| When the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled the entire Commonwealth's public school system unconstitutional, the General Assembly responded in 1990 with omnibus legislation known as the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). One aspect of KERA included more money directly to schools for professional development. Another highly touted provision, KERA's accountability system, included intensive professional development (PD) for schools in trouble through the auspices of Highly Skilled Educators (HSEs).; As questions about the effectiveness of professional development for teachers persist, this dissertation examined teachers' perceptions of their professional development experiences in the contexts of state accountability and teachers' reported learning styles. This study used natural learning styles as measured by Gregorc (1985) who classified adults as Concrete Random, Concrete Sequential, Abstract Random, or Abstract Sequential learners. A researcher-designed Professional Development Design Survey (PDDS) of different delivery styles was developed from Loucks-Horsley's (Loucks-Horsley, Hewson, Love & Stiles, 1997; Mundry & Loucks-Horsley, 1999) definitions of 15 professional development designs.; Based on Kentucky's accountability design, low-performing schools are assigned HSEs who provide intensive professional development. Higher performing schools control 65% of the state allocation for PD and select PD activities at the building level. The study identified 52 schools using the services of Highly Skilled Educators. These low-performing schools were matched to higher performing schools with similar characteristics including school level (elementary or secondary), region of the commonwealth, number of teachers, and student enrollment. Seventy-five school principals agreed to participate (41 HSE schools and 34 school-based PD schools). Based on researcher instructions, school principals selected 10 teachers to complete both surveys.; Three hundred sixty-six teachers returned the PDDS, but only 274 teachers completed both surveys. The more commonly measured natural learning style among these participants was Concrete Sequential. Most participants reported limited experience with professional development delivery designs, indicating dominant delivery designs of workshops, institutes, courses and seminars. Factor analyses of the PDDS revealed differences in the patterns of responses about professional development experiences from teachers in schools with state-designed PD and those with school-based PD. |
