Heterogeneity in students’ perceptions of teaching quality: Sources and consequences

• Applicant: Dr. Lisa Bardach
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 471695001

The concept of “teaching quality“ describes, for example, teachers’ classroom organization including the effective handling of disruptive student behavior, the establishment of a supportive climate and positive relations, and teachers’ use of higher order thinking tasks and other cognitively demanding activities. To assess teaching quality, student surveys capturing students’ perceptions of teaching quality have become widely used, both for research purposes as well as in educational practice and policy, e.g., as part of teacher evaluation and feedback systems. Typically, the average of the ratings of all students in a class is used to capture the “shared perceptions” of teaching quality of all students within a class. At the same time, researchers and practitioners are faced with the problem that students in the same class who rate the same teacher can vary greatly in their perceptions (heterogeneity in students’ perceptions of teaching quality). Against this background, the proposed project will set out to contribute to a more comprehensive body of knowledge on heterogeneity in students’ perceptions of teaching quality. Re-analyzing data from a large, longitudinal study and employing cutting-edge statistical methods (e.g., social network analysis, multi-level latent transition analysis), the project’s first aim is to (a) ascertain the importance of potential sources of heterogeneity in students’ perceptions of teaching quality. In addition to student characteristics (affective-motivational and cognitive characteristics), the project will focus on influences of peers in class on students’ teaching quality perceptions. Moreover, it will be investigated whether specific teacher characteristics (self-efficacy, emotional exhaustion) longitudinally predict heterogeneity in the teaching quality perceptions of students within classes. A second aim of the project centers on (b) identifying potential consequences of heterogeneity in students’ teaching quality perceptions. Prior research has, for instance, suggested that classrooms in which students have highly varying perceptions might not be ideal environments for learning compared with classrooms in which students do not vary as much in their perceptions. If students in a class differ a lot in their perceptions of the same teacher, this may indicate that students do not feel equally supported by the teacher and that teachers probably fail to adapt instruction to individual students’ needs. As such, heterogeneity in students’ teaching quality perceptions could be conceived of as an indicator of non-adaptive teaching and may have detrimental effects. Building on that, the proposed project will directly test whether higher heterogeneity in the teaching quality perceptions of students within classes gives raise to decreases in positive cognitive and affective-motivational features over time.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Richard Göllner; Professor Dr. Benjamin Nagengast; Professor Dr. Ulrich Trautwein; Dr. Wolfgang Wagner
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Zsofia Boda