The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of 54 teacher and school characteristics including gender, job satisfaction, self-confidence, professional development, affective characteristics, work conditions, science teaching methods, college that the teacher graduated from and years of experience on Turkish students’ TIMSS 2011 science achievement. Furthermore, it is aimed is to determine the teacher characteristics that best explains the achievement differences that are observed among schools using two-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). It is found that participation to professional development programs regarding information technologies and increased school emphasis on academic success as perceived by teachers have statistically significant effects on schools mean science achievements. Similarly, it is found that collaboration among teachers and teachers’ gender have statistically significant effects on schools mean science achievements.

Keywords: HLM, multilevel analysis, TIMSS 2011, teacher characteristics, science achievement