaged schools and English language learners. Still, most of the studies employing control or comparison groups included a small number of teachers from a single district.

Lara-Alecio and colleagues (2012) examined how professional development paired with specific science lessons about inquiry-based teaching affected achievement among 5th-grade English language learners. Based on earlier research demonstrating that inquiry-based interventions can improve English language learners’ conceptual understanding of science (Amaral et al., 2002; August et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2005), the researchers examined the children’s learning in a literacy-embedded science instructional intervention. Twelve teachers in 10 lower middle schools participated in professional development that explored science concepts and curriculum materials developed to aid in teaching those concepts in an inquiry-oriented manner. Students whose teachers participated in the professional development and who used the materials had significantly higher scores on five benchmark tests in science and on reading assessments relative to students in the control group. This result accords with the findings of Penuel and colleagues (2011), who also found that students demonstrated greater gains in their understanding of earth science when their teachers had participated in professional development focused on the development of curriculum units.

The Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA) Program features video-based analysis of instructional practice aimed at upper elementary teachers (Roth et al., 2011). This year-long professional development program is organized around a conceptual framework that focuses teachers’ attention on analyzing science teaching and learning through two lenses: the Science Content Storyline Lens and the Student Thinking Lens (see Box 6-2 for further detail). The researchers studied the influence of the professional development program on teachers’ science content knowledge (multiple-choice test), teachers’ pedagogical content

BOX 6-2 The Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis (STeLLA) Program

The STeLLA Program is an intensive, year-long, videocase-based, analysis-of-practice professional development program in science for upper-elementary teachers. Central to the program is a coherent conceptual framework that encompasses two lenses for looking at science teaching more closely—the Science Content Storyline Lens and the Student Thinking Lens. Drawing on research, this framework identifies eight specific teaching strategies designed to support teachers in making students’ thinking more visible and nine strategies designed to support the development of coherent science content storylines that help students make the links between science ideas and classroom activities. This framework provides strong program coherence by focusing teachers’ attention on a small set of core teaching strategies and supporting them in analyzing and understanding these strategies and using them well. The program’s goals are to deepen teachers’ science content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge about student thinking and about science content storylines in two content areas in the teachers’ curriculum.

Teachers meet in small, grade-level study groups (5 to 10 members), led by a STeLLA professional development leader. Teachers first learn about the STeLLA lenses and teaching strategies in a 2-week summer institute, where they analyze STeLLA-prepared videocases from classrooms outside of their own study group. A videocase includes a set of videos from one classroom along with associated materials, including students’ written work/pre-posttests, educative curriculum materials that highlight the STeLLA lenses and strategies (e.g., lesson plans, content and pedagogical content knowledge background readings, compendium of common student ideas), and videos of student and teacher interviews. During the

knowledge (video analysis task), teachers’ practice (lesson videotapes), and students’ science knowledge (pre-post science unit tests).

Students whose teachers had participated in the STeLLA Program showed statistically significant learning improvement relative to students of the control teachers in a quasi-experimental study involving 48 teachers (Roth et al., 2011). Similar results were found in a follow-up study of the STeLLA Program using larger numbers of teachers (144 teachers in 77 schools) and over 2,800 students, PD leaders who were not program developers, a new geographical context, and a stronger comparison PD program. In this randomized, controlled study, students of teachers in the STeLLA Program significantly outperformed students of teachers in the comparison content deepening program on a science content knowledge test (Taylor et al., in press).

In a study focused specifically on strategies related to reading and

school year, participating teachers teach STeLLA lesson plans and analyze videos of their own teaching with their colleagues in monthly 3.5-hour study group meetings. During these meetings, teachers regularly generate questions about their own and their students’ understandings of the science content, so that science content issues are intertwined with pedagogical issues.

Results from a quasi-experimental study (Roth et al., 2011) of 48 teachers, half of whom participated in the STeLLA Program, showed that, in comparison with teachers who received professional development focused only on deepening science content knowledge, program participants developed deeper science content knowledge and stronger abilities to use pedagogical content knowledge to analyze science-teaching practice. In addition, participants in the STeLLA Program increased their use of teaching strategies that made students’ thinking visible and contributed to the coherence of the science lesson. Most important, their students’ learning showed significant improvement. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed that predictors of student learning included teachers’ science content knowledge; their ability to analyze students’ thinking; and their use of four science content storyline teaching strategies: (1) identify one main learning goal, (2) select content representations matched to the learning goal and engage students in their use, (3) make explicit links between science ideas and activities, and (4) link science ideas to other science ideas. Analysis of students’ science content learning showed that students of teachers participating in the STeLLA Program outperformed those of teachers in the content deepening only program. Similar results emerged from a scale-up randomized, controlled study where students whose teachers participated in the STeLLA Program showed stronger science content knowledge than students whose teachers participated in a content deepening PD program of equal duration (Taylor et al., in press).

reading comprehension in science, Greenleaf and colleagues (2011) examined the effects of the Reading Apprenticeship Professional Development Program on high school biology teachers and their students. In a group-randomized experimental design, they used multiple measures of teachers’ practice and students’ learning about both biology and literacy, targeting schools serving many low-achieving students from groups historically unrepresented in the sciences. In total, 105 biology teachers in 83 schools participated (56 in the treatment group, 49 in the control group). Outcome measures for teachers included pre-post survey assessments of teacher knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices in science and literacy; postintervention interviews; and the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing’s Teacher Assignment instrument, which incorporates student work samples as a measure of teaching practice (Aschbacher, 1999; Clare, 2000). Student outcomes were

measured using student surveys and pre-post assessments of student learning in biology and reading comprehension. Teachers participated in 10 days of professional development in Reading Apprenticeship, an instructional framework that integrates metacognitive inquiry teaching routines (such as think-alouds, text annotation, metacognitive logs, and teacher modeling of reading and reasoning processes) and reading comprehension protocols (such as ReQuest and Reciprocal Teaching) into subject area instruction.

Compared with control teachers, intervention teachers showed increased support for literacy learning in science and increased knowledge of the role of reading in learning and in their repertoire of instructional practices. They also demonstrated increased support for the use of metacognitive inquiry teaching routines, reading comprehension instruction, and collaborative learning structures relative to control teachers. Analysis of their teaching assignments revealed higher ratings for the cognitive challenge in their lessons, both in literacy and in biology, and higher frequencies of reading engagement support compared with control teachers. Students in treatment classrooms performed better than controls on state standardized assessments in English language arts, reading comprehension, and biology.

A program focused on whole-school science professional development developed by Johnson and Fargo (2010) also showed positive effects on students. The researchers employed a randomized controlled research design to study the impact of Transformative Professional Development (TPD) on teacher practice and student learning in a high-needs urban school district. The professional development program spanned 2 years, with a total of 200 hours of professional development. Sixteen teachers participated (8 in the treatment group, 8 in the control group).

Essential to the TPD model is the approach of “critical mass”—that the program includes all science teachers in a building participating together. Careful attention is paid to building relationships between teachers and their colleagues, between teachers and students, and between teachers and university faculty members. In addition, teachers’ voices are honored as the program becomes increasingly co-developed by teachers and university partners over the 2-year period.

Over the 2 years, teachers in the treatment school improved in the design and implementation of their lessons, while teachers in the control schools declined. Pre-post tests for students included items taken from state tests. There was no significant difference between the performance of students in the treatment and control conditions after year 1; in year 2, however, students in the treatment group showed twice as much growth as students in the control group.

In one of the few studies employing a randomized design with a

control group and a large number of teachers across multiple sites, Heller and colleagues (2012) compared three different models of professional development. The study included 270 elementary teachers and 7,000 students in eight sites across six states who were randomly assigned to one of three experimental models of professional development or to a control condition (see Box 6-3 for details). All three models produced significant

BOX 6-3 A Comparison of Three Models of Professional Development for Elementary Teachers

In a large-scale study of 270 elementary teachers and 7,000 students in eight sites across six states, Heller and colleagues (2012) compared three professional development models for elementary teachers. Teachers were randomly assigned to one of the three models or a control group that received no treatment. All three intervention models involved the same science content; however, they differed in the ways in which they supported teachers in developing content teaching knowledge. Each intervention involved 24 hours of contact time divided into eight 3-hour sessions. The interventions were delivered by staff developers trained to lead the teacher courses in their regions. The models were as follows:

• In one intervention model (Teaching Cases), teachers discussed narrative descriptions of extended examples from actual classrooms, which included samples of student work, accounts of classroom discussions, and descriptions of the teachers’ thinking and instructional decisions.
• In a second intervention model (Looking at Students’ Work), teachers examined and discussed their own students’ work in the context of ongoing lessons.
• In the third intervention model (Metacognitive Analysis), teachers engaged in reflection and analysis about their own learning as they participated in science investigations. They considered ideas that could be learned through the investigation, tricky or surprising concepts, and implications for students’ learning.
• The control group received no treatment during the initial study year, but participants were offered a delayed opportunity to receive the professional development.

All three intervention models improved both teachers’ and students’ scores on tests of science content knowledge relative to the scores of teachers and students in the control group. In addition, the effects of the intervention on teachers’ students were stronger in the follow-up year than during the intervention year. Achievement also improved for English language learners in both the study and follow-up years. Only the Teaching Cases and Looking at Students’ Work models improved the accuracy and completeness of students’ written justifications of test answers in the follow-up year. Only the Teaching Cases model had sustained effects on teachers’ written justifications.

changes in student scores on selected-response tests of science content, with no significant differences by gender or race/ethnicity. English language learners demonstrated significant gains in content knowledge as well, and students showed significant increases in content test scores a year later. Although all three models generated positive results in terms of student knowledge, the models varied with respect to the quality of students’ written explanations. Only students who worked with teachers who participated in the intervention involving looking at student work from their own classrooms showed improved written explanations during the initial study year; in the follow-up year, written explanations improved significantly for students of teachers participating in both models that included an examination of student work samples. English language learners’ written justifications did not show significant effects during the study year; a year later, however, those whose teachers participated in the intervention that entailed looking at student work had marginally higher scores relative to the control group of English language learners.

Benefits and Challenges of Professional Development Programs in Science

Professional development programs in science offer a number of benefits. First, they can potentially bring coherence to teacher learning. The fact that professional development programs are planned with a focus on specific goals and experiences with which to meet those goals can help teachers step aside from the activities and multiple goals they are addressing each day in their classrooms and persist with a set of key ideas over enough time to make real progress toward transformative change. The time required to develop such coherent programs often is in short supply within school systems, however.

Programs that incorporate a substantial off-site component also have the potential to enable intense teacher engagement as other obligations and distractions are temporarily removed, and teachers are afforded a time and a place conducive to reflection and study. Teachers for whom reform-oriented practices are entirely new may require such immersion to effect the paradigm shift in teaching attitudes and beliefs needed to achieve the vision of science education set forth in A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Moreover, professional development leaders from outside teachers’ workplaces have an advantage in creating a safe space for challenging teachers’ thinking because they are not linked in any way to evaluations that would affect the teachers’ employment status.

The intensive programs reviewed in this chapter also provide a mech-

anism for connecting teachers with expertise and experiences in science and science teaching that may not be available in their schools and districts. For example, teachers can interact with scientists who can help them better understand the science they are teaching to their students.

Formal programs can be effectively linked with teachers’ work in schools in a variety of ways. Several of the examples discussed in this chapter include sessions during the school year that are based in teachers’ schools. These kinds of school-based efforts are discussed in more detail in the next chapter. Finally, the findings of Scher and O’Reilly (2009) reinforce the idea that sustained professional development leads to increased student learning.

The programs discussed in this chapter also have challenges. One major challenge is that programs that include an intensive, multiday, off-site component can be quite expensive and difficult to sustain. Also, such programs typically reach a small percentage of the teachers who could benefit from professional learning experiences in science. In addition, the coherence that is so valuable in professional development programs can be a problem if it is so preplanned that it cannot be responsive to the varying needs of teachers at different stages of their professional development. Online professional learning may provide a mechanism for overcoming problems of scale and being more responsive to individual needs, but more research is needed to understand how online experiences can maintain the coherence that is such a benefit of professional development programs (see the discussion of online programs in the next section).

Another challenge of professional development programs is that even sustained programs have an end point—rarely do such programs continue for more than 2-3 years. Thus, these programmatic experiences are relatively short-lived, often with no mechanism for providing teachers with ongoing support. Because these programs typically are not embedded in schools, it is difficult to ensure that teachers are supported in implementing the ideas and practices they have learned. A program of 90 hours of professional development in science is meaningless if a teacher’s principal discourages her from teaching science so as to place more emphasis on English language arts and mathematics. Teachers who participate in science professional development programs outside of their school also may feel isolated as they try to implement new teaching strategies, lacking colleagues at their school who can help them plan, debrief, and problem solve. And this isolation also prevents the development of the collective capacity of the science teachers in a school and district. The learning of that one isolated teacher benefits her and her students but is not disseminated to enhance the learning of all.

In summary, a solid body of research on professional development programs for science teachers examines impacts on teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practice. Using a range of methods, researchers have found intriguing evidence that when designed and implemented well, professional development in science can lead to sustainable changes in teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and their instruction. There is suggestive evidence that professional development programs in science that incorporate many of the features of the consensus model (science content focus, active learning, coherence, sufficient duration, and collective participation) can lead to changes in teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and instructional practice. Many fewer studies have measured student outcomes, making it difficult to offer a strong argument for the effect of these programs on students’ learning and achievement. Still, there is suggestive evidence for the potential of certain strategies to support changes in teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and their instruction that lead to improved student learning. These promising strategies include analysis of elements of instruction, close attention to students’ thinking and analysis of their work, opportunities for teachers to reflect on their own instruction in science, time for teachers to try out instructional approaches in their classrooms, and coherence with school and district policies and practices. Programs typically include a multiday “off-campus” component led by an individual with expertise in science pedagogy and content. Teachers then return to their classrooms to implement some of the instructional approaches they have learned about, during which time they have opportunities to talk with one another and with the professional development providers about their progress.

