Publication Info
Type Inproceedings
Year 2006
Venue Paper presented at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST). San Francisco, USA. April 4 - 7, 2006.
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Inproceedings

Working to measure the impact of professional development activities: Developing an instrument to quantify pedagogical discontentment

Southerland SA, Sowell S, Kahveci M, Granger EM, Owen OF

2006 — Paper presented at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST). San Francisco, USA. April 4 - 7, 2006.

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Citation (APA)

Southerland SA, Sowell S, Kahveci M, Granger EM, Owen OF (2006). Working to measure the impact of professional development activities: Developing an instrument to quantify pedagogical discontentment. Paper presented at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST). San Francisco, USA. April 4 - 7, 2006.

Abstract

The aim of this research is to empirically define the construct of science

teachers’ pedagogical discontentment, a construct that describes teachers’

lack of satisfaction or contentment that occurs when -they recognize a

mismatch between their own pedagogical beliefs and goals and their actual

classroom practices. From a conceptual change perspective, we explore

the meaning of pedagogical discontentment, and discuss its role in shaping

teachers’ receptivity to messages of reform. In tandem with introducing

this construct, we present an instrument to be used to measure teachers’

pedagogical discontentment, an instrument that eventually will allow

science educators to better describe the affective states of teachers entering

professional development experiences. To inform this instrument, we

conducted interviews with practicing elementary and secondary science

teachers to provide us with first-hand accounts of how teachers discuss

aspects of their current science teaching practices that they perceived as

being less effective than desired. From these interviews a group of 41

items were designed around a group of 5 subscales. The psychometric

evaluation of these items is offered, along with suggestions for the

revision of this instrument.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{ba, title = {Working to measure the impact of professional development activities: Developing an instrument to quantify pedagogical discontentment}, author = {Southerland SA, Sowell S, Kahveci M, Granger EM, Owen OF}, year = {2006}, booktitle = {Paper presented at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST). San Francisco, USA. April 4 - 7, 2006.}, abstract = {The aim of this research is to empirically define the construct of science teachers’ pedagogical discontentment, a construct that describes teachers’ lack of satisfaction or contentment that occurs when -they recognize a mismatch between their own pedagogical beliefs and goals and their actual classroom practices. From a conceptual change perspective, we explore the meaning of pedagogical discontentment, and discuss its role in shaping teachers’ receptivity to messages of reform. In tandem with introducing this construct, we present an instrument to be used to measure teachers’ pedagogical discontentment, an instrument that eventually will allow science educators to better describe the affective states of teachers entering professional development experiences. To inform this instrument, we conducted interviews with practicing elementary and secondary science teachers to provide us with first-hand accounts of how teachers discuss aspects of their current science teaching practices that they perceived as being less effective than desired. From these interviews a group of 41 items were designed around a group of 5 subscales. The psychometric evaluation of these items is offered, along with suggestions for the revision of this instrument.} }