The Impact of Professional Development on Dialogic Teaching for Science Teachers in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of a professional development that embed interactive/dialogic strategies on the enactment of these strategies to teach science-based inquiry in Saudi Arabia. Seventeen science teachers attended the professional development that embed dialogic conversation into teaching science-based inquiry. The instrument developed by previous reserachers was adapted to explore the science teachers’ use of the dialogic inquiry strategies prior and after their participations. This instrument consisted of 18 items with a Likert scale (alpha Cronbach = 0.79) and observe the strategies used in the stages of receiving information, and how teachers recognize and use the information collected about students’ thinking to develop dialogic inquiry. The overall results indicated that science teachers became more capable to develop dialogic inquiry strategies to interact with their students. Some strategies were highly developed at the receiving phase such as, writes down observations (M= 3.67), and interprets data (M=3.52), at the recognising phase (provide neutral responses M=3.41). However, strategies that indicate the use of students’ ideas to develop further inquiry did not exceed the moderate level (asking how/why questions (M=2.90). Science teachers also met with some difficulties to develop some strategies such as help the learners to come to an agreement upon an explanation (M=2.52). The study underlines the significance of incorporating dialogic conversation strategies into the professional development programs to help science teachers to enact scientific inquiry.