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Background: Building on the Realistic Accuracy Model, this paper explores whether it is easier for teachers to assess the achievement of some students than others. Accordingly, we suggest that certain individual characteristics of students, such as extraversion, academic self‐efficacy, and conscientiousness, may guide teachers' evaluations of student achievement, resulting in more appropriate judgements and a stronger alignment of assigned grades with students' actual achievement level (as measured using standardized tests). Aims: We examine whether extraversion, academic self‐efficacy, and conscientiousness moderate the relations between teacher‐assigned grades and students' standardized test scores in mathematics. Sample: This study uses a representative sample of N = 5,919 seventh‐grade students in Germany (48.8% girls; mean age: M = 12.5, SD = 0.62) who participated in a national, large‐scale assessment focusing on students' academic development. Methods: We specified structural equation models to examine the inter‐relations of teacher‐assigned grades with students' standardized test scores in mathematics, Big Five personality traits, and academic self‐efficacy, while controlling for students' socioeconomic status, gender, and age. Results: The correlation between teacher‐assigned grades and standardized test scores in mathematics was r =.40. Teacher‐assigned grades more closely related to standardized test scores when students reported higher levels of conscientiousness (β =.05, p =.002). Students' extraversion and academic self‐efficacy did not moderate the relationship between teacher‐assigned grades and standardized test scores. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that students' conscientiousness is a personality trait that seems to be important when it comes to how closely mathematics teachers align their grades to standardized test scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Key elements of instructional quality include the teacher's ability to immediately react in domain‐specific classroom situations. Such skills – defined as action‐related skills – can only be validly assessed using authentic representations of real‐life teaching practice. However, research has not yet explained how teachers apply domain‐specific knowledge for teaching and to what extent action‐related skills are transferable from one domain to another. Aims: Our study aims to examine (1) the relationship between action‐related skills, content knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge, and (2) the domain specificity of action‐related skills of (prospective) teachers in the two domains of mathematics and economics. Sample(s): We examined German pre‐service and in‐service teachers of mathematics (N = 239) and economics (N = 321), including n = 96 (prospective) teachers who teach both subjects. Methods: Action‐related skills in mathematics and economics were measured using video‐based performance assessments. Content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge were assessed using established paper–pencil tests. Correlation analyses, linear regressions, and a path model were applied. Results: In mathematics and economics, we find a similar pattern of moderate correlations between action‐related skills, content knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. Moreover, a significant correlation between action‐related skills in mathematics and economics can be explained almost entirely by underlying relations between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge in both domains. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that action‐related skills empirically differ from domain‐specific knowledge and should be considered as domain‐specific constructs. This indicates that teacher education should not only focus on domain‐specific teacher knowledge, but may also provide learning opportunities for action‐related skills in each domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research into numerical cognition has contributed to a large body of knowledge on how children learn and perform mathematics. This knowledge has the potential to inform mathematics education. Unfortunately, numerical cognition research and mathematics education remain disconnected from one another, lacking the proper infrastructure to allow for productive and meaningful exchange between disciplines. The present study was designed to address this gap. Aim: This study reports on the design, implementation, and effects of a 16‐week (25‐hour) mathematics Professional Development (PD) model for Kindergarten to Grade 3 educators and their students. A central goal of the PD was to better integrate numerical cognition research and mathematics education. Sample: A total of 45 K‐3 educators and 180 of their students participated. Methods: To test the reproducibility and replicability of the model, the study was carried out across two different sites, over a two‐year period, and involved a combination of two different study designs: a quasi‐experimental pre–post‐research design and a within‐group crossover intervention design. Result: The results of the first implementation (Year 1), indicated that compared to a control group, both teachers and students benefited from the intervention. Teachers demonstrated gains on both a self‐report measure and a test of numerical cognition knowledge, while students demonstrated gains in number line estimation, arithmetic, and numeration. In Year 2, teachers in the intervention group demonstrated greater improvements than the control group on the self‐report measure, but not the test of numerical cognition knowledge. At the student level, there was some evidence of gains in numeration. Conclusion: The current PD model is a promising approach to better integrate research and practice. However, more research is needed to determine in which school contexts the model is most effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tasks that involve retrieving information from memory, such as answering short answer questions, are more effective at improving learning than restudying, concept mapping, and other study techniques. However, little is known about how often teachers naturally provide these retrieval practice opportunities during lectures and classroom discussions. Aims: To identify how often teachers ask questions that require retrieval, what types of retrieval questions they ask, and whether teachers in high‐growth classrooms differ in their use of retrieval questions compared to teachers in low‐growth classrooms. Sample: The sample included twenty middle school mathematics classrooms that showed high growth on a test of mathematics achievement and twenty with low growth. For each classroom, we examined a videotape of one class period. Methods: We coded the number of teacher questions in each lesson, and the number and type of questions that provided an opportunity for retrieval. Results: We found wide variability in the frequency and type of questions asked across classrooms. On average, almost half of the non‐classroom management questions provided an opportunity for retrieval. However, teachers in high‐ and low‐growth classrooms asked similar numbers and types of retrieval questions. Conclusions: Teachers naturally use a wide variety of retrieval questions in their mathematics classrooms. As such, improving their use of retrieval opportunities will require only small changes to their natural practice, rather than large changes to their instructional style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]