CSI: Coaching Science in Rural Schools will examine the impact of teacher professional development focused on scientific inquiry, including the use of instructional coaching strategies, on rural middle and high school science teachers' inquiry knowledge, skills, and practice. This large-scale study will also examine the more distal outcomes of student achievement in science, as well as attitudes towards science. This study will use a randomized experimental design to compare teacher and student outcomes in two conditions: (a) guided science inquiry-based methods of teacher professional development plus technology-mediated coaching (experimental condition) and (b) no professional development (control condition, aka "business as usual"). Approximately162 middle and high school science teachers in rural communities, primarily in Nebraska, over the course of two years will participate. The guided science inquiry approach will focus on providing teachers with the skills necessary to facilitate student exploration of a question relating to a specific concept through activities involving data collection, use of data to construct an explanation, and application of the knowledge in new settings through additional explorations. Teachers in the guided science inquiry approach plus coaching condition will receive coaching via distance technology to support the implementation of inquiry strategies in the classroom Coaches will provide feedback and suggestions relative to the essential features of classroom inquiry as specified in the national science teaching standards: a) learner engagement with scientifically-oriented questions, b) learner use of evidence, c) learner formulation of explanations, and d) learner evaluation of explanations, and e) learner communication of proposed explanations (NRC, 2000). Teacher outcomes to be investigated include scientific inquiry content and pedagogical knowledge, self-efficacy in teaching inquiry, and teacher skill in implementing classroom inquiry.

The study will provide evidence regarding how this experimental professional development in guided science inquiry plus coaching (via distance technology) compares to how science is currently being taught in middle and high schools in rural communities in Nebraska and surrounding states in promoting teachers' knowledge, skills, and practice of science inquiry and in teaching students scientific concepts and processes.