Teacher Characteristics and Student Learning in Mathematics: A Comprehensive Assessment

Abstract

Diverse stakeholders have an interest in understanding how teacher characteristics—their preparation and experience, knowledge, and mind-sets and habits—relate to students’ outcomes in mathematics. Past research has extensively explored this issue but often examined each characteristic in isolation. Drawing on data from roughly 300 fourth- and fifth-grade teachers, we attend to multiple teacher characteristics and find that experience, knowledge, effort invested in noninstructional activities, and participation in mathematics content/methods courses predict student outcomes. We also find imbalances in key teacher characteristics across student populations. We discuss the implications of these findings for hiring and training mathematics teachers.

Teacher Characteristics and Children’s Educational Attainment in Ghana: Do Some Teacher Characteristics Matter More for Children Attending Disadvantaged Schools?

“…Consistent with previous studies (e.g., Clotfelter et al, 2006Clotfelter et al, , 2010Hanushek and Rivkin, 2006;Hill et al, 2019), we found evidence for teacher sorting with certified and more experienced teachers working in urban public than rural public schools. The exception to this rule in our study is the greater proportion of certified teachers in public schools compared to private schools.…”

“…While there is no policy in Ghana that deliberately assigns teachers and students into different schools at the primary school level, parents from advantaged backgrounds can exercise a greater level of choice by sending their children to private schools, for example. Predominantly, most disadvantaged children have no choice but attend disadvantaged schools with poor teaching and learning resources, and where teachers are less likely to be experienced or certificated (Clotfelter et al, 2006(Clotfelter et al, , 2010Hill et al, 2019). The evidence for selection of children from wealthy households into advantaged schools was represented by differences in educational attainment between public and private schools which are socioeconomically stratified.…”

“…However, children from disadvantaged backgrounds end up in disadvantaged schools (Nechyba, 2006) and evidence suggests that children attending disadvantaged schools are more likely to be taught by unqualified or novice teachers (Clotfelter et al, 2006(Clotfelter et al, , 2010Ramirez, 2006;Hill et al, 2019). Additionally, more experienced and qualified teachers tend to be located in more advantaged schools and classes, and this can exacerbate the inequality gap (Clotfelter et al, 2006(Clotfelter et al, , 2010Hanushek and Rivkin, 2006;Ramirez, 2006;Hill et al, 2019). Exploring the importance of teacher characteristics on the attainment of students from disadvantaged backgrounds may provide insights on the role teacher deployment can play in mitigating the inequality gap.…”

A Multilevel Analysis of the Impact of Teachers’ Beliefs and Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching on Students’ Mathematics Achievement

“…While a multitude of studies have examined numerous teacher attributes that influence student achievement such as years of teaching experience and educational background (see Rice [2003] for review), less is known about the effects of teachers' educational and motivational beliefs and specialized content knowledge-knowledge needed to "teach" within a specific discipline-on students' academic achievement. Moreover, studies examining the effects of teachers' both educational beliefs and specialized content knowledge "collectively" on students' mathematics achievement are lacking (Hill, Charalambous, & Chin, 2018). Understanding the extent to which mathematics teaching beliefs and mathematics knowledge for teaching (MKT) play a role in students' mathematics achievement may provide some practical implications for an urban school district related to the recruitment and retention of effective teachers.…”

Smart teachers, successful students? A systematic review of the literature on teachers’ cognitive abilities and teacher effectiveness

“…Against the background of the aforementioned research and the increasing awareness that teachers' individual attributes afect their efectiveness and students' learning (e.g., Hill, Charalambous, & Chin, 2018;Klassen & Kim, 2017;Wayne & Youngs, 2003), the present work aims to revisit the relations between teachers' cognitive abilities and teacher efectiveness. Therefore, a systematic review of the relationship between cognitive abilities-both in a strict sense (i.e., intelligence) and proxies of cognitive abilities (i.e., college entrance scores, basic academic skills assessments)-and teacher efectiveness was conducted.…”