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Real-time verbal interactions between foreign language teachers and their students are of vital importance for language development, but classroom interactions are also multi-faceted and complex. The way a teacher understands and responds to learner utterances can be a powerful pedagogical strategy to scaffold learner language development. In this paper we present the Questions and Answers in English Language Teaching coding scheme which can be used to observe and describe the dynamics of teacher questions and student responses in language classrooms. We piloted the instrument in English as a foreign language lessons of four experienced teachers teaching 16 lessons in total. State Space Grids were used to visualize classroom dynamics and quantify intra-individual variability of each lesson. The results show that interactions between teachers and students have the tendency to self-organize and stabilize in one specific area of the grid. Lessons taught by three of the teachers revealed a dominant pattern formed by closed questions and short student responses. One teacher taught lessons in which more complex question and answer sequences were prevalent. These patterns of variability and stability show that teacher-student interactions have the properties of a shallow attractor state. The analysis of moment-to-moment turns in classroom interaction indicate that students in this study generally adapt their response to the level of teacher questions, but that teachers do not seem to adapt their questions to the level of the previous student answer. This suggests that, even for experienced teachers, scaffolding and adaptive teaching might be easier said than done.

The goal of this article is to clarify and unravel the complexity and challenges of improving teaching quality, based on measuring teaching quality and feeding back the results to teachers. We analyze different conceptualizations of teaching quality, and synthesize a framework for conceptualizing teaching quality in educational practice. We explain the pros and cons of four types of instruments for measuring teaching quality. Next, we scrutinize the requirements of effectively feeding back teaching quality data and the requirements for effective actions to improve teaching quality. We conclude with implications for improving the consequential validity of teaching quality measurements.

Group work is a common active learning strategy in higher education when the goal is to enhance deep learning and develop teamwork skills. Culturally diverse learning groups are particularly valuable in preparing university students to participate in a globalized world. Student engagement in group work is critical in realizing these benefits. Therefore, more insight into what factors promote engagement is necessary. This study investigates the extent to which trust in the group, cultural diversity in the group, and group formation contribute to behavioral and cognitive engagement in group work. A questionnaire was filled out by 1025 bachelor’s students from six universities in the Netherlands and Canada. Structural equation modeling analyses identified students’ trust in the group as the strongest positive predictor of both behavioral and cognitive engagement. Greater perceived cultural diversity was found to promote behavioral and cognitive engagement, but compared with trust, the impacts were relatively small. Whether students could choose their group members did not affect behavioral or cognitive engagement significantly. Contrary to what was expected, trust did not act as a mediator. That is, cultural diversity and group formation did not indirectly affect engagement through trust. These findings prompt some suggestions for how to enhance student engagement in group work.

This study investigates differences in academic satisfaction among undergraduate international students studying at international branch campuses (IBCs) and their home campuses, considering student stage of study, gender, and institution. It draws on data from 2,145 undergraduate international students enrolled at four home campuses and their six affiliated IBCs that responded to the 2018 International Student Barometer (ISB). Results indicate that international students studying at IBCs were significantly less satisfied with their academic experience—including constructs of academic and teaching quality, academic environment, and academic engagement—than international students studying at the associated home campuses. Results have important implications for how institutions carry out internationalization amid uncertain times; in particular, ensuring that the unique experiences of students are understood and considered in the planning and provision of transnational education.

[EN] In our study, we asked 19 pre-service teachers (PSTs) about their experiences with and perceptions of a microteaching-supported virtual reality (VR) kindergarten classroom where they practiced and experimented with different classroom management strategies (CMS). We analyzed quantitative and qualitative responses to gain insight into the perceived usefulness of this learning environment for CMS development and transfer to internship practices. The quantitative results show that practicing in the VR classroom supported mastery of CMS and helped PSTs to manage behaviors at their internships. The qualitative data suggest that the microteaching approach can support transfer of CMS practiced in the VR-kindergarten classroom to in-situ classroom management situations, possibly because of the opportunity to collaboratively engage in reflexive practices. Moreover, PSTs raised valuable suggestions to further improve the microteaching structure to strengthen the effect of peer feedback. The results of this study underline the importance of purposefully grounding VR applications in proven instructional theories., The development of the virtual-reality kindergarten classroom was realized by a Comenius Teaching Fellowship (405.20865.262) granted by the Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO) and the Dutch Ministry for Education (OCW)

This study investigates how classroom interaction unfolds following an opinion-seeking question asked by teachers or students. By using conversation analysis as a research method, the authors found that to an opinion-seeking question the preferred response of a student is to express an opinion as if it originated from their own thoughts. These responses are often followed by a non-minimal follow-up by both teachers and peers. We illustrate that the non-minimal follow-ups are formulated in two different ways: generic or specific, whereby a specific non-minimal follow-up appears to offer the best opportunity for subjectification. Subjectification is about the existence of the student as subject of his own life. If a student provides a specific non-minimal follow-up, the student expresses himself as a subject, with his own thoughts and a unique voice, which appears to prompt a dialogue in which fellow participants are also invited to express themselves.

