Classroom Instructional Differences in Mathematics and in Science Within Highly Effective Versus Typical Elementary Schools

• In Event: School and Teacher Effectiveness

Abstract

Few studies have explored school-level effectiveness and teacher instruction within classrooms simultaneously. Much less is the attention to student diversity related to classroom instruction differences. This study adopted multi-level modeling to examine whether there are significant differences between effective and typical schools with regard to classroom instruction and student engagement. Results revealed that (1) students from effective schools received more intellectual support in mathematics than those from typical schools. In addition, there is evidence that total instruction in mathematics gets differentiated by students’ ability levels, favoring both low- and high-abilities students in effective schools; and (2) the discrepancy of students’ science engagement between low- and high-ability groups was much smaller in effective schools than in typical schools.

Authors

• Hua Ran, University of Miami

• Walter G. Secada, University of Miami