The effective research-based characteristics of professional development and how they relate to the National Science Foundation's GK-12 Program

This mixed methods study investigates the effective research-based characteristics of professional development and the National Science Foundation’s GK-12 Program. A comprehensive search of texts containing effective research-based characteristics of professional development linked to student achievement and teacher behavior provided the data to perform three content analyses. After rigorous inter- and intra-reliability testing, the content analyses yielded 16 effective research-based characteristics of professional development. For reasons of validity, the characteristics were sent to experts of professional development who were later interviewed. The characteristics were then used to deductively investigate the GK-12 program; an NSF funded professional development program that supports graduate students and advanced undergraduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and partners them with cooperating teachers in the K-12 classroom. Final evaluations from 26 of 31 GK-12 sites from the program’s inception year in 1999 were analyzed in a third content analysis. The results of the analysis demonstrate that the GK-12 program incorporates all of the effective research-based characteristics of professional development, but to drastically varying degrees. Two emergent characteristics were also derived from the third analysis and included “improves communication skills” and “has real world application”. Implications of the study posit that educational leaders need to be aware that effective research-based characteristics of professional development that are linked to student learning exist, and should be used to guide professional development endeavors.