Findings from those studies that employed a strong design and connected the dots in the teacher learning model depicted in Figure 6-1 by studying the relationships among teachers’ opportunities to learn, teacher learning outcomes, and student learning outcomes suggest a preliminary list of program characteristics that lead to improved student learning in science and go beyond the consensus model:

• Teachers’ science content learning is intertwined with pedagogical activities such as analysis of practice (Heller et al., 2012; Roth et al., 2011).
• Teachers are engaged in analysis of student learning and science teaching using artifacts of practice such as student work and lesson videos (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Heller et al., 2012; Roth et al., 2011).
• There is a focus on specific, targeted teaching strategies (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Johnson and Fargo, 2010; Penuel et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
• Teachers are given opportunities to reflect on and grapple with challenges to their current practice (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Johnson and Fargo, 2010; Penuel et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
• Learning is scaffolded by knowledgeable professional development leaders (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Heller et al., 2012; Penuel et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
• Analytical tools support collaborative, focused, and deep analysis of science teaching, student learning, and science content (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).

The committee offers this list of characteristics with cautious optimism. On the one hand, it is clear that, as Scher and O’Reilly (2009) argue, “Most reasonable people agree that professional development for math and science teachers is a useful and necessary investment [but that] researchers, practitioners, and policymakers need to be more realistic about what we know” (p. 235). Despite these promising findings, the research base remains uneven, and inconsistencies in results need to be explored. As van Driel and colleagues (2012) point out, most studies focus on one program in one setting with a small number of teachers, and there has been an overreliance on teachers’ self-reports. Few studies used strong research designs incorporating pre-post measures of both sets of outcomes shown in Figure 6-1 (teachers’ knowledge and instruction and students’ learning) and a control or comparison group. The field lacks consistently used, technically powerful measures of science teachers’ knowledge and practice, as well as measures that capture the full range of student outcomes.

There are also gaps in the evidence base. As van Driel and colleagues (2012) observe, almost no studies attend to the school organization and context and how they might affect the impact of professional development programs in science. Similarly, no published research examines the role and expertise of science professional development providers and facilitators (Luft and Hewson, 2014), although some research designs allow for that possibility (for one example and preliminary analysis, see Heller et al., 2010, pp. 71-84). Further, given the range of content taught, grade levels, and local and state contexts in which teachers work, even this growing body of research fails to provide definitive answers as to how teachers might best be supported in meeting the challenge of the new vision of science education. Keeping these weaknesses in mind, the committee agrees with Scher and O’Reilly when they remark that “a simple answer that ‘the research base of high-quality evaluation is too thin to

make informed judgments’. . . discounts the decades’ worth of theory and development that have led to many of the current forward-thinking interventions” (p. 237), including those described here. We return to these observations in the chapter’s conclusion.

ONLINE PROGRAMS

The explosion of online learning opportunities has led to increased interest in new venues for teacher learning. Professional development designers and leaders have begun exploring the potential of online learning to meet the need for high-quality experiences that are scalable and accessible to large numbers of teachers, flexible enough to meet varying needs and limited schedules, and cost-effective to produce and obtain (Cavanaugh and Dawson, 2010; National Research Council, 2007; Whitehouse et al., 2006). Many also see promise in the online environment as a way to provide professional development experiences that are ongoing, timely, and closely tied to teachers’ classroom practices, as a viable alternative to the one-shot workshops in which many teachers now participate (National Research Council, 2007; Sherman et al., 2008; Whitehouse et al., 2006). As technological capabilities have rapidly advanced, a wide array of online professional development programs for teachers across the educational spectrum have emerged, including those for science teachers. This section describes the nature of online teacher professional development, its benefits and challenges, and the available evidence regarding its effectiveness. It should be noted, however, that research on online programs has proceeded largely independently of the research reviewed in the previous section, and remains in its early stages.

The Nature of Online Professional Development

The range of online programs for teacher professional development varies by the intended programs’ purpose, objectives, content area, and pedagogy, as well as the ways in which the programs are delivered, assessed, and evaluated (Whitehouse et al., 2006). Dede (2006, pp. 2-3) describes the overarching goals of online teacher professional development as “introducing new curricula, altering teachers’ instructional and assessment practices, changing school organization and culture, and enhancing relationships between district and community”—goals that overlap with those face-to-face programs. To achieve these goals, online programs employ a range of methods, including providing materials designed to enhance content knowledge, along with opportunities for reflection and discussion; access to subject matter and pedagogical experts; forums for discussing with other teachers experiences in implementing

new practices; ongoing mentorship; and libraries of tools, resources, and video examples. Programs that employ these methods may be delivered online only, but some offer a hybrid model with a combination of both face-to-face and online components.

Dede and colleagues (2005) conducted an extensive review of approximately 400 articles published in the previous 5 years regarding online, face-to-face, and hybrid models of professional development. They identified 40 empirical studies that articulated a clear research question, used rigorous data collection methods, and conducted analyses of and interpreted the data related to the research questions. Nearly half of the 40 studies focused on programs in either mathematics (8) or science (9). The remainder focused on programs in multiple subjects, language arts, special education, foreign languages, or technology integration. Pedagogically, the approaches employed in the online programs studied took a largely social constructivist approach, which included problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, mentoring, and communities of practice.

Effectiveness of Online Professional Development

A body of research has examined the effectiveness of the online professional development approach in engaging teachers, building community, and improving teacher learning. Much of this research has been based on participant satisfaction surveys, course evaluations, and some pre- and posttesting of participants’ learning (Dede et al., 2009).

The majority of the studies reviewed by Dede and colleagues (2009) are qualitative and tend to focus on the nature of participant interactions and the design elements and contexts of the online programs that contributed to teacher learning and community. Some compare these elements in online versus face-to-face programs. Although few studies entailed measuring teacher or student outcomes empirically, results of the reviewed studies suggest some of the key elements that may be necessary to make engagement in online professional development productive. First, multiple studies demonstrate the importance of facilitation for interactions among teachers online, echoing a similar and consistent conclusion regarding the importance of facilitation in face-to-face professional development. Merely creating an online forum for connecting was found to be insufficient for on-topic, productive interactions in which teachers feel safe in discussing their understanding of science concepts and their instructional practices. Similar findings emerged regarding the use of video examples: skilled guidance is required to lead discussions around the examples. Some studies found that facilitators need specifically to elicit contributions focused on teacher practices, to pose pointed questions, and to ask for evidence in support of claims.

Studies comparing online and face-to-face interactions also suggest that teachers may be more reflective about practices online than face-to-face. Dede and colleagues (2005) note the very limited empirical data available on teacher and student learning; however, they did find some support for teachers’ ability to learn science content more effectively through online than through face-to-face learning.

Few studies have included measures of teacher practices in the classroom or measures of students’ learning (Dede et al., 2009). One recent study by Fishman and colleagues (2013) is an exception. This study consisted of a randomized experiment evaluating two different approaches to professional development designed to prepare high school teachers to implement an environmental science curriculum. One condition consisted of a 6-day, 48-hour face-to-face workshop; the other consisted of an online workshop with a series of self-paced short courses that teachers completed on their own, and included a facilitator who was available to assist teachers and answer questions. Although teachers in the second condition completed the courses online, they also participated in a 2-day face-to-face orientation session designed to prepare them to be successful with the online tools. Thus, the second condition may more appropriately be considered a hybrid approach to professional development.

Researchers measured teachers’ beliefs and knowledge, coded videos of their classroom practices with particular lessons from the curriculum, and measured student learning on a multiple-choice test about environmental science. Overall, 25 teachers participated in the online condition and 24 in the face-to-face condition, with 596 and 493 high school students, respectively. Findings indicated that teachers and students in both groups improved in their content knowledge but did not differ significantly in this regard from one another. Teachers in the two groups also did not differ significantly in their beliefs about efficacy and teaching environmental science, or in a range of beliefs about their knowledge and inquiry practices. Nor did the groups differ significantly on measured classroom practices. In their discussion of these findings, Fishman and colleagues suggest that the variability of total contact hours among the online group members, who were able to pace their own learning, indicates the potential effectiveness of this type of flexibility to fit the needs of various participants. However, the authors and others (e.g., Moon et al., 2014) caution that these findings should not be taken as representative of all online professional development, which should be seen more as a delivery vehicle than as a specific approach. Rather, these findings point to conditions that may enable teachers to capitalize on the efficiency, timeliness, and reach of an online environment.

Results of an evaluation of a hybrid model of professional development aimed at helping middle and high school teachers across sub-

jects adopt inquiry-based practices in teaching about energy suggest that online programs may not always lead to positive changes in teachers’ beliefs and instruction (Seraphin et al., 2013). The program consisted of a 2-day face-to-face workshop, followed by participation in an online segment that included a peer forum with expert presentations that participants reviewed and discussed. The researchers found that the program was effective at generating interest in teaching about energy. However, teachers’ confidence in their ability to teach about energy adequately through inquiry-based methods remained low, as did their knowledge and application of inquiry practices (based on teacher self-reports).

A pilot study of modules created by the National Science Teachers Association to improve the science content knowledge of teachers compared an online-only form with a hybrid form that included a 6-hour in-person workshop in addition to the online segment, which was designed to take a total of 6-10 hours (Sherman et al., 2008). Forty-five middle school teachers across three states participated. Scores in teachers’ science knowledge increased from pretest to posttest in the online-only condition, but not among the hybrid group. However, the authors caution that these gains were still quite modest and may not be sufficient for proficiency in the content. Moreover, confidence scores improved a great deal among the hybrid group, “suggesting a disconnect between feeling confident in teaching a particular subject and actually knowing the content well” (p. 30).

Finally, studies have begun to examine the elements and conditions that make online professional development effective, as well as whether there are some teachers for whom this approach works best. In an attempt to better understand why there are high levels of noncompletion of online courses among teachers, for example, Reeves and Pedulla (2011) conducted a pre- and postsurvey of satisfaction among 3,998 elementary and secondary teachers participating in the e-Learning for Educators initiative across nine states. Overall, prior experience with online courses, course organization, helpful feedback from a facilitator, quality of learner interactions, clarity of expectations, user-friendliness of the interface, ease of content transferability, beneficial nature of discussion topics, and effective linking of content and pedagogy were positive predictors of satisfaction. Perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, facilitator expertise, materials that were culturally unbiased, clarity of goals, and the facilitators keeping discussions on topic were negative predictors of satisfaction. Taken together, these positive and negative predictors explained nearly half of the variance in teacher satisfaction. Silverman (2012) notes that when teachers are more active contributors to online discussions, they achieve greater gains in mathematical content knowledge learning.

Russell and colleagues (2009) evaluated the effects of four different

levels of support and pacing of online professional development for middle school algebra teachers. They randomly assigned participating teachers to one of four conditions: self-paced online-only, high support with a mathematics instructor, and two different intermediate supports—online facilitator only and facilitated peer support. The purpose of the study was to help determine the relative importance of maximizing flexibility for participants and maximizing interactions with facilitators and peers. Of an initial sample of 235 teachers who agreed to participate, almost half dropped out of the study, with a greater percentage dropping out of the high-support group, although characteristics of those not completing the 8-week course did not differ among groups. Although the researchers had anticipated that the condition with facilitated peer support would yield the greatest gains in teacher beliefs and pedagogical practices (e.g., using worksheets, asking students to explain their thinking), they found that the groups did not differ on either front.

To summarize, intriguing and emerging research examines the promise and pitfalls associated with online learning as a venue for professional development. In particular, Reiser (2013) suggests that professional development for the NGSS should “structure teachers’ sense making around rich images of classroom enactment” (p. 15), noting that the online environment is an important vehicle for making videocases more widely available to teachers.

However, the research base is not yet strong enough to support claims about the relationships between online professional development and changes in teachers’ knowledge or practice and their students’ learning. Other research on online learning across K-12 and higher-education settings suggests that effective online learning is the product of high-quality program design and implementation, supportive contexts, and understanding of how learner characteristics interact with technology (Means et al., 2014). Thus, future work in this domain will need to be as sensitive to issues of context as the research reviewed here and in the following chapter.

CONCLUSIONS

This chapter has focused on professional development programs that are purposefully designed to improve aspects of teacher knowledge and practice. These programs typically are developed and led by educators from outside schools and districts—university researchers, informal science education leaders, researchers at research and development centers,

and so on. These professional development experiences, while linked to teachers’ classroom experience, commonly take teachers out of their school setting for a significant block of time (often at summer institutes).

Most professional development programs documented in the research literature have been found to have positive impacts on teachers’ learning and practice. A growing body of evidence also traces the effects of professional development programs on teacher knowledge, teacher practice, and student learning. Effective professional development programs provide teachers with opportunities to practice and reflect on new instructional strategies, to analyze student thinking and student work, and to analyze examples of the target instructional practices.

Conclusion 5: The best available evidence based on science professional development programs suggests that the following features of such programs are most effective:

• active participation of teachers who engage in the analysis of examples of effective instruction and the analysis of student work ,
• a content focus,
• alignment with district policies and practices, and
• sufficient duration to allow repeated practice and/or reflection on classroom experiences.

Conclusion 6: Professional learning in online environments and through social networking holds promise, although evidence on these modes from both research and practice is limited.

That said, the evidence base on professional development programs in science is not very robust. Many studies focus on one program implemented in a single location with relatively few teachers, typically volunteers. Few studies have employed control or comparison groups, and few have measured multiple outcomes for teachers and students. Still, the available evidence is suggestive of elements that hold promise for supporting changes in teachers’ science content knowledge, their content knowledge for teaching, and their instructional practices. These elements include engaging teachers in analysis of student thinking and learning; incorporating specific supports to help teachers use new knowledge to change their teaching practice; providing an expert program facilitator; attending to school context, such as principals’ support and curriculum alignment; and considering issues of sustainability in the program design. The available evidence also points to numerous issues for future research and policy to consider.

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Wilson, S.M., Rozelle, J.J., and Mikeska, J.N. (2011). Cacophony or embarrassment of riches: Building a system of support for teacher quality. Journal of Teacher Education, 62 (4), 383-394.

Yoon, K.S., Duncan, T., Lee, S.-W.-Y., Scarloss, B., and Shapley, K. (2007). Reviewing the Evidence on How Teacher PD Affects Student Achievement. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest.

