Quality of instruction and classroom learning outcomes: The German contribution to the IEA classroom environment study

Abstract

Results of the German contribution to the Classroom Environment Study: Teaching for Learning are presented. The study explored instructional quality and classroom management factors as predictors of student cognitive and affective outcomes. Classrroms ( N=39) were observed nine times with a low-inference observation instrument. Individual data on students' cognitive and affective characteristics, students' perceptions of instruction, self-reported attention, and observed time-on-task were aggregated, and the classroom was the unit of analysis. The data were analyzed with zero-order process-process and process-product correlations, multilevel analysis, communality analysis, and, as the focus of the study, causal modeling with the PLS (Partial Least Squares) technique. The causal model included, as latent variables, students' cognitive and affective entry characteristics, observed efficiency of management and quality of instruction, the student perceptions of these, students' observed time-on-task and self-reported attention, and affective and cognitive outcomes. As expected, student entry characteristics were of greatest importance for both affective and cognitive outcomes. A pattern of direct-instruction variables indicating efficient management, intensive use of time, and strong task orientation was positively related to student engagement and cognitive outcomes. Methodological questions associated with the multilevel character of the data and possible reasons for some unexpected results, for example, the nonsignificant role of instructional quality and of student engagement for cognitive outcomes, are discussed.