To support school improvement, understanding the mechanisms that enhance teachers’ engagement in professional learning activities within schools over time is paramount. The purpose of this three-wave longitudinal study is to examine the role of workplace conditions (school leaders’ vision building and teams’ shared goals), in supporting teachers’ engagement in information sharing over time. To test the directionality of the relationships between the concepts, we analyzed survey data from 655 vocational education and training teachers in the Netherlands using a cross-lagged panel model. Results suggest that teachers’ engagement in information sharing remains stable over time, and the results are indicative of reciprocity between goal interdependence and vision building. Mostly, the results hint at the complexity of the time-based relations involved in teacher learning in support of school improvement. Recommendations for future designs and methodologies to understand this complexity are discussed.

Science and technology education has become increasingly important. However, for most teachers, it is challenging to provide this content. Therefore, professional development programmes are used to support teachers in this regard. In this qualitative study, effective characteristics that should be present in such programmes were identified. Moreover, four particular professional development programmes were investigated to see whether they included these characteristics. Eleven review studies and meta-analyses were analysed to identify the effective characteristics of professional development programmes for science and technology education. Five content characteristics were distinguished: focus, activities, collaboration, coherence of content, and duration. In addition, three contextual characteristics were distinguished: coherence with context, individual factors, and organisational factors. The materials from four professional development programmes for science and technology education were collected and analysed and interviews were held with principal investigators who were involved in the design of these programmes and with educators who worked with these programmes. The characteristics duration and coherence with context appeared to be fully addressed in respectively two and one programmes. The other characteristics were incorporated to a limited extent or not at all. Overall, the present study illustrated the apparent challenges in designing professional development programmes.

Training researchers represents a substantially deeply international activity for higher education, and yet the transition into independence, a critical aim of doctoral education, remains a challenge for both supervisors and doctoral students, especially those from different cultural backgrounds. Interactions between Chinese doctoral students and their supervisors at Dutch universities exemplify the challenges in such an intercultural context. Interviews with 21 Chinese doctoral students and 16 supervisors from three Dutch universities reveal three potential challenges to fostering independence: (1) misalignment in supervisors' and students' conceptualizations of independence due to implicit diversity; (2) misalignment between supervisory support and students' zone of proximal development (ZPD) of independence, as derived from the broader ZPD concept, especially in the first year of the doctoral study; and (3) a gap between supervisors' interpretation of students' visible learning behavior and students' actual concerns. We provide a rich description of these hidden challenges and conclude with a framework outlining the relationships among the three layers of challenges. In so doing, we provide detailed information and a practical tool for supervisors to increase students' awareness and skills, accurately diagnose students' ZPD, recognize and reduce any potential misalignments in time, and thereby support students' transition into independence. We conclude by discussing the practical and theoretical implications of our findings for supervisors and students in other intercultural contexts to reflect on their own practices and explore new ways of promoting international students' transition into independence.

Given the challenging transition from secondary school into higher education, this quasi-experimental study measured the effects of a pre-academic programme (i.e. before starting at university) on student-faculty interactions, student-peer interactions, sense of belonging, and first-year academic performance. Fifty-eight first-year students participated in a pre-academic programme (i.e. the experimental group) focused on changing their perceptions of effective learning behaviour to enhance high-quality interaction with peers and faculty, their sense of belonging, and academic performance. A control group comprised 237 first-year students who did not attend the programme. Participation in the programme enhanced formal student-faculty and student-peer interactions, as well as informal student-peer interactions. No effect was found on sense of belonging. Furthermore, participation in the programme enhanced students' attained grade during the first course and enhanced their first-year cumulative GPA. The results suggest that participation in the pre-academic programme could give students a head start in higher education.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to answer the question, what progress student teachers make during one academic year, while being trained in a professional learning community, using objective classroom observation, using lesson preparation templates that match their developmental stage and stage-focused mentor feedback. Design/methodology/approach The teaching skills of the student teachers (n=101) were measured at the start and at the end of the academic year. For the measurements, the standardized and psychometrically tested International Comparative Analysis of Learning and Teaching observation instrument is used. Findings The student teachers achieved a small growth on the basic teaching skills and a medium growth on two of the three advanced skills for teachers. Research limitations/implications Because of the lack of a control group, causal conclusions cannot be made. This research provides knowledge on the actual observed level of teaching skills of student teachers trained in a close collaborating professional learning community. Originality/value Little is known about the actual growth of observable teaching skills of student teachers in elementary education. Teacher training colleges and internship schools in the Netherlands are in search of better ways to collaborate more closely in order to improve the quality of teaching of their student teachers. These findings can inspire teacher training communities to improve their own teaching quality and the teaching quality of their student teachers.

Teaching students with externalising problem behaviours is difficult for teachers, as it challenges the relationship that teachers engage in with their students. In this study, effects of Key2Teach on externalising and social-emotional problem behaviours and the mediating role of conflict in the teacher-student relationship were studied using a randomised controlled trial (RCT)-design. In two cohorts, 103 teacher-student dyads and peer-students (n = 1643) were assessed two times during a school year. Fifty-three dyads received the intervention (experimental group), whereas 50 dyads received no intervention (control group). Data were collected on teacher-reported externalising and social-emotional problem behaviours in students, and on teacher-student conflict. For dyad-students, results showed a direct effect of Key2Teach on conduct problems and an indirect effect, via teacher-student conflict, for hyperactivity problems. No effects on social-emotional problems were established. For peer-students, results showed indirect effects on externalising problems and direct effects on social-emotional problems. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

The ability to apply various reading skills is an important prerequisite to comprehend expository texts commonly found in history textbooks, but it is unclear which specific skills contribute to students’ historical content knowledge and historical reasoning abilities. This study used a digital learning environment (DLE) to measure and support lower secondary students’ subject-specific reading skills, and explored the relationships with students’ historical content knowledge and historical reasoning ability. Results showed that subject-specific reading skills, such as explaining historical events, correlated significantly with both historical content knowledge and historical reasoning ability, but not all skills were significant predictors. These findings indicate that to promote the advanced practice of historical reasoning, history teachers should pay attention to students’ reading comprehension skills.

Teachers constitute a key point in the educational process. Therefore, having information about their behaviours inside the classroom can give us very useful data when the intention is to improve teaching effectiveness. This study aims to describe teaching behaviours observed in 344 teachers in 56 public and private schools in Asturias (Spain). Descriptive analyses and analysis of variance have been run in order to answer the research questions. A stepwise regression has been performed too, to identify which teaching skill domains are more important in promoting student engagement. Results have shown positive, significant relationships between all the domains and student academic engagement. Activating teaching, efficient classroom management and teaching-learning strategies seem to be the main teaching skills for increasing student engagement. Interesting differences have also been found in student engagement depending on the standard of teachers’ teaching behaviour., Este estudio ha recibido fondos del organismo para la financiación científica en los Países Bajos (NRO), mediante la ayuda 405-15-732 y del Instituto de Investigación e Innovación Educativa de la Universidad de Oviedo (INIE), mediante la ayuda INIE-19- MOD C-1.

In the Netherlands, Computer Science was introduced in 1998 as an optional subject in the upper grades of HAVO and VWO. Modeling and simulation is included as an elective theme in the recently revised Computer Science curriculum. Modeling and simulation is considered to be an aspect of computational thinking, and computational thinking in turn is an element of digital literacy which is expected to be included — as a new learning objective —in the soon to be revised national curriculum for primary and secondary education.In this dissertation, didactic aspects of teaching modeling and simulation within the Computer Science course were explored, as well as the pedagogical content knowledge of teachers related to teaching modeling and simulation. The results include, among other things, a framework that describes how the problem under investigation is to be translated into computational elements, how to subsequently construct a computer model and use it for simulations, and finally how to interpret the results in the discipline where the problem originates. The findings show that students are able to construct computer models themselves or to adapt existing computer models, to use them to conduct research, and finally to reflect critically on the entire process.Furthermore, this research has resulted in practical insights into teaching of computer modeling, and has led to the development of teaching materials for computer science (https://ieni.github.io/inf2019/themas/r-computational-science) which are suitable for use in other courses such as biology, geography or history as well.The results of this research demonstrate the possibilities of using computer models in education — for example, to simulate the course of a pandemic, analyze the results, and investigate both scientific and societal consequences.

Differentiated instruction is considered to be an important teaching quality domain to address the needs of individual students in daily classroom practices. However, little is known about whether differentiated instruction is empirically distinguishable from other teaching quality domains in different national contexts. Additionally, little is known about how the complex skill of differentiated instruction compares with other teaching quality domains across national contexts. To gain empirical insight in differentiated instruction and other related teaching quality domains, cross-cultural comparisons provide valuable insights. In this study, teacher classroom practices of two high-performing educational systems, The Netherlands and South Korea, were observed focusing on differentiated instruction and other related teaching quality domains using an existing observation instrument. Variable-centred and person-centred approaches were applied to analyze the data. The study provides evidence that differentiated instruction can be viewed as a distinct domain of teaching quality in both national contexts, while at the same time being related to other teaching domains. In both countries, differentiated instruction was the most difficult domain of teaching quality. However, differential relationships between teaching quality domains were visible across teacher profiles and across countries.

Using item response theory, this study explores whether student survey and classroom observation items can be calibrated onto a common metric of teaching quality. The data comprises 269 lessons of 141 teachers that were scored on the International Comparative Analysis of Learning and Teaching (ICALT) observation instrument and the My Teacher student survey. Using Rasch model concurrent calibration, items from both instruments were calibrated onto a common one‐dimensional metric of teaching quality. Most items were found to fit the model. Challenges pertain mainly to items measuring teaching students learning strategies and differentiation. Explanations for these difficulties are discussed.

Understanding students’ perspectives on the foreign language (FL) curriculum could be considered as a vital step in curriculum design and lesson planning. This study drew on data provided by a single open question survey to investigate the perspective of Dutch secondary school students (N = 635) from 15 different schools with regard to the benefits of literature education in English as a foreign language (EFL). This study also sought to find out whether there are any differences in these perspectives between the different schools. The Comprehensive Approach to Foreign Language Literature Learning was used to analyse the students’ answers. Results show that the majority of the students consider literature in a FL primarily as language education. Furthermore, a comparison between the 15 schools indicated that there were differences in the way students from different schools perceive the benefits of the EFL literature curriculum. The article concludes with a discussion of pedagogical issues and suggestions for ways in which the student perspective can be studied on a small scale.

The ability to share knowledge is an important attribute that students develop in learning communities (LCs), enabling them to succeed in their education and careers. Insufficient research addresses the development of such knowledge sharing in LCs though, including whether it aligns with students’ success (i.e., grades). To address this gap, the current study investigates various determinants of knowledge sharing and their effects on student success. Survey data from 183 psychology students measure altruism, trust, belongingness (community identification), perceived social interaction, and attitudes toward and expectations of the benefits of knowledge sharing. A path analysis shows that trust affects the expected personal and community benefits of knowledge sharing indirectly, through students’ general attitudes toward knowledge sharing. Altruism, trust, and belongingness affect the personal benefits of knowledge sharing indirectly through social interaction. No significant relation emerges with first-year study success. Knowledge sharing as added attribute does not appear aligned with study success measured by individual course grades.

Extant research is inconclusive about how student-centered learning might affect peer interactions, teacher interactions, belongingness, and academic success. This study investigates the relationships in two commonly applied types of learning environments: learning communities (LCs) and problem based learning (PBL). Survey data from 425 first-year university students, enrolled in either an LC (N = 333) or PBL (N = 92) context, provide the input for path analyses to explore two conceptual models. Belongingness appears more important in LCs, whereas for PBL, formal peer interaction seems more important for academic success, which is consistent with the main focus of the two learning environments. LCs are dominantly focused on creating a safe environment and a PBL context is mainly focused on knowledge construction.

The relationship among students' reading performance, their behavior (task-focused behavior, emotional stability, and compliant behavior) in the classroom, and the teacher's skills was investigated in 66 third-grade classrooms. Results from this study showed the students' reading performance and their behavior in the classroom are all significantly interrelated. Better reading performance at the beginning of the school year goes with better behavior at the end of the school year. In turn, better behavior at the beginning of the school year goes with better reading performance at the end of the school year. The teacher can improve the behavior of the students by providing high-quality reading instruction. Some teacher skills have differential effects, however, on the various behavioral aspects. The implications for the educational practice as well as for future research are discussed.

The English language plays a major role in Dutch society. It is therefore of crucial importance that students in secondary education develop their communicative competence in this language. Interaction fosters language development, which stresses the need for language learners to practice the skill of shared meaning-making through social interaction. Nienke Smit analyzed teacher-student interaction in English as a foreign language lessons. She developed two new instruments, one for observing teaching strategies for scaffolding reading comprehension and one for question and answer patterns. Results revealed that teachers are most active during the lesson. On average, they ask one question every minute. Students usually respond with very short answers. Long student responses were scarce. Teachers asked very few open questions and these questions often did not lead to longer student answers. This observational study provides insight in the way these classroom interaction patterns emerge. In order to find out whether teachers recognized the results from their own teaching practice, teachers who had not participated in the observational study participated in a validation study. A large majority of the respondents recognized the dominant pattern of closed questions and short answers. They attributed the limited student responses to emotional factors, such as boredom, embarrassment and anxiety. This research showcases how classroom observation might be used to identify the room for growth. In order to facilitate meaningful interaction it is recommended to focus on the learning process in which both the teacher and the students may share the responsibility to get it together.

Teachers face many challenges in their daily teaching practices. On the one hand, they must be able to improve their teaching and learning strategies by navigating changing goals in order to meet the variety in students’ educational needs. On the other hand, governmental and school board projects aimed at educational development focus increasingly on data. These issues require teachers to develop their capacity to realize educational change. Herein, working inquiry-based can be helpful for teachers to investigate their daily practices. In developing and maintaining an inquiry-based working environment, leadership that encourage teachers to take ownership of the change process may be essential. Limited studies focus on how distributed leadership or inquiry-based working may be related to teachers’ capacity to realize educational change, Also, knowledge about whether school leaders’ perceptions of distributed leadership are relevant in enhancing teachers’ capacity to change is scarce. This dissertation examines these issues through four studies. The results show that inquiry-based working illustrates for teachers which educational changes need to be made when adapting teaching strategies. Also, working inquiry-based encourages them to take leadership roles. Their sense of self-efficacy seems to be stronger as well as the extent to which they support one another and share experiences. Although school leaders differ in their interpretations of distributed leadership, distributing leadership may still be worthwhile. Teachers seem to be more likely to collaborate, internalize school goals into personal aims and show a higher level of self-efficacy than in schools without such leadership distribution.

Integration of computational thinking (CT) into numerous disciplines across the K-12 curriculum is gaining increased attention. In this study, based on the technology integration framework, we investigated how students’ understandings, difficulties, and attitudes towards learning subject matter varied at different levels of CT integration. We implemented six different case studies by integrating CT into six different subjects: science, traffic, language, biology, geography, and physics. Two primary and four secondary school teachers, 38 primary school students, and 113 secondary school students were involved in the study. We categorized these lessons according to the technology integration model: unplugged activities are grouped as augmentation level; robotic and two modeling activities are labeled as modification level; modeling and digital storytelling activities are labeled as redefinition level. Our findings indicate that students reported a very positive attitude toward redefinition level activities. Teachers stated that compared to standard instructional activities, students can go deeper and understand the subject content better in CT integrated lessons.

Intercultural group work (IGW) —a collaborative approach to learning in which students from diverse cultural or national backgrounds work together— holds promise as a pedagogical tool to enhance university students’ learning and to develop key competences that enable them to adapt flexibly to a rapidly changing and highly interconnected world. However, the presence of multiple cultures does not automatically result in intercultural collaboration. More insights are needed regarding which factors hinder or encourage students to engage actively in IGW. This research shows that group-related factors (trust in the group, group formation, group diversity) and language proficiency are less important for engagement in IGW than individual student-related factors (personality, intercultural competence, self-efficacy, perceived costs and benefits). Students who are equipped, feel equipped, and see the value of IGW will apply themselves to the group work both behaviorally and cognitively. Student are equipped when they are interculturally competent. Students feel equipped when they have confidence in their own abilities to contribute effectively to the IGW. Students determine the value of intercultural group by weighing the intercultural benefits they perceive against the negative emotions they are experiencing. These results imply that educators can promote students’ engagement in IGW by (1) actively supporting students in developing intercultural competences, (2) building students’ self-efficacy for IGW, (3) reducing the emotional cost students are experiencing, and (4) increasing the intercultural benefits. For IGW to be valuable, both educators and students will need to invest time and effort.

Although lesson study is increasingly adopted in the Netherlands, it remains difficult for schools to implement and maintain the initiative. How can you organize lesson study successfully in your own high school? In this dissertation, this question is explored through the concept of organizational routines. As a first step, we reviewed the use of concept of organizational routines to examine educational initiatives in practice. Insights from this review study are used to see if and how schools implement and perform lesson study. Firstly, we focused on how teachers’ understanding of lesson study connects to their performance and evaluation of the initiative. Second, we looked at how schools (successfully) set-up organizational tasks and processes to organize lesson study, such as scheduling, recruiting participants, and giving credit for teachers’ time-investment. Lastly, we directed our attention to which school factors promote or inhibit implementing lesson study. Factors such as part-timers, turnover, scheduling, school improvement policy, and scheduling were reported to be very influential. This dissertation shows that the ‘organizational space’ schools have to organize lesson study varies and it provides leads for schools how they can increase that space.

Contains fulltext : 220710.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Effective teaching is a key factor in educational effectiveness and improvement. To facilitate the knowledge exchange regarding effective teaching in secondary education internationally, there has been a growing interest in using classroom observation measures. However, little is known regarding the comparability of observation measures across various national contexts (measurement invariance). Consequently, comparing effective teaching behaviour across contexts is compromised by issues of construct and measurement equivalence. In the present study, we investigated measurement invariance of the International Comparative Analysis of Learning and Teaching (ICALT) for measuring teaching behaviour across various national contexts including the Netherlands, South Korea, South Africa, Indonesia, Hong Kong-China, and Pakistan. Results showed that ICALT indicates full strict invariance in four out of the six countries, which provides a possibility to compare teaching behaviour in the Netherlands, South Korea, South Africa, and Indonesia. South Korea indicated the highest quality of teaching behaviour, while Indonesia indicated the lowest. 32 p.

For about ten years, pre-service teacher inquiry has been a compulsory component of the primary teacher education programme. However, why it had become compulsory and whether it led to better teachers was not clear. A formal reason for research – or actually inquiry - forming part of the curriculum is linked to the Dublin-descriptors, which have been established at European level. Previous research makes the assumption that pre-service teacher inquiry contributes to lifelong learning. The aim is not to educate researchers, but curious and critical teachers; professionals who can convert their inquiry habit of mind into inquiry based practice. In other words, development of an inquiry stance. This thesis examines how an inquiry stance is developed in the intended, implemented and attained curriculum of primary teacher education. In contrast to the intuitive expectation that pre-service teacher inquiry is experienced as a burden, findings show that pre-service teachers and teacher educators in the Netherlands and Australia consider it to be a valuable and useful component of the programme. They feel empowered by pre-service teacher inquiry. Results also show a positive correlation between the quality of inquiry and the quality of teaching. The still underdeveloped research culture in primary schools, the formal nature of the pre-service teacher research and the realistic view of the first years of teaching are the main reasons why students do not think they will conduct practitioner research in their future profession. The development of an inquiry habit of mind is the most important aspect of the inquiry stance, but pre-service teachers do not recognize this in the educational activities and assessment.

This study explores new directions to study and combine measurements of instructional expertise and teachers’ interpersonal relationships with students. The sample comprises 34 in-service teachers. The My Teacher questionnaire (MTQ) was used to operationalize teachers’ instructional expertise. The Questionnaire of Teacher Interaction (QTI) was used to describe teachers’ interpersonal relationships with students. Hypotheses were tested using circular mixed-effects models. Results indicate that teachers’ interpersonal relationships differ at successive levels of instructional expertise. Results further indicated that increases in instructional expertise are associated with a sharp decrease in the within-class variance in interpersonal relationships. Specifically, the higher teachers’ instructional expertise, the more teachers' interpersonal relationships are described as “directing” and “helpful” by all students in the class.

Many novice teachers have difficulties in selecting and applying effective classroom management strategies to prevent or diminish disruptive behaviors. Negative experiences with classroom management largely determine teacher wellbeing and early attrition. Therefore, more in-training opportunities are needed to prepare prospective teachers to manage complex classroom practices effectively. A Virtual Reality-environment seems promising in developing classroom management skills and promoting teacher resilience; however, its potential is influenced by students’ perceptions towards this technology. This study describes four pre-service teachers’ and six school-based teacher educators’ experiences with and perceptions towards the use of a Virtual Reality learning environment to train classroom management skills and promote teacher resilience. Responses of semi-structured interviews reflect five themes: software- and equipment-related issues; feedback cues; realism and authenticity; instructor proficiency; and added value for teacher training. Results show that, for most themes, pre-service teachers and school-based teacher educators raised similar remarks and/or suggestions for improvement; however, they differed in their perceptions towards the added value of Virtual Reality to teacher training curricula. Our study highlights teachers’ needs for highly authentic and realistic simulations aligned with real-life classrooms and presents recommendations to augment the immersive experience needed for teachers to develop effective CMS and become more resilient.

