A Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence Linking Mathematics and Science Professional Development Interventions to Teacher Knowledge, Classroom Instruction, and Student Achievement

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious

AERA Open article presents a meta-analysis synthesizing 46 experimental studies of PK–12 mathematics and science professional development (PD) interventions. It examines how PD affects teacher-level outcomes such as knowledge and classroom instruction, and how these teacher-level impacts relate to student achievement. Compared with controls, treatment-group teachers showed stronger teacher-level performance (pooled impact +0.52 SD). Programs with larger teacher effects also tended to yield significantly larger mean student achievement impacts.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages28

Reading Time1 h 11 min

AccessFree to download

Article overview

Evidence base and analytic focus

Main findings

Implications for future research and practice

AERA Open January-December 2025, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 1–28 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584251335302 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2025. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) A Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence Linking Mathematics and Science Professional Development Interventions to Teacher Knowledge, Classroom Instruction, and Student Achievement Kathleen Lynch University of Connecticut Kathryn Gonzalez Mathematica Heather Hill Ramsey Merritt Harvard University Despite evidence that teacher professional development interventions in mathematics and science can increase student achievement, our understanding of the mechanisms by which this occurs—particularly how these interventions affect teachers themselves and the extent to which teacher-level changes predict student learning—remains limited. The current meta-analysis synthesizes 46 experimental studies of PK–12 mathematics and science professional development interventions to investigate how these interventions affect teacher-level outcomes, including knowledge and classroom instruction, and how these impacts relate to intervention effects on student achievement. Compared with controls, treatment group teachers in PK–12 mathematics and science PD intervention studies demonstrated stronger performance on teacher-level outcomes (pooled average impact estimate: +0.52 SD). Programs with larger impacts on teacher-level outcomes also tended to have significantly larger mean impacts on student achievement. We discuss implications for future research and practice. Keywords: evaluation, instructional practices, mathematics education, professional development, program evaluation, science education, mathematics, science, meta-analysis Strengthening children’s understanding and skills in mathematics and science is a major focus of many nations’ education systems (e.g., National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2020; OECD, 2007) . Given concerns about students’ preparation for a labor market that increasingly values higher-level quantitative and communications skills (Deming, 2017) and the urgent need in many countries to make mathematics and science learning opportunities more rigorous and efficacious (Chmielewski & Reardon, 2016), researchers and policymakers have made significant investments in improving instructional quality in mathematics and science classrooms. A core policy investment by which many nations seek to improve the quality of PK–12 mathematics and science teaching is the provision of teacher professional development (PD) (Desimone, 2009) . In the United States, the country where most of the experimental research on this topic has been conducted, policy logic models posited that improvements in student learning would operate through changes in teachers and teaching (see, e.g., National Research Council [NRC], 2007; Smith & O’Day, 1990; Wilson, 2008) . U.S. policymakers in particular targeted two areas: perceived constraints in teachers’knowledge of the content to be taught and perceived weaknesses in classroom instruction. Pertaining to teachers’knowledge, for example, the National Academies’(Institute of Medicine, 2010) report Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited noted that preservice teachers in the United States ranked seventh among 15 nations on an international test of mathematics content knowledge at the lower secondary level. Researchers further noted that elementary science teachers often possess important gaps in their content and pedagogical content knowledge backgrounds, gaps that contribute to challenges in portraying science content to students (Abell, 2007). Meanwhile, in the domain of classroom instruction, nationally representative observational studies concluded that mathematics instruction in U.S. eighth-grade Creative Commons Non Co

FAQs

What does the meta-analysis investigate about PD in mathematics and science?

It synthesizes 46 experimental studies to assess how teacher PD interventions influence teacher knowledge and classroom instruction, and how those effects connect to student achievement.

How do treatment teachers compare to control teachers in teacher-level outcomes?

Teachers in PD intervention studies demonstrated stronger performance on teacher-level outcomes than controls, with a pooled average impact estimate of +0.52 SD.

Do larger teacher-level effects correspond to stronger student achievement effects?

Yes. Programs with larger impacts on teacher-level outcomes tended to have significantly larger mean impacts on student achievement.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious