The effect of the ‘teacher-led PD for teachers’ professional development program on students’ achievement: an experimental study

ABSTRACT

Teacher professional development, in particular, has been at the center of efforts designed to increase teaching practice and the learning of students. The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of the ‘teacher-led PD for teachers’ program, developed by the researchers, on students’ achievements. The study was conducted with six high school physics teachers and 306 students in Turkey. The professional development intervention lasted for seven weeks, and teachers had 21 hours of professional development regarding modern physics at high school level. The results of ANCOVA showed that there was a significant effect of the teacher-led PD for teachers program on students’ achievements. The successful implementation indicated that the teacher-led PD for teachers program possesses effective characteristics of professional development and can improve student achievement.

KEYWORDS:

• Teachers’ professional development
• modern physics unit
• experimental professional development
• student achievement
• physics education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nuri Balta

Nuri Balta is a professor at the University of International Business, Almaty, Kazakhstan, and teaches physics to physics education Master’s students. He taught physics at high schools in Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan for more than 20 years, and prepared students for international physics Olympiads. His research areas include physics teachers’ professional development, counterintuitive physics problems, and technology integration.

Ali Eryılmaz

Ali Eryılmaz is currently a professor at the Department of Mathematics and Science Education at Middle East Technical University in Turkey. He received his PhD in Physics Education from Florida Institute of Technology in 1996. Although he has studied wide areas of physics education, his work mainly focuses on student understanding in physics.