Impact of Different Learning Modalities on Science and Mathematics Teachers' Effectiveness and Retention during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This project aims to serve the national need to understand how districts' decisions about school openings during COVID-19 impacted students and science and math teachers in high-need school districts. Three learning modalities (e.g., In-person, Remote, Hybrid) related to teaching effectiveness and retention will be investigated. District and school level data will be used to determine teacher effectiveness and teacher retention during and immediately after the COVID-19 school closures. In addition, math and science teacher self-effectiveness and job satisfaction will be studied in relation to the learning modalities. This project at Texas Christian University includes a partnership with the Institute for Biomedical Philosophy and selected high-need school districts from across the nine census regions of the U.S. The overall goal of this project is to understand (a) implementation of learning modalities utilized during the protracted national emergency of COVID-19 and (b) the impact of these different modalities on STEM teacher effectiveness and retention. The three research questions are: (1) What learning modalities were used by high-need school districts beginning in fall 2020 through Spring 2022? (2) How did utilization of different learning modalities within a COVID-19 dictated teaching environment contribute to STEM teacher effectiveness and STEM teacher retention in high-need school districts? and (3) What support systems and resources within a COVID-19 dictated teaching environment contribute to STEM teacher effectiveness and STEM teacher retention in high-need school districts? The project will utilize secondary data from large public data sets for Research Questions 1 and 2 as well as the selection of high-need school districts. Two-hundred respondents will provide data. There will be three case studies bounded by the modality that will explore the commonalities within each case associated with the third research question. Findings on best practices regarding teacher effectiveness and retention, especially in high-need school districts, has the potential to be used to inform policy, practice, and future design of teacher professional development. This Track 4: Noyce Research project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the effectiveness and retention of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.