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Teachers’ Effect on Student Outcome (TESO)

This project follows students from grade 9 to 10 investigating which aspects of teachers’ competence and instruction promote students’ increased learning outcome, motivation and well-being.

How does teacher competence effect instruction and student learning? Photo of teacher with group of students: colourbox.

How does teacher competence effect instruction and student learning? Photo: colourbox.

About the project

TESO is a project that aims to increase the knowledge about the importance of teachers for student well-being, learning gains, and motivation in science and mathematics. What is the importance of teachers’ competence for their instruction, and how does this competence and instruction affect the students?

Could it be that certain types of practices work better for some groups of students (e.g. native speakers of Norwegian), while other types of practices work better for another group of students (not native speakers)?

To be able to draw robust and generalizable inferences related to these questions, a longitudinal extension of the international large-scale survey Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) with representative samples of students will be carried out, along with a video study with a representative subsample of these students in Oslo.

Objectives

The research project has two main aims:

1. to examine what aspects of teacher competence and instruction that foster increased well-being, motivation and learning gain in mathematics and science.

2. to examine what types of practices that are effective for different groups of students (gender, family background, and mother tongue).

Background and data

Theoretically, TESO builds on previous research from Germany and the US as these are leading milieus within this field. Both quantitative and qualitative data is collected; In addition to tests in mathematics and science for students in grade 9 and 10, these students and their teachers respond to questionnaires. A subsample of the students (representative of Oslo) also participates in a video study. The four year project will start up in the autumn of 2018 and two PhD students are involved in the project.

Financing

The project is financed by the Norwegian Research Counsil (the FINNUT program).

Cooperation

CEMO - Centre for Educational Measurement

Naturfagsenteret

Subproject

Teaching quality and student learning (PhD-project)

Publications

Scientific articles and book chapters

Senden, Bas; Nilsen, Trude & Teig, Nani (2023). The validity of student ratings of teaching quality: Factorial structure, comparability, and the relation to achievement. Studies in Educational Evaluation. ISSN 0191-491X. 78. doi: 10.1016/j.stueduc.2023.101274. Full text in Research Archive
Teig, Nani (2022). Inquiry in Science Education. In Nilsen, Trude; Stancel-Piątak, Agnes & Gustafsson, Jan-Eric (Ed.), International Handbook of Comparative Large-Scale Studies in Education. Springer. ISSN 978-3-030-38298-8. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-38298-8_62-1. Show summary
Inquiry has played a major role in the past and present science education reforms around the world. Despite a great number of studies leveraging TIMSS and PISA data to investigate inquiry in science education, there is little effort to synthesize their findings. The present study aims to systematically review how TIMSS and PISA data were used to investigate inquiry and discuss how the findings contributed to the overall research on inquiry in science education. Patterns and findings from the TIMSS and PISA research were synthesized across the three strands of inquiry research to identify the relevant factors that explain (1) teachers’ frequent implementation of inquiry as an instructional approach, (2) students’ performance in inquiry or inquiry as an instructional outcome, and (3) the relationships between inquiry as an instructional approach and outcome. Findings indicated that the majority of the studies emphasized the third strand of inquiry research by examining the relationships between inquiry and student achievement. Although these studies used similar data, their conceptualizations and measurements of inquiry as an instructional approach varied considerably. This chapter provides an overview of the assessment of inquiry in TIMSS and PISA targeted to science education researchers who are unfamiliar with this field in the hope of encouraging them to utilize these data. It also encourages other researchers to reflect upon the knowledge gained from harnessing TIMSS and PISA data as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Teig, Nani & Nilsen, Trude (2022). Profiles of instructional quality in primary and secondary education: Patterns, predictors, and relations to student achievement and motivation in science. Studies in Educational Evaluation. ISSN 0191-491X. 74, p. 1–17. doi: 10.1016/j.stueduc.2022.101170. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Teachers implement different types of instruction, and the quality of their instruction is crucial for enhancing student outcomes. However, studies examining various patterns of teachers’ instructional quality are scarce, particularly in science teaching. Even fewer studies have investigated the nature of instructional quality in primary and secondary education. This study analysed the Norwegian data from the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015, using Grades 5 and 9 from primary and secondary education. Using multi-level latent class analysis, we identified distinct profiles of instructional quality that focused on four aspects of instructional clarity: clarity of instruction and teacher support (i.e., engaging teaching, social and emotional support, and subject domain support) at the student and classroom levels. The findings showed that the patterns of these profiles varied across different aspects of instructional quality in both grades. Further analyses revealed that student characteristics, particularly language at home and socioeconomic status, predicted the profile memberships at the student level, whereas teacher competence (i.e., self-efficacy in science teaching) predicted the profile memberships at the classroom level. In addition, different profiles of instructional quality were significantly related to motivation and, to a certain extent, achievement in science. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on instructional quality and for the design of personalized professional development programmes that aim to improve teacher instruction in primary and secondary science classrooms.