Belief in a just world, justice concerns, and well-being at Portuguese schools

This article investigates the meaning of the belief in a just world (BJW) for justice cognition at school and for subjective well-being. We hypothesized that BJW should serve as a resource helping to maintain positive well-being and to assimilate experienced injustice. The results of two studies with Portuguese school students (7th–12th grade) and one with university students were consistent with our hypotheses. The more the students endorsed the BJW, the more they evaluated their school grades and their teachers’ and their peers’ behavior towards them as just and the more they were satisfied with life in general. Moreover, the more students felt fairly treated by their teachers, the less they felt distressed at school. Life satisfaction varied however independently of school-specific justice cognitions. This pattern of results persisted when controlled for achievement (grades) as well as for personality dispositions such as self-efficacy, self-esteem, and general trust. The implications of these results for further studies on adolescent development are discussed.     

Comparing technology-related teacher professional development designs: a multilevel study of teacher and student impacts

This article presents a quasi-experimental study comparing the impact of two technology-related teacher professional development (TTPD) designs, aimed at helping junior high school science and mathematics teachers design online activities using the rapidly growing set of online learning resources available on the Internet. The first TTPD design (tech-only) focused exclusively on enhancing technology knowledge and skills for finding, selecting, and designing classroom activities with online resources, while the second (tech?+?pbl) coupled technology knowledge with learning to design problem-based learning (PBL) activities for students. Both designs showed large pre-post gains for teacher participants (N?=?36) in terms of self-reported knowledge, skills, and technology integration. Significant interaction effects show that teachers in the tech?+?pbl group had larger gains for self-reported knowledge and externally rated use of PBL. Three generalized estimating equation (GEE) models were fit to study the impact on students?? (N?=?1,247) self reported gains in behavior, knowledge, and attitudes. In the resulting models, students of tech?+?pbl teachers showed significant increases in gain scores for all three outcomes. By contrast, students of tech-only teachers showed improved gains only in attitudes.     

Personal belief in a just world, experience of teacher justice, and school distress in different class contexts

The study examined the meaning of personal belief in a just world and students’ experience of their teachers’ behavior toward them personally for school distress in different class contexts. The study involved 827 secondary school students from 61 classes (grades 9 to 11). Analyses revealed that the more the students believed in a personal just world, the more they felt their teachers’ behavior toward them personally to be just, and the less school distress they experienced; the association between belief in a just world (BJW) and school distress was partly mediated by students’ personal experience of teacher justice. These associations were stable across school tracks, schools, and classes. According to these results and the just world theory, a strong BJW seems to function as a rather context-independent personal resource for students, explaining their individual experience of teacher justice and school distress. Moreover, teacher justice seems to be a key feature of schools explaining students’ well-being at school.     

Load reduction instruction in mathematics and English classrooms: A multilevel study of student and teacher reports

Load reduction instruction (LRI) is a practical instructional framework aimed at managing the cognitive demands experienced by students as they learn. LRI comprises five key instructional principles: (1) difficulty reduction during initial learning, as appropriate to students’ prior learning, (2) support and scaffolding, (3) structured practice, (4) feedback-feedforward, and (5) guided independent application. The present investigation explored student- and teacher-reports of LRI in both mathematics and English. The Load Reduction Instruction Scale – Short was administered to 1773 students and their teachers in 93 mathematics classrooms and 94 English classrooms. Multilevel (Level 1 student; Level 2 classroom) confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) supported a Level 1 student LRI factor and a Level 2 class-average LRI factor in each of mathematics and English. However, two LRI factors emerged for teachers in each of mathematics and English: one factor related to Principle 1 (difficulty reduction) and one factor related to Principles 2–5 (scaffolding to autonomy). Follow-up multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) revealed that teachers adjusted their application of LRI Principle 1 (but not Principles 2–5) as a function of class-average prior learning (lower prior learning was associated with greater application of Principle 1). MCFA also showed that correlations between student- and teacher-reported LRI were low. Follow-up MSEM revealed that student- and teacher-reports of LRI uniquely predicted students’ effort and achievement—suggesting that students and teachers provide distinct insights into instruction (hence the low correlation between them) and highlighting the important role of both informants in capturing a comprehensive perspective on instruction in the classroom.     

State teacher union strength and student achievement

A new and very small literature has provided evidence that students have lower test scores in larger school districts and in districts in which the district's teachers union has negotiated a contract that is more favorable to the district's teachers. The teachers’ unions at the state and national levels contribute a great deal of money to candidates for state and federal offices. This gives the unions some influence in passing (defeating) bills that would help (harm) the state's teachers. We introduce two novel measures of the strength of the state-wide teachers union: union dues per teacher and union expenditures per student. These reflect the key role of political influence for state-wide unions. We provide remarkably strong evidence that students in states with strong teachers unions have lower proficiency rates than students in states with weak state-wide teacher unions.     

Teacher feedback,disciplinary climate,student self-concept,and reading achievement:A multilevel moderated mediation model

Research has confirmed the importance of teacher feedback on student learning. The mechanism of how they are related, however, is not clear enough. In this study, we explored this relation with 60,501 fifteen-year-old students from collectivistic and individualistic cultures in PISA 2018. Importantly, we examined the possible mediating role of reading self-concept and the moderating role of disciplinary climate at both student level and school level in multi-level structural equation models (MSEM). Results demonstrated that the association between teacher feedback and reading achievement was significantly mediated via reading self-concept at student level across cultures, and this indirect effect was significant irrespective of the disciplinary climate level. Moreover, results showed that a positive disciplinary climate would facilitate the building of students’ reading self-concept which subsequently would enhance their reading achievement at school level. This study has important theoretical, practical, cross-cultural, and methodological implications for teacher feedback research and student learning.     