Professional development practices remain at the forefront of ways to support teacher learning but are difficult to sustain. We investigate whether and how teachers continued to perform the professional development practice of lesson study in their own schools after participating in a cross-school Lesson Study Professional Learning Network for four years. We found different perceptions of the general idea of lesson study. If the general idea was modified, teachers rarely continued to perform lesson study; if they did, they transformed lesson study in such a way that core elements were removed. When teachers maintained the general idea of lesson study they were more likely to continue to perform lesson study in their own school and to consider the practice useful.

Adaptive teaching has become increasingly important in research and practice. However, its complexity calls for effective professional development approaches, such as Lesson Study, that may promote adaptive teaching practices. This study uses a quasi-experimental mixed-methods design, consisting of stimulated recall interviews and classroom observation instruments, to determine whether participating in Lesson Study leads to more adaptive teaching practices in both teachers’ perceptions and behavior. Although intervention group teachers reported various important changes in their perceptions about adaptive teaching and their (adaptive) teaching behavior, no intervention effects were found. This raises questions about how adaptive teaching can be defined and measured.

In this contribution we will provide an overview of the developments in educational effectiveness research conducted in Belgium and the Netherlands over the past three decades (1987–2018) and discuss a selection of (mostly large-scale, longitudinal) key studies, research topics and main findings. In particular, dominant issues in the educational effectiveness research area of the aforementioned countries will be addressed, and main findings will be discussed and illustrated with results of a selection of key studies. In particular, effects of teacher behaviour and what students experience in the classroom with regard to students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes will be addressed. Attention will be paid to effects of learning environment characteristics such as instructional support and class climate (i.e. learning climate, teacher-student and student-student relations), as it is clear from educational effectiveness research in general – and in Belgium and the Netherlands in particular – that these characteristics are crucial for student learning and student outcomes. Besides, these characteristics are important sources of variation. In addition, effects of group composition (also in relation to what students experience in the classroom) will be addressed. Also, attention will be paid to effects of configurations of learning environments as a holistic way to look at effects of learning environments. Furthermore, school-level factors, the connection between school-level factors and learning environment (i.e. teacher/classroom) level factors, as well as generic versus differentiated educational effectiveness, will be discussed, as well as some school level characteristics.

Preservice teachers face the complex challenge of balancing the requirements of teacher education programmes and schools and developing a professional identity as a teacher. Developing the knowledge and skills to manage working as a teacher is important to prevent emotional exhaustion during teacher education and later in the teaching career. Therefore, it is important to begin building resilience during the teacher education programme. Dutch policymakers and teacher educators recognize this need; however, there are currently no structural practices in teacher education programmes to help preservice teachers build resilience. Thus, introducing the BRiTE framework and modules could be a beneficial opportunity for Dutch teacher education. This chapter focuses on describing the Dutch teacher education context and teacher educators’ perceptions of resilience. We also discuss how the BRiTE modules can be implemented in Dutch teacher education programmes.

Learning to teach in elementary educationIn this study, a developmentally appropriate coaching approach is outlined to improve the teaching skills of student teachers in elementary education. This approach effectively strengthens the collaboration of trainers at the teacher training colleges and the internship schools and aligns theory about effective teaching with students’ practice. It focuses on classroom observation with a psychometrically tested observation instrument and provides effective feedback and lesson templates which match students’ individual developmental stage. Effective teaching theory is provided at the teacher college. Objective observation gives students and trainers insight into students’ actual teaching levels. Next, students write an individual development plan to improve certain skills. Students coached this way, show substantial growth in teaching skills, compared to students who are not. The same coaching approach, implemented without offering students theory on effective teaching and linking it to teaching practice, achieves half of this growth. Even so, it still proves more effective, than students learning to teach without developmentally appropriate coaching. Teaching skills of these students do hardly grow at all.

This study focused on the question of how to enhance a mastery-goal orientation in the classroom. We started from the perspective of the achievement goal theory, which assumes that the goals that students have (personal goals) relate to the goals that are set in the classroom (classroom goal structures). In classrooms where teachers focus on learning and effort -instead of normative standards and social comparison- mastery goals are enhanced. This type of classroom can be endorsed by focusing on the following classroom structures: Task design, Autonomy, Recognition, Grouping, Evaluation, and Time (TARGET). The present study investigated how classroom goal structures as perceived by students are related to students’ personal goals. Based on survey data from 501 students from three secondary schools in the Netherlands, we found that the Task design dimension, concerning designing challenging and varied tasks, and the Time dimension, concerning e.g., pacing, predicted both mastery-approach and avoidance goals. Our findings provide insight in how perceived classroom goal structures are related to students’ personal goals that focus on understanding/competence, thus informing teachers and educational developers where to start when it comes to improving student motivation.

This study explores how international student satisfaction is affected by certain aspects of the learning and living experience, including university reputation, size and proportion of international students, as well as student gender and stage of study. It draws on data from undergraduate international students enrolled in full time, on-site programs at 32 universities located in the UK that administered the International Student Barometer (ISB) in Fall 2017 (N = 11,652). Multi-level linear regression revealed that international student satisfaction was predicted by stage of study, the reputation of the university and the proportion of international students enrolled. Comments from the survey are used to better understand these findings. This study gives institutional leaders insight into what factors influence the international student experience, allowing them to better prepare for the challenges confronting international higher education today.

