Assessing the Impact of the MSPs: K-8 Science (AIM: K-8 Science)

这个项目正在研究NSF的数学和科学伙伴关系（MSP）计划对教师内容知识，课堂实践和学生成绩的影响。这项跨地点研究是在10个MSP项目中考察教师专业发展经验的性质与教师和学生成果之间的关系。一个在研究设计、数据分析、专业发展和科学内容方面具有专业知识的咨询委员会在整个研究过程中提供反馈。鉴于在这一领域的努力程度，该领域对深化数学和科学教师内容知识的专业发展战略的了解令人惊讶地有限。从这些发现向前推进的一个挑战是，人们使用教师内容知识一词来表示非常不同的东西。该领域的另一个挑战是了解哪些策略或功能最重要的专业发展计划，重点是深化教师内容的知识。最后，大量的限制，在研究设计，和/或仪器的许多专业发展的研究，在当前的文献中，已经学到了什么。该研究通过开发一个系统来捕获MSP项目中的等效数据来应对这些挑战。这项研究详细记录了向教师提供的专业发展（即，这些措施包括：（a）对教师的教学内容知识和学生的学习情况进行评估;（b）使用各中等教育项目的通用工具对教师的教学内容知识和学生的学习情况进行评估。使用分层线性模型（HLM）分析数据。第一阶段的分析探讨的影响的MSP对教师的内容知识，并调查不同的方法对专业发展的相对影响。第二阶段扩展工作，探讨教师的内容知识，课堂实践和学生成绩之间的关系。这项研究还审查了哪些中型项目办法似乎最有希望缩小历史成就差距，此外，这项研究还为每个伙伴中型项目提供了具体项目的影响调查结果，包括适当统计测试的结果，并协助伙伴设计和执行进一步的分析。合作伙伴MSP会收到他们使用MSP知识管理和传播项目制定的证据审查程序标准编写的报告/文章的反馈。该项目以几种重要的方式增加了知识库。首先，研究结果的影响MSP对K-8科学教师的内容知识，课堂实践和学生学习可以提供指导，在未来的专业发展工作的设计。第二，改进具体项目评估的方法，同时为更广泛和复杂的跨站点分析提供数据，有可能在NSF和其他资助者支持的未来项目中增强知识生成。

This project is studying the impact of NSF's Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program on teacher content knowledge, classroom practice, and student achievement. This cross-site study is examining the relationship between the nature of teachers' professional development experiences and both teacher and student outcomes across 10 MSP projects. An advisory board with expertise in research design, data analysis, professional development, and science content is providing feedback throughout the study. What the field knows about professional development strategies to deepen the content knowledge of mathematics and science teachers is surprisingly limited given the extent of efforts in this area. One challenge for moving forward from these findings is that people use the term teacher content knowledge to mean very different things. Another challenge for the field is understanding which strategies or features matter most in professional development programs focused on deepening teacher content knowledge. Finally, substantial constraints in the research design, and/or instrumentation of many of the studies of professional development in the current literature have limited what has been learned. The study is addressing these challenges by developing a system for capturing equivalent data across MSP projects. The study is documenting details on the professional development offered to teachers (i.e., the interventions), as well as measuring teacher content knowledge and student learning using common instruments across the MSPs. Data are being analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). The first phase of the analysis examines the impact of the MSPs on teacher content knowledge and investigates the relative impacts of different approaches to the professional development. The second phase extends the work to explore the relationships among teacher content knowledge, classroom practices, and student achievement. The study is also examining which MSP approaches appear most promising for closing historic achievement gaps.In addition, the study is providing project-specific impact findings for each partner MSP, including results from appropriate statistical tests, and assisting partners with designing and implementing further analyses. Partner MSPs are given feedback on reports/articles they prepare using the standards of evidence review process developed by the MSP Knowledge Management and Dissemination project.This project is adding to the knowledge base in several important ways. First, findings about the impact of MSPs on K-8 science teacher content knowledge, classroom practice, and student learning can provide guidance in the design of future professional development efforts. Second, the methodology for improving project-specific evaluations and at the same time providing data for more extensive and sophisticated cross-site analyses has the potential to enhance knowledge generation in future programs supported by NSF and other funders.