Determining the Effectiveness of CASE Professional Development for CASE-certified Agricultural Education Teachers

The researchers analyzed the traditional Curriculum for Agricultural Science Education (CASE) Institute professional development (PD) program as professional development can change teacher practice and improve student achievement. Researchers used the Garet et al. study which outlined the relationship between the six effective features of professional development and teacher outcome as a framework to analyze the traditional CASE Institute professional development courses. Participants who were certified in a traditional CASE Institute professional development course were surveyed, and their responses were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to determine the mean and standard deviation of the data related to the assessment of CASE professional development and the assessment of CASE lead teachers. These data were used to determine the effectiveness of the CASE professional development program. Their responses illustrated the effectiveness of CASE as they had a firm understanding of the material and CASE model, the comfortability of implementing the learned material in their classroom, and the effectiveness of their lead teachers based on their teaching abilities. The researchers also concluded that three of the six effective features of professional development examined in this study had a positive relationship between the features of the professional development and the participants’ responses. From the findings of this study, researchers created a list of recommendations and future research that should occur to bolster CASE Institute professional development courses and curriculum further.