This article focuses on improving the instructional quality of student teachers in elementary education. We developed a coaching approach involving classroom observation and appropriate lesson preparation and feedback templates. Using an untreated control group design with pre-test and posttest (n = 198), we answered the question ‘whether student teachers who learned to teach with the new coaching approach achieved a higher level of pedagogical and didactical teaching skills compared to student teachers who did not receive this approach’. The effect variable used was the observation instrument ICALT. We compared the average scores of the control group and the experimental group on the posttest (ANCOVA). The differences found on the posttest, after controlling for the confounding variables, were significant on all ICALT scales. These effect sizes are medium on the scales; ‘Safe climate’, and ‘Clear instruction’, and large on the scales; ‘Classroom management’, ‘Activating pupils’, ‘Adaptive teaching’, and ‘Teaching learning strategies’.

Previous studies in higher education have shown that the reliability of student ratings of teaching skill increases if multiple ratings by different students are aggregated. This study examines the generalizability of these findings to the context of secondary education. Also, it seeks to validate these findings by comparing reliability levels estimated by the routinely used nested design with those estimated using a more complex design. The sample consisted of 410 students from 17 classes rating 63 teachers working at eight schools across the Netherlands. Using the nested design, the study replicates findings of previous studies in higher education. The findings illustrate how the reliability level of secondary school students’ ratings increases with an increasing number of students. However, these replicated reliability levels were not validated by the more complex design which provided lower estimates. This indicates that the nested design may not provide accurate estimations of rating reliability.

How can science teachers support students in developing an appropriate declarative knowledge base for solving problems? This article focuses on the question whether the development of students’ memory of scientific propositions is better served by writing propositions down on paper or by making drawings of propositions either by silent or muttering rehearsal. By means of a memorisation experiment with eighth- and ninth-grade students, we answer this question. In this experiment, students received instruction to memorise nine science propositions and to reproduce them afterwards. To support memorisation students were randomly assigned either to a group that received instruction to write each proposition on paper or to a group that received instruction to make a drawing about the content of the proposition. In addition, half of the students in both groups received instruction to mutter and the other half of them received instruction to write or draw in silence. The main conclusion from the experiment is that after four weeks students who had made a drawing remembered significantly more propositions than those who had memorised the propositions by writing them down. Our research further revealed that it did not matter whether students muttered or memorised silently.

The aim of this explorative study was to develop and test a pedagogy aimed at promoting students’ ability to perform historical contextualization. Teaching historical contextualization was conceptualized in terms of four pedagogical design principles: (1) making students aware of the consequences of a present-oriented perspective when examining the past, (2) enhancing the reconstruction of a historical context, (3) enhancing the use of the historical context to explain historical phenomena and (4) enhancing historical empathy. The effectiveness of these principles was explored in a lesson unit focusing on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In a quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test design with experimental and control conditions, the effects of the pedagogy on 15- and 16-year-old students’ ability to perform historical contextualization were examined (n = 131). The results indicated that students in the experimental condition significantly improved their ability to perform historical contextualization compared to students in the control condition. These findings could be used to help teachers and other educational professionals design and implement historical contextualization tasks and instructions.

Since classrooms have become more diverse, professional development on adaptive teaching seems critically important, yet turns out to be complex. Lesson Study may address this issue due to its explicit focus on student learning. In total, 22 Lesson Study participants from" different school contexts were interviewed. Clarke and Hollingsworth's Interconnected Model of Professional Growth was used as the analyzing framework to explore its adequacy for understanding teacher professional growth. The results reveal teacher professional growth in adaptive teaching competence and show how the intensive focus on student learning, collaborative professional experimentation and the facilitators' role may contribute to this. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

University programmes increasingly implement small-group teaching, with the assumption that students' social capital fosters academic achievement. However, few studies address the impact of social capital on the study success of first-year students. The current study addresses this research gap, examining the extent to which social capital relates to study success for first-year university students and whether this effect differs for high-, average-, and low-achieving high school students. Survey data collected from 407 first-year university students' measure social capital in terms of family, faculty, and peers. Path analysis reveals that in contrast to family capital, peer capital (help seeking, collaboration, and fellow students' support) and faculty capital (mentor support) contribute positively to study success, indirectly through friendship or self-efficacy. For high achievers, compared with low achievers, friendship has a positive effect on study success during the first year. Small-group teaching seems beneficial for study success if it enhances students' social capital. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Teachers in Dutch mainstream secondary education are faced with a complex challenge to tailor their instruction to an increasingly diverse student population while at the same time having to meet national and school quality standards. Consequently, this demands a high degree of adaptability of teachers though they do not always feel capable to address their students’ learning needs. The Japanese professional development approach Lesson Study may address this given its distinct focus on student learning. In a Lesson Study cycle, small groups of teachers systematically prepare, teach and observe, evaluate, and refine so-called research lessons. Despite rapidly growing research evidence in the context of Lesson Study, only limited studies focus on the influence of participating in Lesson Study on teachers’ adaptive teaching behavior and their feelings of competence (as a vital predictor of teacher behavior). Moreover, the school context in which teacher professional learning ideally takes place is generally not included in Lesson Study research. This doctoral dissertation examines these issues through four empirical studies. The results show that teachers who participate in Lesson Study become more aware of students’ different learning needs and feel more capable to address these needs and to engage all students in their classroom. In addition, the school context, in particular school conditions such as facilitated time, collaboration with colleagues, and support from school (department) leaders, was found to be essential in order to promote teacher learning through Lesson Study. Conversely, participating in Lesson Study may also influence how teachers perceive the school context.