Currently, many states are adopting the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) or are revising their own state standards in ways that reflect the NGSS. For students and schools, the implementation of any science standards rests with teachers. For those teachers, an evolving understanding about how best to teach science represents a significant transition in the way science is currently taught in most classrooms and it will require most science teachers to change how they teach.

That change will require learning opportunities for teachers that reinforce and expand their knowledge of the major ideas and concepts in science, their familiarity with a range of instructional strategies, and the skills to implement those strategies in the classroom. Providing these kinds of learning opportunities in turn will require profound changes to current approaches to supporting teachers' learning across their careers, from their initial training to continuing professional development.

A teacher's capability to improve students' scientific understanding is heavily influenced by the school and district in which they work, the community in which the school is located, and the larger professional communities to which they belong. Science Teachers' Learning provides guidance for schools and districts on how best to support teachers' learning and how to implement successful programs for professional development. This report makes actionable recommendations for science teachers' learning that take a broad view of what is known about science education, how and when teachers learn, and education policies that directly and indirectly shape what teachers are able to learn and teach.

The challenge of developing the expertise teachers need to implement the NGSS presents an opportunity to rethink professional learning for science teachers. Science Teachers' Learning will be a valuable resource for classrooms, departments, schools, districts, and professional organizations as they move to new ways to teach science.

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• DOI: 10.4324/9780203097267.CH44
• Corpus ID: 156076857

Research on Teacher Professional Development Programs in Science

• J. Luft , P. Hewson
• Published 3 July 2014

123 Citations

Concept mapping as a mechanism for assessing science teachers’ cross-disciplinary field-based learning.

• Highly Influenced

An Exploratory Study of Teacher Development in the Implementation of Integrated Science Curriculum

• 10 Excerpts

Impacts of Place-Based Professional Development on Teachers

Meeting the demands of science reforms: a comprehensive professional development for practicing middle school teachers.

• 11 Excerpts

professional development is needed with educative curriculummaterials ? It depends upon the intended student learning outcomes

Meaning-making from cpd - developing practice in own classroom and as a peer in the local science plc, teacher leadership : learning from a three-year leadership program, analysis of category level performance on the praxis® earth and space science: content knowledge test: implications for professional learning.

• 14 Excerpts

Learning from a State Professional Development Conference for Science Teachers: Beginning Secondary Science Teachers’ Experiences

Scaling up innovative teaching approaches in mathematics: supporting teachers to take up a new role as professional development course leaders for inquiry-based learning., 69 references, handbook of research on science education, the role of scientist mentors on teachers’ perceptions of the community of science during a summer research experience, reflections on discourse practices during professional development on the learning cycle, the effect of a state department of education teacher mentor initiative on science achievement, a review of empirical literature on inquiry professional development: alignment with best practices and a critique of the findings, differential effects of three professional development models on teacher knowledge and student achievement in elementary science, beginning secondary science teacher induction: a two‐year mixed methods study, conceptualizing teacher professional learning, preparing teachers to design sequences of instruction in earth systems science, sources of efficacy information in an inservice program for elementary teachers, related papers.

Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers

• Open access
• Published: 17 July 2018

Improving science teachers’ nature of science views through an innovative continuing professional development program

• Eda Erdas Kartal   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1568-827X 1 , 7 ,
• William W. Cobern 2 ,
• Nihal Dogan 3 ,
• Serhat Irez 4 ,
• Gultekin Cakmakci 5 &
• Yalcin Yalaki 6  

International Journal of STEM Education volume  5 , Article number:  30 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

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This study describes how teachers’ nature of science (NOS) views changed throughout an innovative Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program that provided sustained support throughout the process in a collaborative and reflective environment and activities that are consistent with the current curriculum and NOS tenets integrated within. Eighteen in-service science teachers enrolled in a yearlong nature of science, Continuing Professional Development (NOS-CPD) program. Data were collected by pre/post-interviews using the Views of Nature of Science-Form C (VNOS-C) questionnaire, and a post-interview using an open-ended questionnaire developed by researchers to uncover teacher reactions to the NOS-CPD program.

The results indicated that the NOS-CPD program improved the teachers’ NOS views more effectively than previously reported short-term teacher development programs, and thus, the findings should be useful for future studies in support of the professional development of teachers.

Conclusions

The article concludes with practical advice for implementing NOS-focused, in-service teacher development programs.

The transformational change agent says: “Here is the standard, which I know is impossible, so let’s stand together and learn our way into a higher level of performance.” Robert Quinn (2000, p.164)

Equipping individuals with adequate knowledge and understanding of science and technology has become one of the main goals of national education programs (e.g., Ministry of National Education (MONE Turkey) 2004 , 2013 ; Next Generation Science Standards in the USA (NGSS Lead States) 2013 ). Calls for scientific literacy echo across many countries. These national science education programs include goals for understanding the nature of science (NOS) as an important component of scientific literacy. Although there is no NOS consensus definition (Cobern and Loving 2001 ; Lederman 1992 ) much of the science education community, nevertheless, agrees that NOS should be highlighted in the curriculum and taught to students (Lederman 1992 ). And, there are broadly accepted models of the NOS. Unfortunately, studies show that Turkish students often have inadequate views and misconceptions about NOS (Lederman and Lederman 2014 ; Ozer 2014 ; Park et al. 2013 ).

Numerous studies have tested methods for improving students’ NOS views. Although these studies show that NOS instruction can be made more effective, the studies indicate that there is room for still the improvement of students’ understanding of NOS. Moreover, NOS studies suggest that some science teachers have naive conceptions about NOS and numerous misconceptions (Akerson et al. 2009 ; Dogan and Abd-El-Khalick 2008 ; Guerra-Ramos et al. 2010 ). Teachers need to have informed NOS views since they cannot help their students understand what they themselves do not understand (Capps et al. 2012 ; Loucks-Horsley and Matsumoto 1999 ).

Thus, effective professional development opportunities are important for helping teachers to improve their understanding of NOS, and research with teachers shows that professional development programs can improve teachers’ NOS views (Akerson et al. 2009 ; Ozer 2014 ). The literature indicates that effective professional development programs have the following features:

Based on teacher needs

Designed to fit personal needs of the participating teachers (Gess-Newsome 2001 ).

Coherency with other reform initiatives

Stresses reform-oriented practices such as teacher mentoring or coaching, participating in a committee or study group (Garet et al. 2001 ) with a focus on curriculum linked activities rather than general pedagogical strategies (Cohen and Hill 2001 ).

High-quality instruction: Explicitly designed to improve teachers’ content knowledge and practices (Bertram and Loughran 2012 ; Posnanski 2010 ).

Active engagements of teachers

Based on the principles of active learning (Boone and Kahle 1998 ; Marek and Methven 1991 ).

Enhancement of both content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge

Stresses the importance of both content and pedagogical knowledge (Shulman 1987 ).

Provision of sufficient time and other resources

Provides sufficient time in a well-organized, carefully structured, and purposefully directed environment consistent with the curricula and provides relevant resources and materials.

Sustained support: Provides continuing support that helps them overcome these challenges (Capps et al. 2012 ).

Ensuring collaboration

Provides opportunities for teacher collaboration (Putnam and Borko 1997 ).

Provision opportunity for reflection and giving feedback throughout the professional development program process

Provides opportunities for teacher reflection on what they are learning and how they will apply what they learned (Loucks-Horsley and Matsumoto 1999 ). Provides feedback to teachers using these reflective comments made by teachers, and so, these reflective comments can be a valuable tool for teacher learning and teacher change (Capps and Crawford 2013 ).

Provision of local support

Develop local support for teachers when they return to their classrooms (Kwakman 2003 ; Penuel et al. 2007 ).

Where professional development programs often fail is with the “provision of sufficient time” and “sustained support.” Researches show that long-term professional development programs are more effective than short-term programs (Dass and Yager 2009 ) because learning to teach and fundamental change in practice is not easy and takes time (Guskey and Yoon 2009 ). Too often professional development does not follow teachers back to the classroom where teachers may face some challenges and problems while translating their new understanding into performance. The limited time in these professional development programs does not allow this. Effective professional development requires supporting teachers in the transfer of what they learned into practice (Gess-Newsome 2001 ; Ozer 2014 ).

The above comments are about professional development in general. Our specific interest is professional development with respect to the NOS. Given the importance of sustained professional development support as discussed above, our study planned a CPD program that provides teachers with such support. As professional development in support of teachers’ understanding of NOS, our approach followed research findings in two important areas:

Researches have demonstrated that explicit-reflective instruction in teaching NOS is typically more effective than implicit instruction (Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman 2000 ; Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick 2002 ).

Researches have also demonstrated that NOS instruction can be more effective when context-specific activities are used rather than generic activities (Cakmakci 2012 ; Sadler et al. 2010 ).

In addition to observing the above research-based, professional development practices, we innovated by including formative assessment and discourse analysis within our NOS-CPD program. Researches have shown that using formative assessment rather than summative assessment can improve learning (Bennett 2011 ); summative assessment often comes too late to be much help (Guskey 2000 ). On the other hand, given that teachers use a variety of communication approaches and patterns of discourse in the classroom that impact student learning (Kaya et al. 2016 ; Mortimer and Scott 2003 ; Sinclair and Coulthard 1975 ), researches indicate that teacher-student communication in the classroom needs to be examined with regard to NOS issues (Herman et al. 2013 ). It is thought that teacher awareness of their NOS discourse patterns and communication approaches can be improved by analyzing classroom discourses. For these reasons, it has been decided to use these formative assessment and discourse analysis within the teaching of the NOS in our NOS-CPD program.

Aim of the study

This study evaluated the effectiveness of an innovative NOS-CPD program with specific attention paid to how teachers’ NOS views change throughout the sustained, CPD program. The main research question is: In response to an innovative NOS-CPD program that provided sustained support, to what extent and in what ways do teachers’ NOS views change? The subquestion then is: To what extent do these changes show improvement over short-term PD programs?

The NOS-CPD program innovation

This paper reports the findings of our study on NOS-CPD program effectiveness. The NOS-CPD program was part of a large-scale Turkish teacher professional development research project intended to improve middle school in-service science teachers’ professional competences about NOS and consisted of a preparation stage and an implementation stage (see Fig.  1 ).

Process of the research

The NOS-CPD program consisted of NOS activities, with eight NOS themes emphasized in the activities: empirical NOS, scientific method, tentative nature of science, the nature of scientific theories and laws, inference and theoretical entities in science, the subjective and theory-laden NOS, the social and cultural embeddedness of science, and imagination and creativity in science. The themes were derived from: the general thematic structure of the VNOS-C (Lederman et al. 2002 ), the characteristics of NOS intended to be developed in this project, and the analytical frameworks used in several researches examining the understanding of various groups (e.g., students, teachers, scientists) about NOS (e.g., Irez 2006 ). The NOS-CPD program model is as follows as shown in Fig.  2 .

Model of the innovative NOS-CPD program

Participating teachers in the NOS-CPD program attended 10, monthly workshops, each consisting of 8 h, over the course of two semesters. The teachers were introduced in a collaborative and reflective environment to various NOS aspects and ways of using explicit instruction and formative assessment in their NOS teaching. They were also introduced to different patterns of discourse and communication approaches by analyzing video recordings in the classroom. The teachers were also provided with opportunities to develop and use various context-specific NOS activities in their own classrooms during the study. During the workshops, context-specific NOS activities were introduced to the teachers and the teachers’ opinions about the activities were taken. Teachers were asked to apply the shared activities in their classes; the next workshop allowed them to reflect on their experiences and thoughts on their practice. Activities were reorganized according to the views and suggestions from the teachers. During this process, the teachers along with the researchers collaboratively produced 57 NOS activities all meeting the project criteria. The activities are available at Dogan et al. ( 2016 ).

Each of the activities consists of four sections: introduction, implementation, guidance for classroom discussion, and formative assessment. The activity introduction provides information on the subject matter, the purpose of the activity, and specifies the NOS themes taught by the activity, and what questions the students should be able to answer after the implementation. The implementation section provides guidelines just on how to implement the activity, including points to be emphasized during the implementation of the activity. The guidance for classroom discussion section provides teachers with instructional tips on the explicit-reflective teaching of NOS. Finally, in the formative assessment section of the activity, there were sample questions that will help the teacher to formatively assess students’ NOS achievement.

Participants

Eighteen (11 female, 7 male) in-service middle school science teachers (teaching grades 5 through 8) volunteered to participate in this study. These teachers worked in 15 different schools in Turkey. They regularly attended project meetings and fulfilled all participation requirements. Thirteen of 18 (72.2%) participating teachers had previously taken a short-term course or training about the history of science and philosophy of science or NOS.

Data collection and analyses

The data were collected through interviews and analyzed using content analysis. Participant’s NOS understandings were assessed through face-to-face interviews at the beginning and end of the second stage. These interviews were semi-structured based on VNOS-C questions as developed by Abd-El-Khalick ( 1998 ). Although Abd-El-Khalick developed the original questionnaire as a paper-pencil instrument, the questions have been found appropriate for use in interviews (Irez 2006 ).

Analyses of the interviews were carried out in several steps. First, interviews were transcribed. Second, these transcripts were transferred to a qualitative data analysis program. Thirdly, teachers’ statements were grouped regarding NOS themes. At the 4th stage of the analysis, teachers’ statements about related themes were classified as naive , eclectic , and informed. Table  1 provides the “operational definitions” for the categories of naive, eclectic, and informed.

A rubric was used that developed by Irez ( 2004 ), defining each of these categories for each theme, to aid the classifying procedure (Table  2 ). In this analysis, insufficient views about relevant theme of NOS were labeled naive, views characterized by inconsistent and often conflicting statements about the NOS were labeled eclectic, and consistent views with the contemporary approaches about relevant theme of NOS were labeled informed (Irez 2004 ; Koulaidis and Ogborn 1988 ). Before classifying all teacher statements according to themes, inter-rater reliability was checked. Participant transcripts were given to two raters for independent classification. Inter-rater reliability was found to be 82%. Differences were reconciled through discussion between the raters, then all teacher statements classified. All data is reported using pseudonyms.

