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The Effect of a State Department of Education Teacher Mentor Initiative on Science Achievement

  • Published:
Journal of Science Teacher Education

Abstract

This study investigated the effectiveness of a southern state’s department of education program to improve science achievement through embedded professional development of science teachers in the lowest performing schools. The Science Mentor Program provided content and inquiry-based coaching by teacher leaders to science teachers in their own classrooms. The study analyzed the mean scale scores for the science portion of the state’s high school graduation test for the years 2004 through 2007 to determine whether schools receiving the intervention scored significantly higher than comparison schools receiving no intervention. The results showed that all schools achieved significant improvement of scale scores between 2004 and 2007, but there were no significant performance differences between intervention and comparison schools, nor were there any significant differences between various subgroups in intervention and comparison schools. However, one subgroup, economically disadvantaged (ED) students, from high-level intervention schools closed the achievement gap with ED students from no-intervention schools across the period of the study. The study provides important information to guide future research on and design of large-scale professional development programs to foster inquiry-based science.

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Notes

  1. The Culaca Formula is based on the outcome of a need factor, nf. The overall nf is calculated as a weighted average of partial need factors calculated in HSGT, End-of-Course Tests (EOCT), Adequate Yearly Progress Status (AYP), graduation rate, and number of students. Due to the fact that the program is focused on improving science performance on the HSGT and thereby the graduation rate, the HSGT accounts for 25 % of the overall nf. EOCT, AYP, graduation rate, and number of students account for 20, 15, 15, and 5 %, for each of the other factors, respectively. For the purpose of this study, only schools who received consistent levels of intervention from 2005 through 2007 were sampled, reducing the total number of schools available for this study to 120: 49 high-level intervention schools, 22 medium-level intervention schools, and 49 schools receiving no intervention. HSGT data for each of the schools in the study were attained from the SEA (SEA 2004; 2005a; 2006; 2007a). School-based data are available through the SEA’s testing website. All data are free and considered to be in the public domain.

  2. A mixed ANOVA design was chosen because the groups are being analyzed at different periods of time as opposed to simultaneous, yet different treatments. The key assumption is that variances within the population exhibit similar patterns. Mauchly’s test for sphericity was used to test for the sphericity, or the equality of the variances. For the comparison of medium- and high-level intervention performance for scale score analyses, the Mauchly’s values were found to be not significant (W = .961, p = .501) with acceptable Greenhouse–Geisser epsilon values (.976). For all other analyses, Mauchly’s test was found to be significant (p < .05). However, in each analysis, the Greenhouse–Geisser epsilon values were acceptable (W > .9) to allow for the assumption of sphericity (Huck 2000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Achieve, Inc., 1400 16th Street, NW, Suite 510, Washington, DC, 20036, USA

    Stephen L. Pruitt

  2. Center for Science Education, Indiana State University, 191 Science Building, Terre Haute, IN, 47809, USA

    Carolyn S. Wallace

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  1. Stephen L. Pruitt
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  2. Carolyn S. Wallace
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Correspondence to Stephen L. Pruitt.

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Pruitt, S.L., Wallace, C.S. The Effect of a State Department of Education Teacher Mentor Initiative on Science Achievement. J Sci Teacher Educ 23, 367–385 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10972-012-9280-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10972-012-9280-5

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