Teacher mathematical knowledge, instructional quality, and student outcomes: a multilevel quantile mediation analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this study, we replicate and extend prior work that investigates the extent to which content-specific and non-content-specific measures of instruction mediate the relationships between teacher knowledge and student achievement gains. We further probe the extent to which classroom and district context moderate the individual and collective connections among the constructs. The results provide additional but qualified support for the mediating role of instruction – there are significant correlations among knowledge, instruction, and achievement, but these correlations are heavily conflated with differences among students, classrooms, schools, and districts. We find that classroom and district contexts play significant but different roles in cultivating the connections underlying mediation – district context influences the nature of the connections between instruction and achievement whereas classroom instructional context guides the connections between knowledge and instruction. We also find that knowledge must be proximal to the instructional domains it supports for associations to emerge.