An improvement was observed in all participant teachers’ NOS views at the end of the innovative NOS-CPD program. Teacher’s naive views about NOS themes decreased whereas their informed views increased (Table  3 ). On the other hand, it would be expected that the pre-performances of the teachers who had previously taken courses or training about the history of science and philosophy of science or NOS would do better than those without previous experience; but as can be seen from the ratios in the table, there is no significant difference between the pre- and post-performances of the teachers who did and did not take the courses. Before the NOS-CPD program, it was seen that most of the teachers had naive views on the most of the 8-targeted NOS themes, regardless of whether they had taken courses before or not. There is also no significant difference in the increase in the performances of the two groups.

For the themes specifically targeted by the program, the percent of teachers who had naive views about these themes decreased whereas the percent of teachers with informed increased (Table  4 ).

As it is seen on the Table  4 , the theme in which the furthest progress was made as a result of the CPD program is “scientific method.” While 72% of the teachers had informed views regarding this theme before the program, the ratio was reduced to zero at the end. All of the teachers comprehended that the scientific method was not the only and universal one.

It is hard to talk about a universal method in general as scientists might have different methods even though they are working on the same subject. (Lara, post-interview )

A very considerable increase was observed in the ratio of teachers indicating that the scientific method is not composed of steps that are followed one by one and nor is it unique and universal.

In my opinion, every scientist has his own method. So it is not possible that every scientist follows the same steps in the scientific method. (Irmak, post-interview )

The “Imagination and creativity in science” theme is one of those in which a high level of success was achieved in the aftermath of the CPD program. The eclectic level to which 61% of the teachers belonged decreased to 11% after the study and the ratio of informed teachers reached to 89%. Most of the teachers comprehended that scientists use their imagination and creativity at every stage of their studies:

They might use their imagination and creativity at every stage, however they might use it more at some stages. For example, they might use their imagination/creativity less while recording data whereas they use it a lot when making an observation and maybe more when making a deduction. Still, imagination and creativity are present at every stage. (Sevgi, post-interview )

As it is seen on the table, the ratio of teachers sharing informed views about “the social and cultural embeddedness of science” theme after the program is 100%. All of the teachers underlined that science was not universal, and scientific studies might be affected from the culture and the values of the society:

The needs of a society, personal needs, religious opinion and even the languages spoken have an effect on scientific studies. (Sarp, post-interview )

The improvement achieved in the “nature of scientific theories and laws” theme as a result of the CPD program was less than expected. The percentage of teachers having naive views about the theme before the program decreased from 83 to 44%; however, the percentage of teachers having an informed views about the theme increased from 6 to only 34%. All teachers stressed that the theories might change, but some of them were persistent in their opinion that there was a hierarchical relation between theories and laws and that theories turned into unalterable laws when proved.

I think law is a proved theory. (Akin, post-interview )

One of the teachers sharing a conscious opinion after the program while she had naive views regarding the “nature of scientific theories and laws” theme before, clearly underlined her opinion regarding this subject:

I would give a very good answer to that question before; I kept the cliché sentence ‘theories are developed, proven and turn into law’ in my mind for years. However, I do think different now. There might be a mutual interaction. A law might be explained by more than one theory. (Duru, post-interview )

Discussion and conclusion

Our primary research question asked in what ways and to what extent does teachers NOS views change in response to an innovative NOS-CPD program that provided sustained support? In response, our research findings showed that the innovative NOS-CPD program improved teachers’ NOS knowledge and understanding in general. For the themes specifically targeted by the program, the percent of teachers who had naive views about all these themes decreased whereas the percent of teachers with informed increased. As a result of the innovative NOS-CPD program, the NOS theme in which the furthest progress was made is “scientific method.” Another theme in which a high level of progress was made is the “imagination and creativity in science” theme. The improvement achieved in “nature of scientific theories and laws” theme as a result of the innovative NOS-CPD program was less than expected. It is more difficult to ensure improvement in some NOS themes than others even if the direct-reflective teaching method is used. “Nature of scientific theories and laws” is one of those (Koseoglu et al. 2010 ). The researches carried out in this field claim that the educational (the need for more examples and activities in some subjects than in others), motivational (intrinsic task motivation, performance motivation, utility value, competence belief, self-efficacy, peer support, team work, work a real science research lab.), and socio-cultural (socio-cultural state of the participants, especially with respect to background and possible worldview differences, such as reluctance to accept ambiguity) factors can explain the difficulty of making an improvement in views about this theme (Mesci and Schwartz 2016 ). It is recommended to be more taken into consideration of these factors mentioned in the literature and to be emphasized in training and activities with extra examples of the NOS themes, which are relatively harder than the other themes.

Our subquestion asked to what extent was our program more effective than short-term professional development programs? In response, our research findings showed that the innovative NOS-CPD program is more successful than short-term programs improving teachers’ views of the NOS themes, especially which are difficult to change as scientific method or the nature of scientific theory and laws. When we looked at the literature, studies have generally demonstrated that short-term professional development programs are difficult to change teachers’ views on such NOS themes (Dogan et al. 2011 ; Dass and Yager 2009 ; Torff and Sessions 2008 ). For example in one study by Dogan et al. ( 2011 ) investigating the effects of a 1-week in-service training program on teachers’ views on the nature of science, it is seen that the majority of the views teachers have about NOS have not changed. In this study, it was concluded that such short-term in-service training program was not sufficient in order to be able to make a change in the opinions of teachers, such as theories and laws, where teachers were found to have quite common misconceptions in many studies. As a result of this study, researchers stated, as stated in many studies, many different techniques have to be applied for a longer time to correct such misconceptions. Koseoglu et al. ( 2011 ) have also achieved similar results in their experimental works aimed at developing a professional development package for the NOS instruction. One of the important results obtained during the study is that a long process is needed to change the opinions about the NOS. As a result of various activities and debates during the first semester, the rate of good opinions increased to 14.4 and 38.1%, respectively, and it was necessary to apply one more period in order to reach this rate to 67%. In the interim evaluations made, it was seen that most of the participants were aware of the intrinsic insights of the focused science, but inconsistent opinions were seen when their opinions were taken in different contexts. This finding has shown that even a period of education that is explicitly focused on the NOS is not sufficient to internalize the NOS. On the other hand, it has been determined in our study that having already taken a course or training about the history of science and philosophy of science or NOS does not make a difference in the pre- and post-performance of the teachers. The fact that the pre-performances of the teachers who have already taken the courses as they are in the teachers who do not take courses show that the courses they have taken do not have a lasting effect on them. Researches show that short-term professional development programs do not permanently improve teachers’ views about NOS (Akerson and Hanuscin 2007 ; Koseoglu et al. 2011 ). Thus, it is thought that this situation may have been caused by the fact that the courses that the teachers had previously attended were short-term.

Learning to teach is a slow process and note easy. Therefore, it should be taken into account that teachers may have difficulty changing their previous knowledge and misconceptions, and professional development programs should be designed for a long time with this prediction (Hayes 1995 ). In addition, the teachers’ classroom practices should be followed during and after the professional development programs, should be supported to solve the problems encountered in the integration of science with the NOS, and should be provided with the necessary materials in this process (Dogan et al. 2011 ). It is thought that teacher views about NOS may be improved in this way more permanently and internalized. Researches indicate that teaching the NOS by integrating it to other subjects within the scope of a specific lesson improves teachers’ professional competences about NOS (Schwartz 2009 ). In addition to providing sustained support, context-specific teaching materials were also provided to teachers in our implemented innovative NOS-CPD program. However, there are limited examples that will guide the teachers in this regard in the literature (Khishfe and Lederman 2003 ; Schwartz 2009 ). It is recommended that such exemplifying studies in this area should be increased. Certainly, providing enough time and material is not the only factor that effect CPD program’s effectiveness. Our implemented NOS-CPD program was innovated by including formative assessment and discourse analysis. These innovations are thought to enhance the success of our program. Beside this, as we know from the literature that CPD program’s quality is also affected by other factors (based on teachers’ needs, integration with other reform efforts, high-quality instruction, active engagement, enhancement of both content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, improvement of teacher beliefs, continued support, collaboration, reflection and feedback, evaluation procedures, and provision of local support). Therefore, it is recommended that these factors should not be ignored.

The effect of the factors mentioned above in the development of teachers’ NOS views is quite obvious in the literature. However, the main problem for teachers is that they have difficulty integrating what they learn in professional development programs into their classroom practices. It is thought that the use of formative assessment procedures during the teaching process and reinforcement of teaching with discourse analysis and support of teachers through feedback during the process will also improve the performances of the teachers in the classroom. We have also shown that the innovative NOS-CPD program that incorporates these features improved the teachers’ classroom practices. There were other issues that could be reported in this paper, but this paper focused especially on teacher’ NOS views. It is recommended that a professional development program in this context should investigate and report on the effect of teachers, especially on classroom practices.

Last of all, as Guskey ( 2007 ) emphasizes, there is a large research base on the professional development of teachers in the literature, but some of these researches are finding opposite findings. For example, while some research suggests that professional development activities should be teacher-specific and focus on daily classroom activities, some researches do not give importance to them and require more holistic and organizational approaches. Some experts state that professional development reforms must be initiated/carried out by teachers or school personnel. Others say they need guidance with a clear vision because they do not have the opportunity to think a wide variety of change and practice. Therefore, the biggest problem in determining the characteristics of successful professional development programs is trying to find a “single correct answer.” General prescriptions cannot provide much guidance to practitioners because “context” is a powerful influence. In one context, there may be a need for a managerial structure in another context, while teacher-led activities are in need. In other words, instead of “one correct answer” or “one correct path,” there is a collection of answers developed according to context. So the aim should be to find the most suitable mixture and to be aware that this mixture may change over time (Guskey 2007 , as cited in Bumen et al. 2012 ). Based on our literature searches and implementation, we may say that our innovative NOS-CPD program contains the one of the most suitable mixture for developing teachers’ professional competences about NOS. But of course, this program may be improved by experimenting in different contexts.

Abbreviations

Continuing Professional Development

Ministry of National Education of Turkey

Next Generation Science Standards in the United States

Nature of Science

Views of Nature of Science-Form C

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Acknowledgements

This paper is part of the professional development project supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under 111K527 project number. We would like to thank TUBITAK for this support. We would also like to thank the Ministry of National Education General Directorate of Teacher Training and Development, Bolu Directorate of National Education and teachers participated voluntarily to the project from the Bolu.

Also a part of this paper presented at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), Baltimore, USA (2016, April).

This work was supported by the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under project numbers 111K527.

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We could not share our data because of our funder’s (Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey) rules.

Activity book titled “Teaching Nature of Science with Activities” is the product of this research is available at project’s web site: http://www.bilimindogasi.hacettepe.edu.tr/english.html

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Department of Educational Sciences, Kastamonu University, Kuzeykent, 37150, Kastamonu, Turkey

Eda Erdas Kartal

Mallinson Institute for Science Education, Western Michigan University, 1903 W. Michigan Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI, 49008, USA

William W. Cobern

Department of Elementary Science Education, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Golkoy, 14280, Bolu, Turkey

Nihal Dogan

Department of Biology Education, Marmara University, Goztepe, 34722, Istanbul, Turkey

Serhat Irez

Department of Elementary Education, Hacettepe University, Beykent, 06800, Ankara, Turkey

Gultekin Cakmakci

Department of Elementary Science Education, Hacettepe University, Beykent, 06800, Ankara, Turkey

Yalcin Yalaki

Department of Educational Science, Education Faculty, Kastamonu University, City Center, 37200, Kastamonu, Turkey

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Erdas Kartal, E., Cobern, W.W., Dogan, N. et al. Improving science teachers’ nature of science views through an innovative continuing professional development program. IJ STEM Ed 5 , 30 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0125-4

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Effects of professional development program on primary science teachers’ ICT use in China: mediation effects of science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and instructional practice

• Beibei Lv 1 ,
• Danhua Zhou 1 ,
• Zhenshan Rong 1 ,
• Xuewai Tian 2 &
• Jingying Wang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6109-7542 1  

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Faced with international science and technology competition, strengthening information, communication, and technology (ICT) use has become the core goal of science education. Many studies have revealed that teachers’ professional development programs could influence ICT use. However, whether the relationship could be mediated by teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practice remains unclear, especially in the context of China. Based on the Sociocultural Model of Embedded Belief Systems, a hypothesized model from teachers’ professional development to ICT use that meditated by science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices was constructed. With the Structural Equation Model (SEM) method, 131,134 Chinese primary science teachers were surveyed to detect the interrelationships among the factors in the model. The path analysis revealed that: (1) Science teachers’ professional development has not positively influenced ICT use, while science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices could significantly influence science teachers’ ICT use; (2) Science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices not only respectively play a mediating role but also play a chain mediating role in the process of teachers’ professional development influencing ICT use.

Introduction

In the face of fierce international competition in science and technology, strengthening the training of science and technology innovation reserve talents has become the core goal of science education. Many countries have invested considerable resources in information and communication technologies, or ICT (Bybee, 2013 ; Luu & Freeman, 2010 ; DeWitte & Rogge, 2014 ). Over the last decade, ICT has been widely used in the classroom, developing a series of technical tools and resources that can be used to create, share, store, and manage information. Therefore, the ICT use of teachers was a basic literacy for they adapt to the development of the information and intelligent age, and their attitude toward ICT use also influenced their students’ intention to use ICT. Within a panorama of growing concern for digital training, many countries have designed their draft ICT standards for initial and ongoing teacher training. For example, in 2014, China published the ICT competence guideline for teachers emphasizing teacher training and digital literacy. Specially, China has further promulgated the Education Informatization 2.0 Action Plan, the National Education Digitalization Strategy Initiative, and the New Era Basic Education Strong Teachers Plan, all of which emphasized strengthening the digital practice of primary and secondary school teachers, and carried out a variety of types of teacher professional development training programs. Generally, Professional Development (PD) was considered to be a key component in helping teachers enhance and develop their ICT use (Ertmer et al., 1999 ), especially the “reflective thinking and instructional design” in the program training, which can significantly improve pre-service teachers’ ICT use (Hsu & Lin, 2020 ). Several studies have also revealed that teachers’ ICT use was significantly related to their role of beliefs about scientific knowledge (Bahcivan et al., 2019 ; Ifinedo et al., 2020 ) and their years of teaching experience (Jang & Tsai, 2012 ). On May 26, 2022, China’s Ministry of Education issued the Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Education on Strengthening Primary School Science Teacher Training, which aimed to strengthen the supply of highly qualified and specialized pre-primary school science teachers at the undergraduate level, improve the level of science education, and solidify the cultivation of innovative talents. Based on this background, this study systematically explored the relationship between the professional development of Chinese primary science teachers and their intention to use ICT by collecting data from 131,134 primary science teachers in 31 provinces of China, and deeply revealed the mechanism of the mediating role of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and instructional practices, in order to provide critical evidence and factual basis for understanding the Chinese primary science teachers’ use of ICT.

