DETERMINING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A DESIGN–BASED, CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME FOR SCIENCE TEACHERS

This research examined the effectiveness of a design-based, continuous professional development (CPD) programme intended to promote teachers' self-confidence and teaching reflection skills. The CPD was associated with teacher implementation of theoretically devised, motivational, context-based, inquiry teaching modules, based on a justified 3-stage teaching model. The CPD programme was devised from prior identification of teacher needs, using a validated teacher questionnaire (TNQ) covering subject and pedagogical content knowledge, as well as other literature-identified, desirable teaching attributes. The effectiveness of the CPD provision was determined through two approaches - by re-administering the TNQ at the end of the programme and identifying significant self-confidence gains through application of the K-means clustering technique, and was also by the range of teacher reflections in, on and for action, provided by teachers after using modules in their teaching. Each teacher's reflections were qualitatively grouped, based on comments made during a semi-structured interview about the teaching, opinions on students' learning and attitudinal outcomes. Findings suggested a strong correlation between teaching confidence gained from the CPD programme and the range of identified types of reflective skills mentioned during the interview, which provided the depth of feedback related to classroom teaching in implementing the modules.