Resources for Teaching: Examining Personal and Institutional Predictors of High-Quality Instruction
Abstract
"Policymakers and researchers have for many years advocated disparate approaches to ensuring teachers deliver high-quality instruction, including requiring that teachers complete specific training requirements, possess a minimum level of content knowledge, and use curriculum materials and professional development resources available from schools and districts. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which these factors, which we conceptualize as resources for teaching, predict instructional quality in upper elementary mathematics classrooms. Results show that teachers mathematical knowledge and their district context explained a moderate share of the variation in mathematics-specific teaching dimensions; other factors, such as teacher experience, preparation, non-instructional work hours, and measures of the school environment, explained very little variation in any dimension."