Literature review

ICT use reflects individuals’ perceptions of ICT and their willingness to use it, and many studies have revealed that teachers’ ICT use could be influenced by various factors, which include teachers’ background information, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, teachers’ instructional practices, and teachers’ professional development program (Hu et al., 2021 ; Fernández-Batanero et al., 2022 ; Kim et al., 2013 ; Agyei & Voogt, 2011 ). Teachers with adequate knowledge of ICT, constructivist pedagogical beliefs, and extensive teaching experience tended to perform better in ICT integration and use (Akram et al., 2022 ), while teachers who have received frequent ICT training also tend to perform better in ICT use and digital application (Méndez et al., 2022 ). Additionally, in order to examine the multiple reciprocal interactions between science teachers’ motivation, knowledge, and skills as well as a particular instructional practice, a framework of the Sociocultural Model of Embedded Belief Systems was conducted by Jones and Carter ( 2007 ). Therefore, we will begin with a systematic review of the relationship between teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, instructional practices, professional development, and ICT use. Subsequently, we will also briefly present some contextual information about PD on ICT use for primary science teachers in China.

The impact of teachers’ professional development on the ICT using

In recent decades, many studies have revealed that the teachers’ professional development programs were closely linked to teachers’ digital competence and intention to use ICT (Hu et al., 2021 ; Fernandes et al., 2022 ; Hsu & Lin, 2020 ). Hu et al. ( 2021 ) showed that ICT application in teachers’ professional development could provide teacher development resources, create learning opportunities, and even shift to an equal relationship between teachers and students by systematically reviewing empirical research. Fernández-Batanero et al. ( 2022 ) provided an overview of the research on teachers’ professional training related to digital competence, and they revealed that most studies presented a lack of teacher training and insufficient ICT training by Meta-analysis. Additionally, teacher professional development programs with different technology tools and digital resources could facilitate science teachers’ use of ICT along with their inquiry, constructivist, and conceptual instructional practices (Fernandes et al., 2022 ). Although teachers’ professional development was beneficial to improving instructional practice, it was often insufficient to change teachers’ instructional practices if the training program was a one-time, short-term workshop and demonstration (McConnell et al., 2012 ). In addition, a study also found a significant positive correlation between mathematics teachers’ proficiency in using ICT and the frequency with which they applied computer-assisted instruction and intelligent boards, and some suggestions were demonstrated that teachers’ ICT use could also be enhanced through in-service training activities (Birgin et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, Hsu and Lin ( 2020 ) also explored the effects of six training strategies (i.e., role modeling, reflection, instructional design, collaboration, authentic experience, and continuous feedback) on preservice language teachers’ perceived technology knowledge and their attitudes toward technology integration and revealed that “reflection and instructional design” had the highest positive impacts on these preservice teachers’ ICT knowledge and attitudes. In sum, teachers’ professional development programs, which included some teachers’ ICT training courses and some ICT supply equipment, could significantly influence teachers’ attitudes toward ICT use.

The impact of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and instructional practices on the ICT using

Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs could significantly influence their ICT use. Some studies revealed that teachers’ epistemological and pedagogical beliefs were key factors that influenced their attitudes toward ICT use (Kim et al., 2013 ; Liu et al., 2011; Ifinedo et al., 2020 ). For example, Kim et al. ( 2013 ) found that teachers with constructivist pedagogical beliefs tended to be more inclined to integrate ICT into their instructional practice than those with teacher-centered pedagogical beliefs. Through a survey of 1139 Taiwanese junior high school teachers, Liu et al. (2011) also found that teachers who hold student-centered beliefs were more likely to apply ICT in their inquiry activities, and their intentions toward technology were often influenced by external factors such as ICT equipment, student achievement, and government policy supports. Furthermore, a study showed that technical knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technology integration knowledge can also directly influence teachers’ ICT integration, while teachers’ gender, age, years of teaching experience, and class size can also significantly influence ICT use (Ifinedo et al., 2020 ). With the method of structural equation model, Koh et al. ( 2013a ) indicated that the formation of TPACK (Technological pedagogical content knowledge) of teachers could be directly influenced by technological knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, and this knowledge could contribute to the development of technological pedagogical knowledge and technological content knowledge, which further formulated to the teachers’ TPACK. Subsequently, based on the behavioral planning theory, Habibi et al. ( 2023 ) further explored the relationship between teachers’ knowledge/beliefs and the integration of information technology during pre-service teachers’ practices in Indonesia, and the study revealed that beliefs were more important in influencing behaviors related to technology integration than their knowledge. Overall, teachers’ attitudes and intentions toward ICT could be influenced by their teachers’ knowledge and beliefs.

In addition to the direct influence of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, many studies also revealed that the teachers’ years of teaching experience and instructional practices still influence their intention to use ICT. For example, Jang and Tsai ( 2012 ) have indicated that older teachers were more aware of the role of ICT and were more likely to apply ICT to their teaching. Agyei and Voogt ( 2011 ) indicated that lack of training in acquiring knowledge of ICT integration and opportunities for teaching practice were the most influential factors influencing the integration and application of ICT among mathematics teachers in Ghana. Kreijns et al. ( 2013 ) also explored internal and external factors that affect teachers’ ICT use based on the comprehensive model of behavioral theory and found that teachers’ experience of technology integration was often seen as one of the critical factors influencing teachers’ ICT use. Similarly, Ertmer and Ottenbreit-Leftwich ( 2010 ) also emphasized that providing enough opportunities to implement new practices and receive feedback from technology-intergrade teaching practices could change per-service teachers’ existing knowledge, self-efficacy, pedagogical beliefs related to ICT, and their intention to use ICT. The reason for that was mainly because ICT expands the space for teachers to apply teaching strategies, methods, and various teaching activities, providing teachers and students with multiple opportunities for interaction and communication (Chen et al., 2021 ). Some strategies, such as tutor modeling and hands-on exploration of ICT tools, appeared to be more advantageous for fostering technological knowledge and technological pedagogical knowledge of pre-service teachers (Koh & Divaharan, 2013b ). Additionally, Uluyol and Şahin ( 2016 ) also investigated primary teachers’ motivators for using ICT and demonstrated that lack of time for ICT training, lack of ICT pedagogical training, and lack of experience in applying ICT skills were the most influence factors in increasing the level and quality of ICT usage in classrooms. Overall, it was clear that ICT use was closely related to teachers’ instructional practices, indicating that the general pedagogy, disciplinary pedagogy, and teacher-student interaction instruction employed by teachers may all directly impact ICT use.

Mediating effects of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and instructional practices in teachers’ professional development and ICT use

Excerpts for teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices directly influence ICT use, and these variables can also play an essential mediating role in the influence of teachers’ professional development on their ICT use.

Firstly, the knowledge and beliefs possessed by teachers may play significantly mediated roles in the relationship between teachers’ professional training and their intention to integrate ICT into the classroom. For example, Ertmer and Ottenbreit-Leftwich ( 2010 ) emphasized that teachers eventually integrated computers into classroom instruction were powerfully mediated by their technology knowledge, pedagogical integration knowledge, and interrelated belief systems about learners and technology in the specific context of teachers’ professional development. With the method of structure equation model, Taimalu and Luik ( 2019 ) also indicated that knowledge of technology had a direct effect on technology integration, while beliefs about the value of technology could indirectly influence technology integration, and pedagogical knowledge had a significant total effect on technology integration. Campbell et al. ( 2014 ) further explored the time-lapse changes in science teachers’ pedagogical orientations and technology-enhanced beliefs in a professional training program, and they revealed that science teachers were more likely to hold student-centered views of teaching, understand more complex manifestations of beliefs about scientific knowledge, shown stronger technology-enhanced beliefs and demonstrated high level of willingness to use ICT.

Secondly, instructional practices also play an important role in the relationship between teachers’ professional development programs and their intention toward ICT use. Brown and Warschauer ( 2006 ) revealed that integrating ICT training into pre-service teachers’ curricular practices (rather than simply teaching ICT knowledge or skills) could increase pre-service teachers’ intentions to use ICT. Wu et al. ( 2022 ) explored the relationship between ICT training for teachers and the use of digital educational resources (DERs), and they found that the total number of hours, type, and subject matter of ICT training attended by teachers had a positive effect on teachers’ use of DERs. In particular, teachers who had attended and practiced ICT courses were more effective in teaching with technology tools and more likely to choose constructivist teaching beliefs than those teachers who had not attended ICT training (Winzenried et al., 2010 ). Hughes ( 2005 ), in addition, also found that when teachers’ learning experiences and knowledge were focused on technology with no connections to their content areas, they used less innovative technology-supported pedagogy during their technology professional training programs. Hence, teachers’ instructional practices may play an important mediated role around their teachers’ professional ICT training programs and their intention toward ICT use.

Thirdly, several studies have confirmed that significant interaction effects exist between teachers’ instructional practices and teaching beliefs (Fives & Gill, 2015 ; Pajares, 1992 ). For example, Deng et al. ( 2014 ) found that teachers’ epistemological beliefs and pedagogical theories can significantly influence their intention to apply ICT, and the epistemological beliefs held by teachers can also indirectly influence ICT use through teachers’ constructivist pedagogical practices. The study of Tondeur et al. ( 2017 ) also demonstrated that teachers’ beliefs would significantly affect their information technology integration through teaching practices, and the intention to apply ICT into their teaching has become one of the necessary teaching skills in the 21st century. Therefore, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs may act indirectly through pedagogical practices in the process of ICT pedagogical application in the classroom.

Research context: the challenge of primary science teachers’ professional development and their intention to use ICT in China

In order to promote the development of education informatization in the 21st century and cultivate primary and secondary school teachers’ digital competence, China, a socialist country, attaches particular importance to the balanced information infrastructure and digital resources of urban and rural teachers with equipment much ICTs, launched a series of teacher training programs for rural teachers (Chen & Zhi, 2018 ). However, the content focus, total contact time, and frequency of teachers’ engagement within the PD presented lower and unbalanced, especially for Chinese primary science teachers.

Currently, China has adopted both centralized and decentralized training to carry out professional development training, which was mainly implemented by educational governments and involves training courses that include professional concepts (professional ethics, professionalism), expert knowledge of teaching (subject knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and general knowledge), and professional competence (instructional design, instructional evaluation, research, the use of educational technology, classroom management, etc.) (Hu & Shou, 2018 ). Although ICT has been incorporated into professional training programs, the ICT use of Chinese primary science teachers provided an interesting case study.

Firstly, there was insufficient provision of science courses, and science courses were often regarded as marginal subjects in primary schools in China. The number of periods of science in compulsory education in China has been fixed for Grades 3–6, while science lessons occupied only 2–3 h per week of approximately 30 h of whole instruction per week. Additionally, according to a survey of western and northern rural schools in Guangdong Province (Zhang, 2015 ), science classes in most schools are insufficient: 46.7% of schools have an hour per week, and 7.6% do not have any science.

Secondly, the degrees or academic backgrounds of primary science teachers in China often do not correspond to the curricula that they have been trained in, and teachers with backgrounds in liberal or arts disciplines (non-science or engineering) account for the majority of primary science teachers. For example, a large-scale survey collected from 31 Chinese Provinces revealed that only 27.5% of primary science teachers had a science background, while teachers with liberal or arts background degrees dominated 72.5%, especially those majoring in Chinese Language and Literature (23.6%) far exceeding the proportion of those majoring in other majors (Zheng et al., 2023 ).

Thirdly, along with the emergence of AI and big data technologies, the Chinese government has placed special emphasis on enhancing the digital competence of primary and secondary school teachers through professional development programs. For example, in 2018, Ministry of Education issued “the Action Plan for the Revitalization of Teacher Education (2018–2022)”, which aimed to make full use of new technologies and methods (such as cloud computing, big data, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, etc.) to promote the construction and application of information teaching service platforms for teacher education, so as to accomplish the “Internet + Teacher Education” innovation action.

Overall, whether primary science teachers in marginalized disciplines would apply ICT in their classrooms and the contradiction between their degree backgrounds and the curricula they have been exposed to would influence the effectiveness of their professional training were still unclear. Among many research efforts on teachers’ digital competence, exploring the relationship between professional development and the ICT use of K-12 teachers in China is lacking. Therefore, we would focus on exploring the impact of teacher professional development programs on primary science teachers’ ICT use in the context of Chinese culture and to further analyze the mediating roles of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and pedagogical practices in the pathway between teachers’ professional training and their intention to use ICT.

Research questions

Although many studies have reported the relationship among teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, practices, teacher professional development, and their ICT use, the effects of those factors seem to not have reached a consistent conclusion. Furthermore, few studies have focused on a more complex perspective by simultaneously combining the variables of primary science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices with science teacher professional development and ICT use, especially in a Chinese context. Based on this, this research aims to evaluate the relationships among those factors and further explore the differences in structural relations with the structural equation modeling method. The research questions investigated were as follows:

(1) Whether primary science teachers’ professional development, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, and teachers’ instructional practices can influence teachers’ intention to ICT use?

(2) Whether primary science teachers’ knowledge beliefs and instructional practices can play an important intermediary role between teacher professional development and ICT use?

Conceptual framework

The conceptual framework underlying this study is shown in Fig.  1 . Specifically, we hypothesized that primary science teachers’ professional development and knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices can directly impact their intention to use ICT. Furthermore, primary science teachers’ professional development could still influence teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices, which, in turn, impact science teachers’ ICT use. The theories and previous literature described below constructed this conceptual model.

