The effects of a teacher professional development intervention in American History on student achievement

The Teaching American History (TAH) grant program was established to improve teachers’ history content knowledge to positively impact student achievement. The purpose of this causal-comparative post-test only study was to investigate the difference between the Tennessee End-of-Course (EOC) U.S. history scores of the students whose teachers participated in the professional development intensive summer trainings and the achievement performance of the students whose teachers did not participate in the trainings. The study also examined the relationship between the 2005/2006 EOC U.S. history scores, teacher experience, and teacher\u27s highest degree earned. The sample for this study was a total of 778 experimental and 799 control group students who attended high school in the Upper Middle Tennessee History Consortium area in the 2004-2005 or 2005-2006 school years and took the Tennessee End-of-Course U.S. history test during the time of this study. The teachers of the experimental group participated in a week-long intensive summer professional development training in 2004 and/or 2005. Control and experimental teachers were matched on characteristics of their schools’ National Center of Educational Statistics (NCES) locale rating, the percentage of their schools’ economically disadvantaged students, and their years of teaching experience. Statistical significance was found between the EOC U.S. history scores of experimental and control groups. The scores of the students whose teachers did not participate in the professional development trainings were higher than those of the students whose teachers did participate in the trainings. Weak, but statistically significant, relationships at the .01 level were found between the students\u27 EOC U.S. history scores and the years of teacher experience. The teachers with the least experience had the students with the higher scores. There was a weak positive relationship at the .01 level between the teachers’ highest degree earned and the student history achievement scores. Teachers with advanced degrees had students with higher scores. For practice and future research recommendations included use of student and teacher academic gain measurements, measurement of student attitudes toward history, use of disaggregated student achievement data, teacher and administrator in-services, and careful screening of teacher participants to determine commitment to building the innovation\u27s sustainability in their schools