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Congratulations to Raymond Loverso who on Wednesday, August 16, successfully defended his dissertation titled: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ELEMENTARY TEACHERS’ SCIENCE TEACHING SELF-EFFICACY AND THEIR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A QUANTITATIVE STUDY. Ray investigated the relationship between elementary teachers’ science teaching self-efficacy and the components of effective professional development as designated by Darling-Hammond et al. (2017). To do so, he developed a survey tool that measured K-5 elementary school teachers’ perspectives of the impact of Darling-Hammond et al.’s (2017) components of effective professional development, as well as their perceived efficacy in teaching science lessons that incorporate science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts.
Study outcomes show that effective professional development has statistically significant and meaningful effect sizes on different dimensions on science teaching self-efficacy, with the greatest effect on disciplinary core ideas, e.g., science content. The findings and implications of Ray’s study are important for both researchers and practitioners; they reinforce previous findings about the positive influence of effective professional development and now apply this to elementary science teaching. Moreover, study findings and recommendations can inform decision making at the federal, state, and local school district levels, ultimately improving the quality of science education in our elementary schools.
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE CHAIR(S): Dr. Joanne Marien
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE MEMBER(S): Dr. Joseph Phillips Dr. Robert Monson
