Effects of Professional Development on Teacher Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Inquiry Teaching Practices, and Student Understanding of Interdisciplinary Science

Systematic studies on the effectiveness of in-service teacher professional development (PD) are important for science education research and practice. Previous studies have mostly focused on certain outcomes of PD, for example, the effectiveness of PD for improving teachers’ knowledge or students’ learning outcomes. This study, however, explores multiple outcomes of PD, from teachers’ change in knowledge and practice and how teacher change influences students’ beliefs and ultimately their understanding of interdisciplinary science concepts. The sample included 509 students from 23 classrooms within 5 elementary/middle schools. The results showed that teacher attendance in professional learning communities and interdisciplinary science research related positively to teachers’ scores on a pedagogical content knowledge test. Students whose teachers had more than 150 PD hours in the past academic year performed significantly better on an interdisciplinary science test. Follow-up analyses suggested that student understanding of the nature of science possibly mediates the positive effect between PD hours and student understanding of interdisciplinary science concepts.