Insights into how university teachers develop their teaching can strengthen the effectiveness of professional learning activities. Professional learning initiatives aim to support teachers in developing a teaching profile that is focused on student learning. However, university teachers often report a combination of content- and student-focused approaches to teaching and are not systematically focused on the learning outcomes of students. Teacher development theories hypothesise teaching growth as a hierarchy in which the development of more-complex skills (student-centred teaching) is based on the easier ones. This cumulative development of university teachers’ teaching has not yet been examined in authentic learning environments. We explored whether the hierarchy can also be found in observed teaching behaviour. Rasch analysis of 203 classroom observations revealed a stage-wise ordering of the teaching skills from basic to complex, consistent with the theorised development of teaching in the literature. University teachers develop from teacher-centred to student-centred teaching by increasingly acknowledging the student in the teaching and learning process. At the same time, they aim first to gain comfort in a stage (self-focused) before improving their teaching in that development stage (focus on task). As teachers develop, they move on to student-learning focused skills, such as teaching–learning strategies.

Schools’ structural workplace conditions (e.g. learning resources andprofessional development policies) and cultural workplace conditions (e.g.school leadership, teachers’ collaborative culture) have been found to affect theway teachers learn. It is not so much the objective conditions that support orimpede professional learning but the way teachers perceive those workplaceconditions that influence teachers’ learning. Not much is known, however, abouthow teachers’ perceptions relate to the way they direct their own learning. Usinga sense-making approach, we explored how four teachers’ perceptions of cultural and structural workplace conditions were related with how they direct their own learning. The four cases were selected from a sample of 31 teachers from two secondary schools, and differed in the extent to which the teachers perceived their workplace as enabling or constraining their learning. We found that the content of teachers’ learning goals is related to their perception of shared vision and professional dialogue in their schools, and driven by individual classroombased concerns. Furthermore, teachers’ perceptions of cultural workplace conditions and supportive leadership practices seem to be more important influences for teachers’ self-directed learning than their perception of structural conditions.

Observations and student perceptions are recognised as important tools for examining teaching behaviour, but little is known about whether both perspectives share similar construct representations and how both perspectives link with student academic outcomes. The present study compared the construct representation of preservice teachers’ teaching behaviour as perceived by trained teacher observers and students. It also examined the predictive power of both measures of teaching behaviour for student academic engagement. The theoretical framework of teaching behaviour used in this study is based on evidence-based research derived from empirical teacher effectiveness research. The study was part of a national project that included 2164 students and 108 teachers in The Netherlands. Results suggest that, although observations and student perceptions of teaching behaviour shared similar theoretical considerations, the construct representations seemed to differ to some extent. Furthermore, although both perspectives are significant predictors of student academic engagement, student perceptions appeared to be more predictive of their perceived academic engagement than observations. Implications for research on learning environments and teacher education are discussed.

Learning environments play an important role for students' learning and outcomes. Research indicates that many students show poor academic motivation. Teachers' behavior can function as a protective factor for sustaining students' interest and active engagement in schools. However, the knowledge about the dynamic nature of teachers' behavior and how it relates to the development of students' academic motivation is limited. This study is aimed to fill this gap. 566 students from 20 classes completed measures of teachers' instructional behavior and academic motivation in five waves throughout the school year. Results showed that students' perceptions of the quality of teachers' instructional behavior and that of academic motivation declined over time. The decrease in academic motivation was related to the decrease in teachers' instructional behavior. A high quality of teachers' instructional behavior appeared to be a protective factor for the decline in the level of students' academic motivation over time.

Potentially all university graduates, regardless of the discipline they have studied, are expected to have obtained generic learning outcomes, which we refer to as ‘graduateness’. This study investigates the extent to which learning programmes’ emphasis on graduateness affects students’ perceived abilities in the domains of graduateness. Four domains of graduateness are considered: reflective thinking, scholarship, moral citizenship and lifelong learning. Based on curriculum maps, master’s programmes were clustered according to the emphasis placed on each domain. Unexpectedly, there appeared to be no difference in students’ perceived competence in the four domains of graduateness between master’s programmes that placed little to no emphasis on reflective thinking, moral citizenship or lifelong learning and master’s programmes that placed more emphasis on these domains. Only in the scholarship domain was a difference found in students’ perceived competence; surprisingly, it was in the opposite direction. In conclusion, we can say that the relation between emphasis on the domains of graduateness and students’ perceived abilities in these domains were not found across a large sample of study programmes.

The number of international Chinese students enrolled in research programmes in Western universities is growing. To provide effective research supervision to these students, it is helpful to understand the similarities and differences in the supervision process between the host country and their home country. We explored which learning outcomes supervisors of master's theses aim for in two cultures, China and the Netherlands, and how they help their students to achieve these learning outcomes. Semi-structured interviews with 10 Chinese and 10 Dutch supervisors revealed, besides a strong resemblance, some clear differences between the two groups. For example, the Chinese supervisors aim to prepare their students for future jobs and use explicit assessment and regulation to monitor student progress, while the Dutch supervisors aim to enhance student well-being and use implicit regulation, emotional support and frequent posing of questions to facilitate student learning. Implications for cross-cultural and international education are provided.