Differentiation in education: a configurative review

Figures & data

Table 1. Selection process.

	No. of papers identified	Duplicates	Removed according to exclusion criteria	Removed according to inclusion criteria	No. of papers selected
Step 1	557		–537	–7	13
Step 2	794	–557	–225	–4	8
Step 3	13			–6	7
Total	807*				28

*this number is corrected for duplicates.

Table 2. Final selection of papers coded according to analytical categories.

Authors/year	Context	Type of study		Use of termsDS = differentiating studentsDC = differentiating contentDT = differentiating teaching	Focus
		Empirical	Review		Individuals	Groups	Class	School	System
Lassibille and Gómez (2000)	International^3 study	Yes	No	DS/DC	No	No	No	No	Yes
Peetsma et al. (2001)	The Netherlands	Yes	No	DT	Partly	No	Yes	No	Partly
Hallam and Ireson (2003)	UK	Yes	No	DS	No	Yes	Partly	No	No
Tieso (2003)	USA	No	Yes	DS/DC	No	Yes	No	No	No
Tomlinson et al. (2003)	USA	No	Yes	DT	Partly	No	Yes	No	No
Callahan (2005)	USA	Yes	No	DS/DC	No	Yes	No	No	No
Ireson and Hallam (2005)	UK	Yes	No	DS	Partly	Yes	Partly	No	No
Terwel (2005)	The Netherlands	No	Yes	DC/DS	No	Yes	No	Partly	No
Subban (2006)	Australia	No	Yes	DT	Partly	No	Yes	No	No
Carolan and Guinn (2007)	USA	Yes	No	DT	Partly	No	Yes	No	No
Van Tassel-Baska et al. (2007)	USA	No	Yes	DT	Partly	Yes	No	No	No
Kyriakides and Creemers (2008)	Cyprus	Yes	No	DT	Yes	Partly	No	No	No
Ireson and Hallam (2009)	UK	Yes	No	DS	Partly	Yes	Partly	No	No
Goddard et al. (2010)	USA	Yes	No	DT	Partly	No	Partly	Yes	No
Schofield (2010)	International Study^4	No	Yes	DS/DC	No	Yes	Partly	Partly	Partly
Verachtert et al. (2010)	Belgium	Yes	No	DT	Yes	No	Partly	No	No
Logan (2011)	USA	No	Yes	DT	Partly	No	Yes	No	No
Belfi et al. (2012)	International study^5	No	Yes	DS	No	Yes	Partly	No	No
De Jager (2013)	South Africa	Yes	No	DC/DT	No	No	Yes	No	Partly
Martin (2013)	USA	Yes	No	DT	Yes	No	No	No	No
Prain et al. (2013)	Australia	Yes	No	DC	Yes	No	Partly	No	No
Dalland and Klette (2014)	Norway	Yes	No	DC/DT	Yes	No	Partly	No	No
Elsbree et al. (2014)	USA	Yes	No	DT	Partly	Yes	No	No	No
Mills et al. (2014)	Australia	Yes	No	DT	Partly	No	Yes	No	No
Wilkinson and Penney (2014)	England and Wales	No	Yes	DS	No	Yes	No	No	No
Gül and Vuran (2015)	Turkey	Yes	No	DT	Partly	No	Yes	No	No
Laine and Tirri (2016)	Finland	Yes	No	DT/DC	No	Yes	Partly	No	No
Zuljan (2016)	Slovenia	Yes	No	DT	Yes	No	No	No	No

Table 3. Country of origin of the selected papers.

Country/context	No. of papers
USA	9
UK	4
Australia	3
International	3
The Netherlands	2
Belgium	1
Cyprus	1
Finland	1
Norway	1
Slovenia	1
South Africa	1
Turkey	1

Table 4. Key terms for differentiation.

Differentiating teaching	Differentiating students	Differentiating content
Differentiated classroom learning Differentiated activities Differentiated assignmentsDifferentiated educational support Differentiated instruction Differentiated learning Differentiated materials Differentiated reinforcement Differentiated tasks Differentiated teaching Differentiation Differentiation plan Differentiation strategies Individualized teachingInstructional differentiation Internal differentiation Learning differentiation Lesson differentiation Process differentiation Product differentiation Pedagogical differentiation	Ability groupingBanding Differentiate pupilDifferentiated systems Mixed-abilitySettingStratification Streaming Streams Tracking Tiered systems	Content differentiation Curriculum differentiation Curriculum compacting Differentiation of the curriculum Curriculum modification Specialized curriculum Stratified curriculum

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