The perceived impact of CPD on early career science teaching

According to STEM Learning UK (2018) a skills shortage in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is costing the economy £1.5bn a year, and while the number of students attending secondary schools increases, students opting to take science-based A levels is only showing only a small increase according to Ofqual (2018). It is important that teachers are constantly improving their knowledge and skills to make desirable changes (Roth et al., 2019) to provide good quality education as ultimately, as Hattie (2012) suggests, teachers are best placed to enact changes in students. It is therefore imperative that CPD (Continuing Professional Development) is of good quality and creates an impact on students (Enser and Enser, 2021), otherwise there is “little point” (p. 107).

This small scale (n=15), online survey was completed by science teachers after a CPD session. The data was then analysed using the SPSS 25 package and the Chi square test used to identify statistical analysis. The aim was to identify the impact of CPD on Early Career science Teachers (ECTs) compared to non-ECTs and it was generally found that there was no statistical significance between the two groups, so CPD is having an equal effect on ECTs when compared to non-ECTs. Non-ECTs tend to read around their subject more than ECTs and so this should be encouraged in order to close the gap between the two groups. In addition, ECTs tended to increase their range of activities used to teach science after CPD more than non-ECTs and ECTs had a greater level of perceived need with subject knowledge than non-ECTs, but it was found that both groups attended subject knowledge CPD equally.