A chain mediating role model between teachers’ professional development and their intention to use ICT

The Sociocultural Model of Embedded Belief Systems (Jones & Carter, 2007 ) indicates that a series of belief systems, prior knowledge, epistemology, attitudes, knowledge, and skills directly influence teachers’ instructional practices. These factors are interconnected, and teacher belief systems are the critical factor influencing practices. According to this framework, science teachers’ epistemologies include teachers’ beliefs about science, science learning, and science teaching, while the epistemological beliefs could impact the teacher’s attitude towards classroom instruction. Many other external factors, such as social norms and environmental constraints, can also impact science teachers’ attitudes toward classroom instruction (Luft & Roehrig, 2007 ). Based on this framework, we have further linked the teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices to primary science teachers’ professional development and ICT use. On the one hand, teacher professional development programs were closely linked to ICT use, and some studies revealed that science teacher professional development programs could facilitate science teachers’ use of ICT along with their inquiry, constructivist, and conceptual instructional practice (Fernandes et al., 2022 ; Birgin et al., 2020 ).

Hence, this research proposed the following hypotheses:

Primary science teachers’ professional development can positively influence ICT use.

On the other hand, science teachers’ knowledge and beliefs could influence their instructional practices and still mediate between teachers’ professional development and their ICT use. As we have reviewed, some previous studies have demonstrated that science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices could directly influence teachers’ intentions to use ICT (Koh et al., 2013a ; Ifinedo et al., 2020 ; Agyei & Voogt, 2011 ), as well as play a mediator role between teachers’ professional programs and their intentions to use ICT (Hughes, 2005 ; Taimalu & Luik, 2019 ; Tondeur et al., 2017 ). Therefore, we further proposed the following hypotheses:

Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs can positively influence ICT use.

Teachers’ instructional practices can positively influence ICT use.

Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs play a mediating role in the pathway between teachers’ professional development and ICT use.

Teachers’ instructional practices mediate the path between teachers’ professional development and ICT use.

“Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs → teachers’ instructional practices” mediates the chain between teachers’ professional development and ICT use.

In summary, considering the interaction between teachers’ professional development, teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices and their intention to use ICT, the study constructs a model of chain mediation between teachers’ professional development, teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, teaching practices, and ICT use (Fig.  1 ).

Data and sample

Data were obtained from the Program of the China Primary School Science Teacher Workforce (CPSST). CPSST is an extensive survey that has been conducted by the Chinese government since 2021 in order to understand the current situation of primary science teachers in China, report to the Ministry of Education of China, and give suggestions for improving the quality of science teachers in primary schools. A total of 134,973 online questionnaires were collected. After sorting out the collected questionnaires and deleting some incomplete or contradictory responses questionnaires, the study finally obtained 131,134 valid questionnaires. Therefore, the effective response rate of this questionnaire was 97.2%, with 36,250 male teachers and 94,614 female teachers. The percentage of male and female teachers was 27.64% and 72.36%, respectively, indicating a lower representation of male teachers in primary schools. Additionally, among all participants, 42,682 were from remote rural schools, 41,739 from remote township schools, 22,354 from district and county schools, 6,055 from municipal standardized schools, and 18,304 from provincial standardized high schools. The corresponding percentages were 32.54%, 31.83%, 11.04%, 4.63%, and 13.96%, respectively. These percentages effectively represent the distribution of primary schools in China. Furthermore, we also described the years of teaching of primary science teachers, and a total of 35,510 teachers have less than 5 years of teaching, 21,710 teachers have 6–10 years of teaching, 20,431 teachers have 11–20 years of teaching, 36,794 teachers have 21–30 years of teaching, and 16,689 teachers have more than 30 years of teaching (Table  1 ).

Measures and quality

Based on the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) questionnaire implemented by OECD, the project team first designed the questionnaire indicators and item pools around the dimensions of primary science teacher knowledge beliefs, instructional practices, professional development, and ICT use. With the method of Delphi Expert consultation, the initially designed questionnaires and item pools were submitted to six experts who studied science education for more than 5 years, to ensure each item was according to the wording and the definition of belonging dimensions.

The original questionnaire was divided into four dimensions: background information, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, instructional practices, and professional development. Firstly, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs focused on the knowledge and beliefs perceived by science teachers, which were composed of three evaluation indicators: science teachers’ knowledge, science teachers’ instructional beliefs, and science teachers’ epistemological beliefs. Based on the TALIS questionnaire and adapted and translated from the Attitude, Knowledge, and Application questionnaire (Wahono & Chang, 2019a , b ), 3 items were designed to investigate teachers’ understanding of TPACK knowledge required by science teachers. An example of an item regarding science teachers’ knowledge was, “I can understand the core concepts of science-related disciplines.” In addition, 6 items of science teachers’ beliefs were also used to describe primary science teachers’ instructional beliefs and epistemological beliefs about science. Some examples of these items were “I can proficiently grasp the content of the elementary science textbooks I currently teach to expand with other interdisciplinary areas,” “I can understand scientific knowledge was accumulated from people’s practices,” “I am sure students will gain more values if I integrated inquiry activities approaches in teaching science in the classroom.” All 9 items were together composed of the science teachers’ knowledge and beliefs.

Secondly, teachers’ instructional practices describe some strategies that teachers use to help students become independent and strategic learners in the classroom (Francisco & Celon, 2020 ). We can understand the concept as all the actions performed by the teacher to create and maintain a learning environment that enables successful instruction. Therefore, in our study, 8 items were designed to investigate teachers’ instructional practices from planning strategies, instructional strategies, and assessment practices of teachers. Some example items were “I consider the influence of students’ prior knowledge and experience and design scientific investigations that meet students’ psychological characteristics and activities” and “I could organize and design instruction by using different ways of presenting scientific knowledge (e.g., analogies, explanations, physical models, demonstration experiments, etc.)” “I could develop diverse assessment methods based on student characteristics in my science classroom (e.g., observations, activity record sheets, project work, growth portfolios, paper and pencil tests, etc.).” All 8 items were together composed of the science teachers’ instructional practices.

Thirdly, considering this study aimed to explore the relationship between teachers’ professional training and their intention to use ICT and the chain-mediated effects of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and teaching practices during the period, the professional development programs of teachers in the study were synthesized from three secondary indicators under the professional development dimension: frequency of professional scientific training, frequency of activity in teaching materials, and teaching and research community, and three items were designed to investigate teachers’ professional development programs. Some example items were “How many times per year are you able to attend scientific professional training? (teachers responded: 1 = Never participated, 2 = participated once, 3 = participated twice, 4 = participated three times, 5 = participated four times or more than four times.)” “How many times per year are you able to attend activities in the teaching materials? (Teachers responded: 1 = never participated, 2 = participated once, 3 = participated twice, 4 = participated three times, 5 = participated four times or more than four times). All 3 items were together composed of the science teachers’ professional development. Lastly, one item was also designed to investigate the science teacher’s intention to use ICT, which represented that “I would use ICTs in my further science teaching” (Teachers responded: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree,5 = strongly agree).

Subsequently, in order to detect the measurement model of teacher PD, teacher knowledge and beliefs, instructional practice among some items, we further used reliability testing and confirmatory factor analysis to test the overall quality of the sample data with the software of Amos 26.0 and SPSS22.0. The results showed that the total reliability coefficient of the scale was 0.830, with teachers’ professional development, knowledge and beliefs, and instructional practice respectively 0.763, 0.958, and 0.792. According to the reliability test standard of Cronbach’s alpha above 0.7 (Taber, 2018), this scale has a high internal consistency. Besides, the confirmatory factor analysis was also conducted. The results showed that RSMEA = 0.071(< 3, good fit), and the goodness of fit indexes in the model are mostly all greater than 0.9 (NFI = 0.912, RFI = 0.900, IFI = 0.912, CFI = 0.912), which indicates that the structure of the scale is reasonable (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988 ; Fornell & Larcker, 1981 ).

Statistical analysis

Based on the structural equation model method, we have detected the effects of professional development programs on primary science teachers’ ICT use, which is mediated by science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practice with the software SPSS22.0 and AMOS 26.0. Firstly, descriptive statistics and Pearson’s bivariate correlation analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between ICT use and primary science teachers’ professional development, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, and teachers’ instructional practices to understand the fundamental features of the data with the software SPSS22.0.

Secondly, we explored the pathways between primary science teachers’ ICT use, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, teachers’ instructional practices, and teachers’ professional development with the method of structural equation modeling. The path analysis followed the conceptual framework (Fig.  1 ), in which several paths were assumed to detect the relationship between primary science teachers’ development programs and ICT use. On the one hand, primary science teachers’ professional development and their knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices can directly and positively impact teachers’ intention to use ICT. On the other hand, science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices can also play a mediator and chain mediator effects in the pathway between science teachers’ professional development and ICT use.

To test the overall fit of a measurement model, several model fit indices were considered: chi-square statistic (χ2), root mean square error approximation (RMSEA), root mean square residual (RMR), normed fit index (NFI), comparative fit index (CFI) and adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI). There is a need for clarification that the chi-square statistic was sensitive to large sample sizes, which can lead to poor fit results and misinterpretation (Kenny & McCoach, 2003 ). Therefore, considering the enormous sample size exhibited in this study, the current study would focus on the following good model fit indices: the RMSEA value should be less than 0.10, the RMR value should be less than 0.05, and the NFI, CFI, TFI, and AGFI values should be greater than 0.90 (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988 ). Therefore, when the model meets the above model-data-fit criteria, we could further obtain the direct, indirect, and total model effects tested in the model.

Table  2 presented descriptive statistics and correlation results among primary science teachers’ professional development, knowledge and beliefs, instructional practices, and ICT use. The correlation analysis results revealed a statistically significant correlation among those variables in our study. Among those variables, primary science teachers’ ICT use has the highest correlation with teachers’ instructional practices ( r  = 0.038), followed by teachers’ knowledge and beliefs ( r  = 0.037) and teachers’ professional development ( r =-0.016). In addition, the current study also presented some significant positive correlations between science teachers’ professional development and teachers’ knowledge beliefs ( r  = 0.363) and teachers’ instructional practices ( r  = 0.405) and a significant positive correlation between teachers’ knowledge beliefs and teachers’ instructional practices ( r  = 0.618). Based on the significant correlation among those variables, we further tested the effect of the pathway in the conceptual model constructed in the study (Fig.  1 ).

The structural equation model and path coefficient estimation

A structural equation model was constructed with teachers’ professional development as the independent variable, ICT use as the dependent variable, and teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices as mediating variables. By using Amos 26.0 software, we have calculated and obtained some fit indicators for the model (RMSEA = 0.080, RMR = 0.024, GFI = 0.937, AGFI.

= 0.907, NFI = 0.960, IFI = 0.960, CFI = 0.960, and TLI = 0.949), which indicated that the model had a good fit (Wen et al., 2004 ).

To answer question 1: whether primary science teachers’ professional development, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, and teachers’ instructional practices can influence teachers’ intention to use ICT, we further explored the path coefficient of the constructed model among the relationship between teachers’ professional development, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, teachers’ instructional practices, and teachers’ intention to use ICT and revealed the direct effects of variables in detail (Fig.  2 ). The structural path coefficients indicate that teachers’ professional development does not positively predict primary science teachers’ ICT use but significantly and negatively linked with ICT use ( B=-0.05, p < 0.001 ), and Hypothesis 1, which the theoretical model predicted, was not tested. However, teachers’ instructional practices ( B = 0.04, p<0.001 ) and teachers’ knowledge and beliefs ( B = 0.03, p<0.001 ) both statistically significantly and positively predicted ICT use, which indicated that model hypotheses 2 and 3 were empirically verified. Therefore, the teaching beliefs possessed by teachers, subject knowledge, and the general pedagogy, subject pedagogy, teacher-student interaction, and higher-order thinking employed by teachers in their teaching practices may have an impact on ICT use (Campbell et al., 2014 ; Ghavifekr & Rosdy, 2015 ). Furthermore, the path model plots showed that teacher professional development was also able to significantly and positively predict both teacher knowledge and beliefs ( B = 0.39, p < 0.001 ) and teacher instructional practices ( B = 0.23, p < 0.001 ), as well as teacher knowledge and beliefs, could also significantly and positively influence teacher teaching practices ( B = 0.54, p < 0.001 ). The results demonstrated that there might exist some mediating chain effects in the relationship between teachers’ professional development, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, teachers’ instructional practices, and ICT use.

The structural equation model describes the direct effect of each path between teachers’ professional development, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, teachers’ instructional practices, and teachers’ intention to use ICT. The one-way arrow describes the standardized regression coefficient, and the solid line represents the meaningful path ( p  < 0.05)

Mediating effects of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and instructional practices in the relationship between professional development and ICT use

To answer question 2, can primary science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices play a significant intermediary role between teachers’ professional development and ICT use? Chain mediation path tests were also conducted to detect the mediation effects of variables of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, and instructional practices in the relationship between teachers’ professional development and teachers’ intention to use ICT. The Bootstrap method was used to repeat the sampling 5000 times, 95% unbiased confidence intervals were constructed, and the significance of the hypothesized path-mediated effect was tested according to whether the 95% confidence interval contained 0. Finally, the indicators of direct effect, indirect effect, and the total effect of the hypothesized path in the model were obtained (Table  3 ).