Self-fulfilling prophecies in the classroom: Teacher expectations,teacher feedback and student achievement

This study investigated the link between teacher expectations and student learning, relying on longitudinal data from 64 classrooms and 1026 first-grade students in Germany. Further, based on a subsample of 19 classrooms with 354 students, we explored the mediating role of three characteristics of teacher feedback rated in video-recorded school lessons. The results showed that teacher expectations were inaccurate to some extent; that is, they did not entirely agree with students' current achievement, general cognitive abilities and motivations. In addition, this inaccuracy in teacher expectations significantly predicted students’ end-of-year achievement, even after prior achievement, general cognitive abilities, motivation, and student background characteristics were considered. Specifically, inaccurately high teacher expectations were associated with greater achievement in reading and mathematics, whereas inaccurately low teacher expectations were associated with lower achievement in reading only. Furthermore, teacher feedback varied significantly with inaccurate teacher expectations but did not substantially mediate teacher expectancy effects.     

The effect of a brief teacher training on student achievement

On the basis of previously determined correlations between teacher behavior and student achievement, a training program for mathematics teachers was developed. Previous research had established that this training did change the behavior of teachers. This article reports the effects of the training program on teacher behavior, student achievement, and student attitudes towards mathematics. From this study it appeared that the timing of the training was important for its effect on student achievement. There was no effect on student attitude.     

From veteran parent to novice teacher: A case study of a student teacher

This paper presents a case of a secondary student teacher in a midwestern school in the United States. She was one of the growing number of women who are making the decision to become professionals later in life, after having experienced roles such as marriage, parenting, and other jobs. The study focuses on her adaptation to the role of a teacher and factors that influenced the adaptation process. The student teacher's development is traced, during the 10-week term of student teaching, through changes in her teaching and related changes in the language with which she described her experiences as a student teacher. These changes included increased time devoted to the impact of instruction on order in the class, and less time to classroom management alone. Her adaptation to the role of teacher was influenced significantly by the personal resources she had due to her age and life experience. They provided her with the strength to operate according to own values, even when they differed dramatically from those of her cooperating teacher.     

Team teach with a student: A pilot study in criminal justice

In this study, criminal justice classes were team taught by six pairs of one faculty member and one student teacher. The professor-student teaching teams met together before class to plan and after class to problem solve. The student teachers were charged with helping the professors introduce active learning exercises into their classes. This article reports on survey data from these professors, student teachers and the students they taught, including their views on both the benefits and problems. The article shows professors how to team teach with a student and helps professors who want to try the approach to anticipate and minimize the problems while capitalizing on the benefits.     

Junior high school science teacher preparation,teaching behavior,and student achievement

The findings challenge both practices and prejudices in junior high school science teacher preparation.     

Associations of student temperament and educational competence with academic achievement: The role of teacher age and teacher and student gender

We examined associations of teacher-perceived student temperament and educational competence with school achievement, and how these associations were modified by students’ gender and teachers’ gender and age. Participants were 1063 Finnish ninth-graders (534 boys) and their 29 Mother Language teachers (all female) and 43 Mathematics teachers (17 male) from a population-based sample. All temperament and educational competence traits were associated with both grades, but more clearly with Mathematics. Boys received systematically lower Mother Language grades but higher Mathematics grades than girls. Teacher gender had no effect on school grades, while teacher age had an effect only on Mother Language.     

Mathematics teacher quality: its distribution and relationship with student achievement in Turkey

A main purpose of the present study was to investigate the distribution of qualified mathematics teachers in relation to students’ socioeconomic status (SES), as measured by parental education, among Turkish middle schools. Further, relationships between mathematics teacher quality indicators and students’ mathematics achievement were explored. Data from the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study were used. Relationships between mathematics teacher quality and students’ mathematics achievement were investigated using hierarchical linear modeling. The current study identified SES-related inequities in access to qualified mathematics teachers in Turkey. Low-SES students were more likely to be taught by mathematics teachers who had less than 3 years of experience or who did not hold a degree in mathematics or mathematics education. On the other hand, years of experience and a degree in mathematics or mathematics education were found to be substantially related to Turkish eighth-grade students’ mathematics achievement. Low-SES students’ mathematics teachers were also more likely to report a lack of confidence in their preparation to teach various mathematics contents.     

Instruction time and student achievement: The moderating role of teacher qualifications

Recent evidence suggests a positive effect of the quantity of instruction on student achievement. In this paper, I focus on the interaction between the quantity and the quality of instruction. Using international TIMSS data, I exploit within-student between-subject variation. I find that on average, an additional hour of instruction time leads to an increase of 0.03 standard deviations in students’ test scores across all countries. Importantly, these effects of instruction time are significantly larger for students with better qualified teachers, resulting in an increase in test scores of 0.04 to 0.05 standard deviations. While on average, instruction time has no significant effect in developing countries, it increases test scores by 0.02 standard deviations when taught by a high-qualified teacher also in developing countries.     

Agreement between student achievement level and teacher judgment of student need for compensatory education

Teacher judgments of student need for compensatory education (CE) agree moderately with scores on the CTBS. If a CTBS cutting score at the 35th percentile is adopted, a near-maximum agreement rate (for about three-fourths of the students) is obtained. The accuracy of teacher judgments is not influenced by the racial/ethnic or economic characteristics of the students, extent of individualization of instruction, how students are selected for compensatory services, or teacher's training and experience.The research is based on work performed under Contract No. OE300-75-0332, with the U.S. Office of Education. The opinions, conclusions, and recommendations in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent Office of Education positions or policy.