Abstract
Teachers play an important role in the provision of quality education. The variety of classroom practices they use in interacting with learners play a critical role in the understanding of mathematical concepts and overall performance in Mathematics. Following the work done by Hattie (2009, 2012) in relation to classroom practices this study investigated the association between learner achievement and selected teacher classroom practices. The Mathematics teacher questionnaire, administered as part of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011, comprised questions pertaining to the classroom practices of Teacher Clarity, Classroom Discussion, Feedback, Formative Assessment, Problem Solving and Metacognitive Strategies, and Collaboration. The results showed a positive association between teachers’ high endorsement of the selected classroom practices and learner performance. The study also investigated how collaboration between Mathematics teachers affected learner performance. The analysis shows that teachers observing each other’s lessons affected the learners’ performance positively, although most teachers were not keen on collaboration with their peers. This study showed that various teacher classroom practices affect learner performance in Mathematics significantly and that these practices should be identified and mechanisms put in place to support teachers in terms of these practices. Keywords: hierarchical linear modeling; Mathematics performance; teacher classroom practice; TIMSS
Highlights
Access to quality education is recognised as a fundamental human right by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, and as a fundamental precondition for achieving national development goals
Despite the progress made in securing access, the same is not true with regard to the quality of education received by learners. This is evident when looking at learner performance results in national and international studies such as the Annual National Assessments (ANA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS): South African learners perform far below the international mean
Multilevel Analysis Results The Unconditional Model The learner background variables considered were: gender of learner; how often the learner spoke the language of the test at home; availability of home educational resources; learner engagement with mathematics in class; number of home study support; and time spent doing homework
Summary
Access to quality education is recognised as a fundamental human right by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, and as a fundamental precondition for achieving national development goals. Despite the progress made in securing access, the same is not true with regard to the quality of education received by learners. This is evident when looking at learner performance results in national and international studies such as the Annual National Assessments (ANA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS): South African learners perform far below the international mean. An area that has gained much attention internationally is the effect that teacher classroom practices have on learner performance - and on the quality of education
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