An exploration of the introduction of Thinking Science professional development into five schools and how this affected teachers' pedagogy

The purpose of this research was to investigate the implementation of Thinking Science professional development in five high schools over two years and how this affected teachers approach to pedagogy and levels of student cognition. A Grounded Theory research design was used with qualitative and quantitative methods including assessment of student cognitive levels, interviews with staff and classroom observations. In all schools except one, little change in pedagogy was observed and the effect size indicated no significant improvement in student cognition. Complex factors in each school which prevented the implementation of effective professional development to stimulate student cognition were identified .