Teaching Quality and Student Outcomes in TIMSS and PISA

Abstract

While there is consensus that teachers’ teaching quality is of utmost importance to student outcomes, conceptualizations and measures differ between studies and countries. Moreover, it is not clear which aspects or dimensions of teaching quality are related to student outcomes, or how this varies across countries. In this chapter, we present a systematic review of TIMSS and a narrative review of PISA focusing on (a) how teaching quality has been measured in these studies, and how this has developed from the early cycles until today; and (b) how teaching quality is related to student outcomes. Both international reports from PISA and TIMSS as well as studies performing secondary analyses based on TIMSS and PISA data are reviewed. Our reviews reveal that the latest cycles of TIMSS and PISA have more extensive frameworks and more reliable measures of teaching quality than previous cycles. Findings on the relations between teaching quality and student outcomes are mixed, but mostly aligned with findings from the field, including longitudinal studies. The results further show that secondary analyses of PISA and TIMSS often suffer from conceptual and methodological flaws. We discuss the implications for policy and practice and contributions to the field of education, and we provide suggestions to enhance the validity of the use of teaching quality measures, such as extending current study designs longitudinally.KeywordsTeaching qualityStudent outcomesTIMSSPISASystematic review