Date of Award

2011

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Massive deficits in local, state and national education budgets are forcing schools to adapt their spending to align with these reductions. Rather than merely increasing or decreasing resources, the effectiveness of resource allocation is demanding renewed attention at all levels of educational expenditure. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of teacher professional development across five campuses at Chicago International Charter School. It is the goal of this project to examine how teacher professional development directly impacts student performance, as well as to evaluate whether this relationship is moderated by teacher attitude towards professional development activities. It was determined that students of teachers who receive professional development within the subject of vocabulary did not exhibit a significantly higher mean growth in vocabulary scores than students of teachers who did not participate in the initiative. However, this relationship was found to be moderated by teacher attitude, in that students of teachers who participated in the professional development, and possessed a positive attitude towards the professional development activities, did yield growth scores above and beyond students of teachers who attended professional development activities and possessed a negative attitude, as well as students of teachers who did not participate in the professional development activity. The results of this study serve not only to benefit CICS and its affiliates, but also aim to quantitatively highlight some of the variables that drive classroom instruction and student achievement.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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