Effects of Generic and Subject-Didactic Teaching Characteristics on Student Performance in Mathematics in Secondary School: A Scoping Review

Abstract

<p style="text-align: justify;">Research on instructional quality has been of great interest for several decades, leading to an immense and diverse body of literature. However, due to different definitions and operationalisations, the picture of what characteristics are important for instructional quality is not entirely clear. Therefore, in this paper, a scoping review was performed to provide an overview of existing evidence of both generic and subject-didactic characteristics with regard to student performance. More precisely, this paper aims to (a) identify both generic and subject-didactic characteristics affecting student performance in mathematics in secondary school, (b) cluster these characteristics into categories to show areas for quality teaching, and (c) analyse and assess the effects of these characteristics on student performance to rate the scientific evidence in the context of the articles considered. The results reveal that teaching characteristics, and not just the instruments for recording the quality of teaching as described in previous research, can be placed on a continuum ranging from generic to subject-didactic. Moreover, on account of the inconsistent definition of subject-didactic characteristics, the category of ‘subject-didactic specifics’ needs further development to establish it as a separate category in empirical research. Finally, this study represents a further step toward understanding the effects of teaching characteristics on student performance by providing an overview of teaching characteristics and their effects and evidence.</p>

Effects of Characteristics of School Quality on Student Performance in Secondary School: A Scoping Review

“…Since we conducted this research in parallel with a similar scoping review "Effects of generic and subject-didactic teaching characteristics on student performance in mathematics in secondary school: A scoping review" (Spreitzer et al, 2022), the methodology of both studies is very similar. Thus, the description here is shortened.…”

Five principles for high-quality mathematics teaching: Combining normative, epistemological, empirical, and pragmatic perspectives for specifying the content of professional development

“…That is, when conceptualizing and operationalizing instructional quality within empirical perspectives, the relevance of an epistemological perspective should not be neglected. This need is emphasized by Spreitzer et al (2022) in their review with examples of quality captured by empirical instruments that are blind to subject-matter richness (does it target the core of the subject matter?) or subjectrelated accuracy.…”

“…Kilpatrick et al, 2001) is sometimes included in the operationalization of the construct cognitive demand, various subject-specific quality 10.3389/feduc.2022.969212 instruments have been developed based on epistemological perspectives, accounting systematically also for subject-specific teaching quality (cf. Hill et al, 2008;Spreitzer et al, 2022).…”

“…In Germany, the principle is often termed cognitive activation (Klieme et al, 2009; or focused cognitive activation (Renkl, 2015), and described to require subject-specific substantiation (Praetorius and Charalambous, 2018;Spreitzer et al, 2022). In mathematics education, Cognitive Demand can be realized by meaningful learning environments that allow all students to participate in rich mathematical practices and develop own mathematical ideas (Henningsen and Stein, 1997;Leuders and Holzäpfel, 2011).…”

Communication in Mathematics Among School Children: A Systematic Review

“…Technology, cognitive behaviour, and the sciences, for example, are available and provide global researchers' perspectives. Previous studies have used a single database, such as [17] and [18]. This study follows the search key: "mathematical* communication" or "mathematic* representation" or "mathematic* reasoning" and "junior school" or "elementary school" because it covers all of the titles, abstracts, and key words in selected articles.…”