Arab Educational Information Network

This thesis addressed the issue of professional learning activities for teachers as an important factor that may affect students’ achievement in physics. It is recognised that it is not the only one. Other factors that could influence students’ achievements include availability and use of learning resources, classroom size and climate, family background characteristics, and students’ attitudes toward physics. Professional development can play a vital role in helping teachers to improve their teaching skills, knowledge and competencies. However, research shows that many professional development programs have failed to improve teaching practice (Birman, Desimone, Porter & Garet, 2000; Newmann, King, & Youngs, 2001; Armour & Yelling, 2004; Hofman & Dijkstra, 2010). This is also the case in Saudi Arabia for physics teachers where there are many opportunities for training and professional development, but these are not being reflected in student achievement. As seen in the disparity of results, with Saudi Arabian students in secondary schools obtained a low mean score in physics compared with chemistry, biology and geology (Educational Information Centre, 2010). This lack of training effectiveness may occur due to: poor analysis of teacher training needs (Alnooijm, 2005; Abo Atwan, 2008); failing to provide teachers with appropriate content during training courses (Kildan, Ibret, Pektas, Aydinozu, Incikabi, & Recepoglu, 2013); or trainers’ not being adequately skilled (Mansour, 2003; Al-Shehri, 2006). Such deficiencies reinforce that more effective approaches, such as Guskey’s (2002) five levels of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Transformative Professional Development (TPD) (Johnson & Fargo, 2010), should be drawn upon to inform training approaches. This situation has generated the need to evaluate the effectiveness of professional learning programs as a first step to identifying improved strategies for physics teachers, and ultimately contributing to improved outcomes for students. Consequently, the aim of this research is to examine the effectiveness of current professional learning being offered to physics teachers at intermediate and secondary schools in Saudi Arabia, and to identify effective contexts and approaches for them to learn professionally. The research was based in the city of Onaizah, Saudi Arabia involving 36 schools using mixed methods design across two separate studies. The first study utilized a quantitative approach to examine the effectiveness of professional learning training programs. The provision and content of these programs designed for this study consisted of three modes of delivery: on-the-job training (based at the school), off-the-job training (based at a training centre) and combined training programs that combined both on- and off-the-job training programs. A survey was administered to 62 male teachers of physics at both intermediate school (13 years old, grade 7, 14 years old, grade 8 and 15 years old, grade 9 in the educational system of Saudi Arabia) and secondary schools (16 years old, grade 10, 17 years old, grade 11 and 18 years old, grade 12). This cohort included 41 teachers from 24 intermediate schools and 21 teachers from 12 secondary schools. To examine the effects of the three different modes of training on physics teachers’ professional learning a Multivariate Analysis of Variance (ANOVA ) was used. Chi-square analyses were also undertaken to examine the training preferences of participants prior to undertaking a professional development program. The second study collected qualitative data to explore the themes revealed within the survey data in order to evaluate the effectiveness of physics teachers’ professional learning in general. This study used semi-structured interviews with a selection of 14 education professionals recruited from the larger sample in study 1, including 6 teachers, 6 principals, one supervisor, and one trainer. The pre-training quantitative surveys indicated that teachers had low expectations for training programs, with post training surveys indicating the teachers found training to be beneficial in the areas of planning physics classes, knowledge, teaching style, and students’ practice management. In addition, no significant differences were found between the expectations of physics teachers and their experiences in the area of professional learning activities, location and venue or across the three different modes of training. The qualitative findings indicated that Saudi physics teachers are more likely to learn professionally and further develop their teaching performance when they are involved in training programs outside their schools rather than by participating in supervision activities inside their schools. In conclusion, the study found that effective professional learning for physics teachers in the city of Onaizah, Saudi Arabia can occur when on-the-job training is complemented with off-the-job training, and both supervisor and trainer apply the elements of professional learning collaboratively. Different needs of teachers should be identified and classified into the three area of teachers’ knowledge that are content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), in order to develop the efficacy of the learning program. Furthermore, the skills of supervisors and trainers should be developed to strengthen collaboration of the different training modes with a focus on planning, implementing and evaluating inservice training activities. (Author’s abstract)