oa Investigating the Influence of professional development on student-centered instructional practices in Qatari independent schools

In 2002, Qatar established key elements of educational reform, known as "Education for a New Era", including curriculum standards, emphasis on student -centered classrooms where students actively engage in inquiry, problem solving, critical thinking, and extensive professional development for teachers. The present study is a part of a three year QNRF funded research project which involved two major phases. The first phase of the research project was primarily descriptive and involved a sample of 67 teachers and approximately 1150 students randomly selected from 17 independent schools. The research in this baseline phase depicted the classroom instructional strategies implemented in response to Qatari educational reform goals, and described the extent to which students in Qatari Independent elementary schools engaged in self-regulated learning. The second phase of the research which is the focus of this study used a quasi-experimental design to investigate the influence of specifically designed professional development modules, which were developed based on the initial baseline data, targeting improvement of student-centered teaching and learning in classrooms. The study sample consisted of 47 teachers and 1000 students. Overall, the results in this study suggest that the reforms related to student-centered instruction in Qatar are not fully implemented and unlikely at this point to foster student self-regulation. The implications of the study findings for the implementation of reform and professional development in Qatar were discussed.