TY - JOUR
T1 - Intervention, evaluation, and policy studies
T2 - A randomized trial of teacher development in elementary science: First-year achievement effects
AU - Borman, Geoffrey D.
AU - Gamoran, Adam
AU - Bowdon, Jill
N1 - Funding Information:
teacher development for elementary school science in a large, urban school district. System-Wide Change is a broad-based approach to science teaching and learning that involves a partnership among university scientists, science educators, and K–12 practitioners; addresses preservice, in-service, and curricular development; and is supported by a comprehensive National Science Foundation Math and Science Partnership known as SCALE (System-Wide Change for All Learners and Educators). We set out to evaluate the achievement effects of the System-Wide Change elementary science component, which provides fourth-and fifth-grade teachers with professional development in summer institutes and ongoing coaching and mentoring in the use of extended, inquiry-based curriculum units for elementary science. The curriculum units, which are known as “immersion units,” bring teachers and students through a full cycle of inquiry in core problems of scientific investigation.
Funding Information:
The research reported in this article was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (award ID 0554566) to the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, School of Education, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Jill Bowdon’s work was supported by an IES predoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (grant no. R305C050055). Findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporting agency.
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - This article describes 1st-year experimental effects of a large-scale reform providing professional development to elementary school teachers to implement an extended, inquiry-oriented science curriculum. Known as ‘immersion teaching’ because it ‘immerses’ teachers and students in the full cycle of scientific inquiry, this approach developed through a partnership involving university-based science and mathematics content experts and educators and K-12 educators from the Los Angeles Unified School District. Multilevel analyses, which examined school-level effects of assignment to the professional development intervention, nested Grade 4 students and their science achievement outcomes within the 80 study schools. The analyses revealed a statistically significant negative 1st-year treatment effect of school-level assignment to the initiative on the key science achievement outcome.We also tested whether the treatment had differential effects for English language learners, schools with large proportions of English language learners, and students of new teachers. We found an interaction effect of the treatment by teacher experience level for the teachers who were the primary target of the intervention, with the treatment having positive effects for novice teachers (3 years of experience or less) but a larger, negative effect for veteran teachers.We explore analytically three sets of explanations for the unexpected negative main effect of treatment: potential statistical and design artifacts, possible misalignment between the assessments and content of the treatment, and practical issues related to implementation of the treatment.
AB - This article describes 1st-year experimental effects of a large-scale reform providing professional development to elementary school teachers to implement an extended, inquiry-oriented science curriculum. Known as ‘immersion teaching’ because it ‘immerses’ teachers and students in the full cycle of scientific inquiry, this approach developed through a partnership involving university-based science and mathematics content experts and educators and K-12 educators from the Los Angeles Unified School District. Multilevel analyses, which examined school-level effects of assignment to the professional development intervention, nested Grade 4 students and their science achievement outcomes within the 80 study schools. The analyses revealed a statistically significant negative 1st-year treatment effect of school-level assignment to the initiative on the key science achievement outcome.We also tested whether the treatment had differential effects for English language learners, schools with large proportions of English language learners, and students of new teachers. We found an interaction effect of the treatment by teacher experience level for the teachers who were the primary target of the intervention, with the treatment having positive effects for novice teachers (3 years of experience or less) but a larger, negative effect for veteran teachers.We explore analytically three sets of explanations for the unexpected negative main effect of treatment: potential statistical and design artifacts, possible misalignment between the assessments and content of the treatment, and practical issues related to implementation of the treatment.
KW - Inquiry-based pedagogy
KW - Randomized experiment
KW - Science intervention
KW - Teacher professional development
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U2 - 10.1080/19345740802328273
DO - 10.1080/19345740802328273
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85009597166
SN - 1934-5747
VL - 1
SP - 237
EP - 264
JO - Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
JF - Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness
IS - 4
ER -