Is the school context associated with instructional quality? The effects of social composition, leadership, teacher collaboration, and school climate

ABSTRACT

The relevance of the school context to creating a successful learning environment and promoting teachers’ instructional quality is not yet clear. In the current study, we examine whether schools differ in aspects of instructional quality (i.e., classroom management and task feedback) and whether differences between schools can be explained by school characteristics (i.e., social composition, school’s academic track, principals’ leadership, teacher collaboration, and school climate). Therefore, we model instructional quality both at teacher and school level and include multiple perspectives on the school context. German Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 data were re-analyzed, resulting in data from 1,939 teachers and their principals in 198 schools. Multilevel analyses revealed that schools differ systematically in their instructional quality. These differences were related to social composition, principals’ leadership, teacher collaboration, and school climate. Accordingly, schools have the potential to promote instructional quality. However, teachers’ perceptions of school characteristics are more relevant than those of the principals.

KEYWORDS:

• School context
• school characteristics
• instructional quality
• principals
• multilevel analysis

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank the Research Data Centre (FDZ) at the Institute for Educational Quality Improvement (IQB), Germany, for providing the data used in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 ESCS as composite score including (1) highest parental education, (2) parents’ current occupation, and (3) home possessions.

2 The results of the bivariate correlations on the within and between level are displayed in Appendix 3.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under Grant HO5852/1-1.

Notes on contributors

Doris Holzberger

Doris Holzberger is a professor for Learning and Instruction at TUM School of Education, Technical University of Munich, and the Centre for International Student Assessment, Germany. Her research interests focus on school characteristics as predictors for students’ development, instructional quality, and characteristics of successful teachers.

Anja Schiepe-Tiska

Anja Schiepe-Tiska works at the Centre for International Student Assessment at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. She is part of the national project management of the PISA study. Her research interests include teaching and school conditions of achieving multidimensional educational goals.