The Impact of No Child Left Behind on Classroom Science Teaching

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Achievement, Attitudes, and Advocacy: Science Literacy for All

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate to what extend the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy influenced classroom science teaching in the U.S. Data used in the study were from the eighth-grade science teacher questionnaires in the 2007 and 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The latent class analysis (LCA) was conducted. Our results showed that there were four teaching latent classes and were labeled as reform-based, test-oriented, didactic, and mixed teaching classes. The results also showed test-oriented teaching class increased from 24.5% to 33.4% from 2007 to 2011 and indicated that the NCLB indeed influenced classroom science teaching in a way that forced more teachers to focus on test preparation.

Authors

• Naien Tang, University of Missouri - Columbia

• Chia-Lin Tsai, University of Missouri