Investigating Changes in High School Physics Teachers' Laboratory Instruction in the Context of a Responsive Professional Development Program

Measuring the impact of teacher professional development (PD) on instructional practice is both challenging and essential. In the context of a responsive PD program within a physics teaching community of 60 teachers, we examined instructional changes aligned with the program’s emphasis on open-ended laboratory instruction. This study presents findings from an instructional audit designed to capture how teachers reallocated instructional time, how these shifts aligned with their personal and student goals, and the mechanisms to which they attributed any changes.

The audit consisted of three components: (1) retrospective syllabus analyses, (2) self-ratings of instructional emphasis and self-efficacy, and (3) qualitative reflections on instructional changes and their underlying mechanisms. Preliminary findings indicate that teachers increasingly integrated the university-provided iOLab device into both open-ended and prescriptive lab activities. An analysis of instructional time revealed a significant medium increase in the proportion of time allocated to open-ended labs from pre-program to post-program. Although prescribed labs showed a small, non-significant increase, overall time devoted to laboratory activities, both open and prescriptive, significantly increased over the course of participation. These results suggest that the PD fostered meaningful shifts toward more open-ended, inquiry-based physics instruction.