The intermediary effect of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices on primary science teachers’ professional development and teachers’ ICT use was mainly realized through three intermediary paths: teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, teachers’ instructional practices, and a chain mediator among teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and instructional practices. The 95% confidence interval of Bootstrap for these three paths does not include 0 ( p <0.05), which means that they have a significant intermediary effect in the relationship between primary science teachers’ professional development and teachers’ intention to use ICT, and further verified H4-H6 hypotheses. Table  3 indicated that there exists a statistically significant positive correlation between teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, as well as instructional practices, and the professional development of primary science teachers (β_direct = 0.039, SE = 0.002, p  < 0.001; β_direct = 0.030, SE = 0.003, p  < 0.001). Moreover, both teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, and instructional practices also exhibit statistically significant direct effects on the ICT use by primary science teachers (β_direct = 0.039, SE = 0.002, p  < 0.001; β_direct = 0.030, SE = 0.003, p  < 0.001). Therefore, primary science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices could both play an important mediator role in the relationship between teachers’ professional development and their intention to use ICT, whose indirect influence effects were 0.012 and 0.009 respectively (βindirect = 0.012, SE = 0.001, p  < 0.001; βindirect = 0.009, SE = 0.001, p  < 0.001). Additionally, teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices also presented a chain mediation path to influence the relationship between teachers’ professional development and their intention to use ICT. The chain mediator effects of “teachers’ knowledge and beliefs → teachers’ instructional practices” were 0.008 (βindirect = 0.008, SE = 0.001, p  < 0.001), which presented the lowest effects among three intermediary paths. Given the very large sample size, we also calculated effect sizes of the path coefficients with the parameters of f 2. Especially, the f ² value was an equation with ( 𝑅 2 𝑖 𝑛 𝑐 𝑙 𝑢 𝑑 𝑒 𝑑 − 𝑅 2 𝑒 𝑥 𝑐 𝑙 𝑢 𝑑 𝑒 𝑑 )/(1 − 𝑅 2 𝑖 𝑛 𝑐 𝑙 𝑢 𝑑 𝑒 𝑑 ), assesses the degree of the impact of specified exogenous latent variables toward the endogenous latent variables by measuring the degree of the R² change on the endogenous latent variables (Ziggers & Henseler, 2009 ). According to the standardized f² value proposed by Cohen ( 1988 ), the small, medium, and large effect sizes were viewed as 0.12, 0.15, and 0.35, respectively. From Table  3 , we conclude that the exogenous latent construct of TIP ( f ² = 0.001), TKB ( f ² = 0.000), TPD ( f ² = 0.003) have no effect sizes towards the endogenous latent construct ICT, and TPD ( f ² = 0.130), TKB ( f ² = 0.280) have small effect sizes, medium effect size towards the endogenous latent construct TIP, respectively. The reason mainly was that the items in primary science teachers’ professional development primarily centered on enhancing teachers’ science knowledge and providing training in teaching strategies, with minimal integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This emphasis was reflected in the observed effects on the endogenous latent construct ICT ( f ² = 0.003 < 0.12), indicating a negligible impact. Conversely, there are small effect sizes associated with the endogenous latent construct TIP ( f ² = 0.130 > 0.02), suggesting a comparatively more substantial influence. Moreover, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs demonstrated a statistically significant relationship with teachers’ instructional practices ( f ² = 0.280 > 0.02), indicating a substantial influence of science teachers’ knowledge and beliefs on instructional practices and the shaping of teaching approaches.

Based on the Sociocultural Model of Embedded Belief Systems, this study investigated the relationship among teachers’ beliefs and knowledges, instructional practices, teacher professional development and their ICT use and answered two questions: First, it investigated the directly effects of primary science teachers’ professional programs, teachers’ knowledges and beliefs, teachers’ instructional practices on their intention to use ICT. Second, it also explored the indirect mediator effects of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and instructional practices in the relationship between teachers’ professional development and ICT use.

Firstly, based on the path coefficients, this study revealed that primary science teachers’ professional development does not exert a positive influence on ICT use, while science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices demonstrated significant positive effects on science teachers’ ICT use. Primary science teachers’ professional development demonstrated a negative association with ICT use, a finding inconsistent with prior research (Yang & Hong, 2022 ). This discrepancy may be attributed to the current state of professional development training for Chinese primary science teachers, where the integration of ICT into training programs was inadequate. Furthermore, primary science teachers continue to lack emphasis on ICT use in various aspects, including science professional training, science textbook training, and teaching and research community seminars. Consequently, this deficiency contributes to the limited engagement of primary school science teachers in ICT utilization. Analysis of a substantial survey dataset has revealed that 17.4% of Chinese primary science teachers have not participated in instructional practices training or professional development programs in the past year and that training and programs rarely involve the use of information technology in subject teaching (Zheng et al., 2023 ).

Additionally, science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices were found to significantly influence their ICT use, aligning with several previous studies (Kim et al., 2013 ; Liu et al., 2011 ; Ifinedo et al., 2020 ). For instance, certain research has indicated that teachers’ epistemic beliefs, pedagogical beliefs, and technological knowledge play crucial roles in their capacity to integrate ICT into instructional practices, and these teachers were also more inclined to choose a constructive teaching philosophy (Hsu, 2013 ; Kim et al., 2013 ; Bahcivan et al., 2019 ). Moreover, a study illustrated that science teachers, prior to commencing teacher professional training, tended to harbor traditional conceptions of teaching and learning, weaker perspectives on the nature of science, and insufficient technology-enhanced beliefs. However, following the completion of the training, these teachers were more inclined to embrace student-centered views of teaching and learning, exhibit more nuanced beliefs about scientific knowledge and its nature, and manifest significantly stronger technology-enhanced beliefs (Campbell et al., 2014 ). In addition to the influence of science teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, we also revealed that teachers’ instructional practices could influence science teachers’ intention to use ICT. Jang and Tsai ( 2012 ) revealed that ICT use was significantly and positively influenced by teachers’ teaching experience, especially teachers with more years of teaching experience demonstrated significantly higher Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) than teachers with fewer years of teaching experience. Therefore, the reconstruction of primary science teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, coupled with the expansion of teachers’ instructional practices, is essential to enhance their willingness to use ICT. In this regard, information and communication technology should be actively integrated into training activities such as teaching reflection and instructional design, and innovative teaching ways and contents of information technology should also be used based on teachers’ practical experiences to satisfy their teaching needs (Zhao et al., 2014 ).

Secondly, this study also revealed that primary science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices can play an important intermediary and chain mediator effects in the relationship between teachers’ professional development and ICT use. The results were consistent with previous studies, indicating that teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices in professional development training programs tend to indirectly influence their intention to use ICT (Fives & Gill, 2015 ; Deng et al., 2014 ; Campbell et al., 2014 ). For example, Campbell et al. ( 2014 ) investigated the temporal changes in science teachers’ pedagogical orientations and technology-enhanced beliefs within a professional training program, and revealed that, initially, science teachers tended to embrace traditional conceptions of teaching, were unfamiliar with the nature of science, and possessed insufficient technology-enhanced beliefs before the commencement of the training. However, after the training, they exhibited a greater inclination to integrate ICT. Furthermore, some studies also revealed that teacher training programs that integrate ICT can have an impact on teachers’ perceptions and practices, especially when teachers recognize that ICT tools can effectively facilitate student learning and understanding (Ihmeideh & Al-Maadadi, 2018 ). Additionally, teachers’ ICT knowledge continues to exert an influence on their intention to use ICT. A study conducted by Aslan and Zhu ( 2017 ) revealed that pedagogical knowledge, participation in ICT-related courses, and perceived ICT competence significantly predicted the integration of ICT into teaching practices. Collectively, these factors accounted for 17% of the variance in the integration of ICT into teaching practices.

In addition to the mediating effects of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and teachers’ instructional practices, a chain mediator, specifically “teachers’ knowledge and beliefs → teachers’ instructional practices,” could also play a crucial role. The results were consistent with the interaction effects observed between teachers’ instructional practices and teaching beliefs, underscoring the significant influence of individuals’ beliefs on their behaviors and practices (Deng et al., 2014 ; Fives & Gill, 2015 ; Pajares, 1992 ). Deng et al. ( 2014 ) found that teachers’ epistemological beliefs and pedagogical theories can significantly influence their intention to apply ICT, and the epistemological beliefs held by teachers can also indirectly influence ICT use through teachers’ constructivist pedagogical practices. Therefore, in the professional training of teachers incorporating ICT technology, attention should be paid on cultivating teachers’ knowledge and beliefs regarding ICT use and expanding ICT application opportunities in teachers’ teaching practices, aiming to continually enhance teachers’ willingness to use ICT, which was important for improving teachers’ ICT literacy (Wu et al., 2022 ).

Overall, the results of our study can help Chinese education authorities to understand the performance of teacher professional development training and ICT use among Chinese primary science teachers so that they can better optimize and adjust the frequency and content of training for primary science teachers. At the same time, by examining the mediating effects of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices in the context of teachers’ professional training programs and ICT use, the study unveiled multiple pathways for enhancing the utilization of ICT among primary science teachers. These findings, in turn, offer valuable insights for optimizing educational and teaching practices for primary science teachers. Additionally, while numerous scholars have investigated the professional training of primary and secondary teachers and their inclination to use ICT, much of the research has been conducted in Western cultural contexts. In these studies, teachers’ training programs primarily concentrated on designing science curriculum, teaching methods, and engaging in discussions about science concepts. Therefore, to some extent, our study serves to bridge the gap between teacher professional development and the willingness of primary science teachers to use ICT in China.

Conclusion, limitation and implications

In this study, utilizing a large sample of collected data ( N  = 131,134), we employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the relationships among teachers’ professional development, knowledge and beliefs, instructional practices, and their intention to use ICT. The results revealed notable influence effects among the above factors, except for teachers’ professional development, which has not positively influenced ICT use. Other factors, such as teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and teachers’ instructional practices, could significantly influence science teachers’ ICT use. Moreover, science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices not only serve as mediators but also play a chain mediating role in the process of teachers’ professional development influencing ICT use. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that the ICT literacy of primary science teachers can be enhanced through the implementation of professional training programs that integrate ICT, the cultivation of teachers’ concepts of ICT application, and the innovation of ICT teaching practice pathways.

This study also has some limitations that are closely connected to future research. Firstly, considering the research purpose and the numerous survey items, the consolidation of science teachers’ knowledge and beliefs into one dimension may simplify certain results. Thus, the study cannot fully and intricately reveal the relationships among science teachers’ epistemic and pedagogical beliefs, technological knowledge, and instructional practices. Additionally, it cannot demonstrate the influential effects of teachers’ epistemic and pedagogical beliefs, as well as technological knowledge, on ICT use. Therefore, future research should separately explore the direct effects of teachers’ epistemic and pedagogical beliefs, technology knowledge, and instructional practices on primary science teachers’ intention to use ICT and reveal the multiple mediating effects of teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and instructional practices in the relationship between teachers’ professional development and ICT use.

Secondly, while the coefficients for both direct and indirect paths to ICT use were statistically significant, it is worth noting that the path coefficients are relatively small. One possible reason was that the items of primary science teachers’ professional development were mainly focused on teachers’ frequency of science knowledge training and hardly involved ICT integrated, might impact the mediated effect of science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices in the process linking teachers’ professional development to their intention to use ICT. Therefore, future research would continue to involve other predictors that may be more influential to the outcome variable.

Overall, our studies were important for science teachers’ professional development. On one hand, our study reveals that current teacher training lacks content related to the use of information technology, focusing instead on simple knowledge while neglecting the practical application of information technology. On the other hand, the findings of our study can also assist educational policymakers in designing training curricula. This design should prioritize training that encompasses not only scientific subject knowledge and science teaching but also emphasizes beliefs about the nature of science, cross-curricular teaching, and the effective use of information technology.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to the editors and reviewers for their guidance and suggestions, as well as the members of the Science Teaching Special Committee of the Basic Education Guidance Committee of the Ministry of Education of China and frontline science teachers for their support of the questionnaire survey.

This paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72074031).

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Jingying Wang (corressponding author) led the research project, designed the research framework and survey questionnaires. Beibei Lv collected and analyzed the data, and also wrote the manuscript. Danhua Zhou and Zhenshan Rong were instrumental in gathering and analyzing preliminary data, and they also played a key role in the manuscript’s revision process. Xuewai Tian contributed to the literature review of the manuscript and give some suggestions for the analysis of data. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Lv, B., Zhou, D., Rong, Z. et al. Effects of professional development program on primary science teachers’ ICT use in China: mediation effects of science teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and instructional practice. Discip Interdscip Sci Educ Res 6 , 11 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43031-024-00099-4

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Who are the Science Teachers that Seek Professional Development in Research Experience for Teachers (RET’s)? Implications for Teacher Professional Development

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To address the need to better prepare teachers to enact science education reforms, the National Science Foundation has supported a Research Experience for Teachers (RET’s) format for teacher professional development. In these experiences, teachers work closely with practicing scientists to engage in authentic scientific inquiry. Although there are many RET programs currently serving teachers, there is only a small body of research describing these programs and their outcomes. Just as science learning depends on both cognitive and affective factors of learners, the success of teacher professional development also depends on the cognitive and affective factors of the participants. Thus, the intent of this mixed method research is to better understand how the nature of professional development experiences shape the kinds of teachers that apply, and what this means for the design of such experiences. This study focused on describing the cognitive and affective characteristics of applicants for two different RET programs offered at the same institution. Findings suggest that the profiles of teachers who seek out these professional development programs vary based on the programs’ objectives. The findings also suggest that recognition of who is being served in professional development must be considered in the construction of those professional development experiences.

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I want to be the inquiry guy how research experiences for teachers change beliefs, attitudes, and values about teaching science as inquiry.

Improving science teachers’ nature of science views through an innovative continuing professional development program

The effect of cognitive apprenticeship-based professional development on teacher self-efficacy of science teaching, motivation, knowledge calibration, and perceptions of inquiry-based teaching, explore related subjects.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by NSF Teacher Professional Continuum (TPC-Award# 0553769). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Saka, Y. Who are the Science Teachers that Seek Professional Development in Research Experience for Teachers (RET’s)? Implications for Teacher Professional Development. J Sci Educ Technol 22 , 934–951 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-013-9440-1

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Stem teacher research experiences, programs for science teachers, the summer research experience for teachers (ret) program program dates:  june 24 – august 5, 2024.

CEMB supports a summer professional development initiative for middle and high school science teachers that encompasses the interdisciplinary and broad themes of mechanobiology.

RET scholars:

• Participate in a CEMB research project during the summer
• Develop a personal curriculum plan with specific lessons and activities to use in their teaching practice the following academic year, and
• Participate in academic year workshops with the project team and other teachers.

We seek middle and high school science teachers to work collaboratively during the summer as well as during the school year. Pairs of teachers working as teams are especially encouraged to apply. The 2024 program is open to middle and high school teachers of biology, physics, and chemistry from schools in the Philadelphia region. Participants must commit to a 6-week summer program and agree to develop and integrate a curriculum module into their teaching practice during the academic year.

Applications for the 2024 program are now open.

