Beginning Teachers' Differentiation Practices in Secondary Education: Perspective From Students

• In Event: 41.047 - International Perspectives on Teacher Education: A Specturm of Subjects and Contexts

Abstract

Currently, there has been a large attention to differentiated teaching in which a teacher adapts teaching practices to students’ needs. However, it is unclear whether beginning teachers are already able to successfully differentiate their teaching. Our study aims to further explore this issue within a sample of 1480 beginning teachers and their 31704 students from the Netherlands. Students filled in a questionnaire about their teachers’ differentiation practices. We found that most teachers were perceived by their students as sufficiently adapting their teaching to their needs. However, less than one third of teachers were perceived to differentiate particularly well. Most variance in differentiation practices was attributed to the student level, followed by teacher level.

Authors

• Michelle Helms-Lorenz, University of Groningen

• Ridwan Maulana, University of Groningen

• Annemieke Elisabeth Jacobse, University of Groningen