The effects of professional development on science teaching practices and classroom culture

Abstract: The current science education reform movement emphasizes the importance of professional development as a means of improving student science achievement. Reformers have developed a vision for professional development based upon intensive and sustained training around concrete tasks that is focused on subject-matter knowledge, connected to speci®c standards for student performance, and embedded in a systemic context. Using data from a National Science Foundation Teacher Enhancement program called the Local Systemic Change initiative, this study employs hierarchical linear modeling to examine the relationship between professional development and the reformers ' vision of teaching practice. The ®ndings indicate that the quantity of professional development in which teachers participate is strongly linked with both inquiry-based teaching practice and investigative classroom culture. At the individual level, teachers' content preparation also has a powerful in¯uence on teaching practice and classroom culture. At the school level, school socioeconomic status was found to in¯uence practice more substantially than either principa