2024 Applications are Now Closed

Application Deadline: April 1, 2024

New cohort begins, on June 24, 2024

Applications are now closed for the next cohort in the  RET Program (Summer 2024).

Download our (2024) Program Brochure

Contact us for additional information and to inquire about details regarding the next cohort of teachers.

Additional Program Details:

June 24-28: In this first week of the program, teachers will meet 9am-2pm, in-person Monday – Friday.

July 1-August 2 (July 4 observed): Then, in weeks 2-6 of the program, teachers will work with mentors to conduct research in the labs, Monday – Thursday. Individual schedules are worked out with research mentors and, in general, can include a mix of virtual and in-person work for participants. However, participants should plan to be in-person as much as possible. Every Friday, the education team (including teachers) meets from 9am-2pm as a working group to make progress towards program goals (e.g., designing/redesigning a lesson plan with a mechanobio focus).

August 5: Final presentations of lesson plans and research experience to CEMB members.

Academic Year Participation: We are committed to supporting you throughout the school year. Participants can expect 2-3 Saturday morning workshops (one in fall, winter, and spring). Additional incentives may be available beyond the summer stipend of $6000 for those that continue to work towards program goals during the busy school year, including implementation of yours or other’s mechanobiology curriculum in some capacity with your students.

Attend the Annual Symposium to learn about more mechanobiology research.

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Curriculum and Instruction - Teacher Leadership Emphasis: STEM Specialization, M.Ed.

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June 30, 2025

• In-State - $12,540
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The MEd in Teacher Leadership: Special Studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education is a rigorous, content-focused program that allows in-service elementary and middle school teachers to explore relationships among science, engineering, and mathematics through a transdisciplinary approach to integrated STEM. Teachers in the program use cutting edge technology and innovative tools to build a Professional Learning Network as they develop philosophies regarding issues of authenticity, equity, and achievement in STEM.

This convenient master’s program enables teachers to earn a degree while maintaining teaching commitments and leads to a state add-on endorsement in “Instructional Leader:  STEM (PreK-6)”.

Key Features

• Integrated STEM Education : Experience a holistic approach to STEM, combining real-world applications and contemporary teaching methods to engage students.
• Professional Learning Network : Build connections with peers and faculty to foster collaboration and continuous professional growth.
• Add-on Certification : Receive a state add-on endorsement in “Instructional Leader: STEM (PreK-6)”.
• Flexible Schedule : Classes meet once per week after school hours, allowing for a balance between work and education.
• Research & Inquiry : Collaborate with esteemed faculty in action research projects that contribute to your professional development and the field of STEM education.

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Teacher Leadership Emphasis supports already certified beginning teachers and experienced educators in developing a sound common grounding in aspects of teaching and inquiry. The program emphasizes advanced professional development studies, which support experienced teachers as accomplished professionals and instructional leaders.

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Our curriculum is meticulously crafted to align with the MSDE STEM Standards of Practice, the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Curriculum, and the National Board Professional Teaching Standards, ensuring that participants receive a comprehensive and contemporary education that is directly applicable to their practice while also building their professional networks. All teachers who complete the program will receive an add-on endorsement from MSDE as a STEM Instructional Leader (COMAR 13a.12.02.29).

Each course in the program has been designed to reflect the MSDE STEM Standards of Practice as well as the core ideas and practices of the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core State Curriculum. Our program opens the space for teachers to explore relationships between science, engineering, and mathematics through the ‘meta-discipline’ of STEM in order to develop a holistic understanding of the world. Teachers in the program are using cutting edge technology and innovative tools to build a Professional Learning Network as they develop personal philosophies regarding issues of authenticity, equity, and achievement in STEM.

Program Structure

The M.Ed. In Teacher Leadership: Elementary STEM Education is composed of ten courses for a total of thirty graduate-level credit hours.

• Teaching & Learning in the Physical Sciences
• Biological Principles in Learning & Teaching
• Introduction to Engineering Design
• Developing a Professional Teaching Portfolio
• Innovations and Problem Solving in the Mathematics Classroom
• Applications of Technology in Instructional Settings
• Embracing Diversity in STEM Education
• Conducting Research on Teaching in the STEM Disciplines
• Mathematical Patterns & Predictions
• Educational Leadership in STEM Education

Teaching & Learning in the Physical Sciences : A course or two about physical science cannot possibly cover all topics one may end up teaching. The point of this course, therefore, is not just to help teachers understand some key topics but also to give them the skills needed to independently learn new material. In the process of learning science, teachers will have the opportunity to refine their ideas about what science is, what it means to learn and do science. Teachers participating in this course will develop:

• deep conceptual knowledge of topics in physics including motion, floating/sinking, and the nature of matter;
• the ability and propensity to approach the learning of new topics in physical science through tangible sense-making and coherence-building; and
• the ability and propensity to participate in scientific argumentation, which includes engaging with the ideas of others, defending claims with evidence, and seeking coherence between conflicting ideas

Introduction to Engineering Design : Designed by faculty in the Engineering Department, this course will provide an introduction to engineering design and human-centered design through three design projects. Each project will include a written design brief and product design reports, project planning and team management, and rapid prototyping. Participants will engage in discussions around sustainability, globalization, and engineering ethics. Teachers will also be guided through focused exploration of the intersections of scientific and mathematical inquiry and engineering design.

Problem Solving and Innovative Thinking in the Mathematics Classroom : Our society’s opportunities and demands are constantly changing. In order to take advantage of these opportunities and be successful in the face of unpredictable changes, students need learning and innovation skills such as creativity and problem solving as well as a support system for developing such skills. These skills are not only critical for a rapidly changing world, they are the keys to ensuring a fair and inclusive education, which is one of the most powerful levers available to make society more equitable. Mathematics is critical to the development of these skills. Therefore our mission is to re-imagine the mathematics learning environment, rethink mathematics instruction, and re-consider the mathematics curriculum so that we open the door to the development of powerful problem-solving skills and innovative thinking.

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NSF Leader Explores RPI Research and Workforce Development Initiatives During Visit

September 17, 2024

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently welcomed Susan Margulies, Ph.D., leader of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Engineering, to its campus to learn about RPI research and education capabilities, participate in a workforce development panel discussion, and give a presentation on NSF programs and opportunities to RPI community members and representatives from the University at Albany, Siena College, and Union College. 

“The National Science Foundation is a critical partner. With NSF support, our faculty and students make research breakthroughs that impact our communities, our nation, and the world,” said Robert Hull, RPI vice president for research. “We were delighted and honored to host Dr. Margulies at RPI, and her insights and questions throughout the day were invaluable and energizing.” 

During her presentation, titled “Transforming our World for a Better Tomorrow,” Margulies introduced NSF’s engineering research, workforce, and partnership priorities, and stressed the importance of convergence research and engaging the end user in the very beginning of any project. 

She also outlined NSF’s support for several emerging industries — advanced manufacturing, advanced wireless, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum information technology, and semiconductors and microelectronics — all areas of great relevance for RPI and New York. 

Prior to her presentation, Margulies met with RPI President Martin A. Schmidt and toured RPI’s Micro and Nanofabrication Cleanroom, the Manufacturing Innovation Learning Lab, and the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies. 

Margulies then joined a panel discussion at the NORDTECH Workforce Development Summit. Moderated by President Schmidt, the panel included Dave Anderson, president of NY CREATES; Erin Gawron-Hyla, workforce development lead with the U.S. Department of Defense Microelectronics Commons; Alex Oscilowski, president of TEL Technology Center America; and Janine Rush-Byers, director of strategic university partnerships with Micron. 

During the panel, Margulies characterized one of the main challenges of building the semiconductor workforce, asking “How do we reach families, teachers, and communities early so that students say, ‘this is what I want to do, this is exciting, I see myself doing this? Do we bring them in for experiential opportunities at early stages, or we engage with them via outreach and communication?” 

She continued, “NSF has a broad and deep history of stimulating these types of workforce development opportunities for our nation across all areas.”

Margulies also emphasized the need for mentoring networks that connect universities and the semiconductor industry, an approach already under development through programs at RPI and elsewhere. 

After the panel, Margulies toured RPI’s IBM Quantum System One, the first such system ever housed on a university campus in the world. From there, she participated in networking and breakout sessions with leaders and researchers at RPI, Union College, and Siena College. 

“Meeting the workforce challenge in semiconductors and other industries will require government, industry, and higher education institutions working together, and we were proud to host this collaboration on our campus,” Schmidt said. “We thank Dr. Margulies for her dedication to this approach and look forward to working with her and NSF to strengthen the chips and engineering pipeline.”

TIGER: Translation and Integration of Genomics is Essential to Doctoral Nursing

The purpose of this TIGER research educational project is to improve the knowledge and skills of doctoral nurses in genomics. This education award is supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R25HG011018.

Course At-a-Glance

Cost Free. Limited number of $1500 Stipend for Conference Travel/Housing

Contact Hours Potentially Earned

• Establish competency with knowledge and skills in genomics
• Engage in community of genomics-informed nurses

Principal Investigator: Laurie Connors

Laurie Connors, PhD, DNP, FNP-BC, AGN-BC, AOCNP, FAANP, FAAN is a professor at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and leader in national and global initiatives to expand genomic nursing education and practice.

Instruction

TIGER is a flipped classroom, train-the-trainer and collaborative mentorship program for a community of genomics informed nurses.

Genomics workshop held as a preconference in conjunction with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) January Doctoral Education conference every January

Monthly virtual genomic updates with nationally recognized genomic experts covering topics such as: Population Health Genomics, Genomics in Nursing Education, Genomics Curriculum Development, Responsible Research Conduct, and Genomic Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications.

Course Modules

Genomics workshop | january 14, 2025.

• Critical Deficits and Needs of Genomics in Doctoral Nursing
• Genome Basics: How Genes Influence Health and Illness
• Leadership and Professional Role, workforce skilling
• Education Content, capacity building in nursing-informed genomics
• Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications; Responsible Codes of Conduct
• Translation and Integration in Practice

Virtual Genomics Sessions

• Genetic/Genomic Review – the Big Picture (February)
• Genetic Testing Approaches (March) Health and Illness
• Public Health Applications of Genomics (April)
• Genomics in Nursing Education (May)
• Curriculum Development (June)
• Responsible Conduct of Research (July Part 1)
• Responsible Conduct of Research (August Part 2)
• Ethical, Legal and Social Issues of Genomics (September)
• Review of Clinical Genetic Conditions (October)
• Patient-centered genomic care (November)
• Professional Role and Future Directions (December)

Contact Hours

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing are collaborating to provide nursing continuing professional development for the educational activity:  Translation and Integration of Genomics is Essential to Doctoral Nursing  (TIGER) .  Nurses completing the entire activity and evaluation tool may be awarded a maximum of  22.75 contact hours .  The University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) by the  American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation .

Cost-Free, Stipend Available

Applications are also being accepted for a  stipend travel award, up to $1,500 , to be awarded to 30 individuals selected from the submitted applications and is to be applied toward conference travel and hotel/meals/local transportation. Applicants interested in the stipend should submit a one to two-page letter outlining why the interest in completing the TIGER course and the potential impact on nursing practice. Stipend travel award participants will need to commit to completing all the TIGER program components and receive support from their institution/school/leaders to implement genomics in doctoral nursing education.  

We are committed to diversity and inclusion for those who are under-represented in US Biomedical, Clinical, Behavioral, and Social Sciences. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to age, ethnicity, color, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, national origin, disability, or veteran status.  Our application includes optional questions to support our accountability to our commitment to diversity and inclusion.

This workshop is supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health under award number R25HG011018 (PI: Connors). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Application

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Last date to apply is September 30, 2024.

Required Application Criteria

• Doctoral Nursing Faculty: DNP or PhD

Professional Qualifications

• Currently ≥ 50% of time is spent teaching in a DNP or nursing PhD program
• Hold a DNP, PhD, DNSc, DNS, EdD degree
• Teach at least 1 course in the DNP or nursing PhD program
• Active member of a professional nursing organization
• Actively mentoring DNP or nursing PhD students

Application Instructions

• Complete application form & CV
• Letter of recommendation and support from Dean

Post-Training Expectations

• Able to integrate key principles of TIGER proposed medical genomics care into the doctoral nursing curriculum, scholarship or practice within 1 year post- course
• Complete 6 and 12-month post-course goal updates

Upon completion, participants will be granted a Certificate of Completion and continuing education credits for the completed course content.

  African Journal of Educational Studies in Mathematics and Sciences Journal / African Journal of Educational Studies in Mathematics and Sciences / Vol. 20 No. 1 (2024) / Articles (function() { function async_load(){ var s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.async = true; var theUrl = 'https://www.journalquality.info/journalquality/ratings/2409-www-ajol-info-ajesms'; s.src = theUrl + ( theUrl.indexOf("?") >= 0 ? "&" : "?") + 'ref=' + encodeURIComponent(window.location.href); var embedder = document.getElementById('jpps-embedder-ajol-ajesms'); embedder.parentNode.insertBefore(s, embedder); } if (window.attachEvent) window.attachEvent('onload', async_load); else window.addEventListener('load', async_load, false); })();  

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Kwaku Darko Amponsah, University of Ghana, Legon/University of South Africa, Pretoria

Department of Teacher Education

Department of Science and Technology Education,

Main Article Content

Analyzing the influence of key demographic variables on the learning styles of preservice science and non-science teachers, kwaku darko amponsah.

This study investigated the influence of demographic variables such as academic disciplines, gender, and education levels on the learning styles of preservice teachers within the framework of learning styles, specifically focusing on the Visual, Auditory, and Kinaesthetic (VAK) model. Drawing on a diverse body of literature, the research aimed to discern patterns and influences on cognitive development. The primary objective was to analyze the impact of the program of study, gender, and level of education on preservice teachers' learning styles, utilizing a questionnaire-based approach with 376 participants. Statistical methods, including frequencies, percentages and chi-square tests, revealed significant variations in learning styles across different academic disciplines, genders, and education levels. The findings emphasized the mixed nature of these relationships, calling for tailored approaches in teacher training programs that consider individual difference. These findings contribute to understanding the dynamics influencing learning style of preservice science and non-science teachers

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