Education 2015, 5(2): 64-69 DOI: 10.5923/j.edu.20150502.03 Maximising Gains of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Programme for Secondary School Chemistry Teachers Eugene U. Okorie * , C. R. Nwagbo Department of Science Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka Abstract This study set out to ascertain which among experienced and more experienced teachers gained more knowledge of chemistry curriculum, in a continuing professional development (CPD) programme for secondary school chemistry teachers. Two research questions guided the study: What is the mean score of teachers in Chemistry Curriculum Knowledge Test for Teachers (CCKTT) before and after exposure to workshop experiences? What is the mean score of experienced and more experienced teachers in CCKTT before and after exposure to workshop experience? Two null hypotheses, HO 1 : There is no significant difference in the mean score of teachers in CCKTT before and after exposure to workshop experiences; and HO 2 : There is no significant difference in the mean score of experienced and more experienced teachers before and after exposure to workshop experience, were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study used informal experimental design, precisely, before-and-after without control design. A sample of 20 senior secondary school chemistry teachers drawn from all the six geo-political zones of Nigeria, namely North-East, North-Central, North-West, South-East, South-South and South-West constituted the intact class. The teachers participated in Train-the-Trainers workshop and received training on the five main dimension of the curriculum, namely rationale, general structure, unique features, content and its pedagogic approach. An instrument, the Chemistry Curriculum Knowledge Test for Teachers (CCKTT) with a reliability value of 0.87 was used for the study. Descriptive statistics was used in answering the research questions while the hypotheses were tested, using t-test at 0.05 level of significance. Result of the study showed that the mean achievement score of more experienced teachers (34.92) was lower than that of the experienced teachers (37.50) before exposure to workshop experience; and after exposure to workshop experience, the mean achievement score of more experienced teachers (38.00) was lower than that of the experienced teachers (42.50). There was no significant difference (t cal = -2.08, p > .05) in the mean achievement score of more experienced and experienced teachers before workshop training. There was no significant difference (t cal = -3.75, p > .05) in the mean achievement score of more experienced and experienced teachers after the workshop training, although experienced teachers gained more from the training than the more experienced teachers. The implication of the research finding is discussed and recommendations made. Keywords Continuing professional development, Chemistry teachers, Maximising gains 1. Introduction In present-day education enterprise, continuing professional development (CPD) or training and retraining of teachers have become a common feature of the school system. CPD ‘refers to the process of tracking and documenting the skills, knowledge and experience that you gain both formally and informally as you work, beyond any initial training’. [1] In the context of this paper, retraining of teacher is construed to mean equipping the teachers with new knowledge and skills they need to do their currently assigned * Corresponding author: eugene.okorie@unn.edu.ng (Eugene U. Okorie) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/edu Copyright © 2015 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved work. For science, technology and mathematics (STM) teachers in particular, retraining is crucial for the teachers to keep abreast of new scientific knowledge, language and skills resulting from recent scientific discoveries, applications and changes in pedagogy in an effort to meet the demands of the 21 st century learning. STM play a crucial role in the economy of nations. In Nigeria, government sees STM as a veritable instrument for economic transformation. For this reason, there is the need for teachers to be provided with necessary and appropriate support materials for effective implementation of the STM curricula [2]. Consequently, the Nigerian educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) embarked on the third phase in the STEP-B project action plan, which was a teacher capacity-building programme that entailed nationwide workshops for training