The goal of ATLAST was to develop instruments that researchers could use to study the effects of professional development for middle school science teachers. The instruments developed include :
- Content Clarifications (detailed descriptions of target content);
- Teacher assessments of science content knowledge,
- Measures of student opportunity to learn,
- Student assessments of science content knowledge, and
- A teacher questionnaire about views of effective science instruction.
For all instruments except the teacher questionnaire, three versions were developed, one for each of three science content areas at the middle grades level:
- Flow of matter and energy in living systems;
- Force and motion; and
- Plate tectonics
More detail about each of the content areas can be found in Content Clarifications.
More detail about the instruments and their development process can be found in Instruments.
Underlying Theory
The instruments are based on an implicit theory of professional development. The theory (depicted graphically below) asserts that changes in teacher knowledge lead to changes in classroom practice (mediated by curriculum materials), and ultimately, to changes in student learning.
Although this theory underlies much of the content-focused professional development provided for teachers, the theory is largely untested. The goal of ATLAST was to provide the field with instruments to study each relationship in the theory.