‘It’s all about the attitudes!’ – Introducing a scale to assess teachers’ attitudes towards the practice of differentiated instruction

ABSTRACT

Due to the continuously increasing heterogeneity of the student body within classrooms worldwide, teachers are called to appropriately meet the educational needs of all learners. Differentiated Instruction (DI) is an effective inclusive approach addressing students’ individual needs. However, research shows that although teachers recognise its relevance, they rarely implement DI. Literature has suggested that teachers’ attitudes have a strong impact on their teaching behaviour. Different instruments have been developed to measure attitudes towards inclusion, inclusive practices, and heterogeneity. Yet, there are no existing scales focused on measuring teachers’ attitudes towards the practice of DI. This study aims to introduce and provide psychometric evidence on a newly developed instrument that assesses teachers’ attitudes towards DI (TAT-DIS). By means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses performed on self-report data from N = 295 secondary school teachers, two sufficiently reliable scales (Value of DI and Perceived Insufficient Resources), totalling 8 items were derived. In investigating the impact of teachers’ attitudes towards DI on their actual DI practice, Value of DI was the strongest predictor for DI: the more value or utility teachers ascribe to DI, the more they practice DI. Conversely, when teachers perceive a lack of resources, they implement less DI.

KEYWORDS:

• Attitudes
• inclusive education
• differentiated instruction
• inclusive practices
• secondary school teachers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Verena Letzel is a research assistant at the University of Trier. Her main research interests are inclusive education, heterogeneous learning groups, differentiated instruction and attitudes, as well as digital learning.

Marcela Pozas is an Interim Professor at the University of Paderborn. Her current research is mainly focused on differentiated instruction in secondary school education. Additionally, her research work expands to digital learning, motivation and interest, as well as metacognition and context-based problem-solving tasks in STEM school education.

Christoph Schneider is a professor of Educational Sciences at the University of Trier, where he is responsible for assessment education in the teacher education programmes. His research interests include the development of student teachers' assessment competence in the course of teacher education, variants of differentiated instruction in secondary education, and factors influencing the academic self-concept of pupils in diverse classrooms.

Notes

1 For full information on Germany’s legislation and education system please refer to the coordinating body: the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education and Culture (Kultusministerkonferenz) (KMK 2015).