The introduction of standard-based education and data on student achievement comes with expectations with regard to teachers' respective use of data for instructional processes. We report on results of studies on teachers' use of comparative school achievement data and relate these to the literature on formative assessment and feedback on the quality of teaching. Integrating this literature, we present a heuristic model of data-based decision-making and illustrate the model with examples. The model emphasizes the role of reflection of instructional decision-making, whereby reflection is situated within the cyclic process of problem definition, data collection and use of data, data analysis, derivation of instructional measures and evaluation by multiple data sources.

Research has highlighted many complexities in the measurement of teaching quality that might explain the weak and inconsistent effects of teaching on learning. We introduce a lens model framework that connects both the conceptualized construct and the measured construct (i.e., scores) to teachers' actual teaching in the classroom. This model helps researchers to carefully consider the extent to which teaching-quality scores represent the conceptualized construct (i.e., construct validity) and provides a framework for considering various dilemmas that arise when measuring teaching quality. We use the lens model to explore three dilemmas: (1) limitations in the availability and accessibility of cues that characterize constructs, (2) the variability of cues across instructional settings, and (3) the alignment of the unit of measurement and the unit of the construct. We provide guidance and suggestions for managing these dilemmas, which we hope will provide guidance for researchers seeking to measure teaching quality.

Background: Despite the relevance of adaptive performance feedback in teacher education, it remains unclear if it improves preservice teachers' noticing abilities. Aims: This study aimed to investigate the influence of feedback on teachers' noticing abilities, specifically in the context of visually attending to disruptions within a virtual reality (VR) classroom. We examined the effect of feedback conditions (adaptive/static/no feedback) on three aspects of teachers' visual attention performance (VAP): selective visual attention, visual scan scope, and visual sensitivity to significant events. Sample: The sample consisted of 98 preservice teachers who were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Methods: We used linear mixed-effects modeling to examine feedback effects in a VR classroom with eye tracking. VAP was measured by both subjective (self-report) and objective (the number of fixations on students versus on objects; the degree of dispersions of fixation locations; the number of seen disruptions and the average time to first fixate on a disruption) measures. Adaptive feedback was based on real-time process data from eye tracking and provided participants with individualized evaluations of their actions, while static feedback only offered generic recommendations. Results: We found that participants in both feedback conditions perceived their (subjective) VAP to be improving compared to the control group. But the actual objective VAP only improved for teachers receiving adaptive feedback. Conclusions: This study provides empirical support for using adaptive feedback systems based on real-time process data in enhancing preservice teachers' professional competence in noticing significant classroom events.

Mit der Einführung von Bildungsstandards und Vergleichsarbeiten im Schulsystem wurden Erwartungen hinsichtlich einer evidenzbasierten Unterrichtsentwicklung verbunden. Im Beitrag werden Befunde zur Datennutzung von Lehrkräften aus Lernstandserhebungen berichtet und mit der Literatur zum formativen Assessment sowie zum Unterrichtsfeedback mit dem Ziel der Unterrichtsentwicklung verknüpft. Aus diesen Literatursträngen wird ein heuristisches Modell der datengestützten Unterrichtsentwicklung abgeleitet und an Beispielen illustriert. Dabei unterstreichen wir die Bedeutung der Reflexion unterrichtlichen Handelns für die Unterrichtsentwicklung, welche im Modell im zyklischen Prozess der Definition einer Problemstellung, Nutzung und Sammlung von Daten, Analyse, Ableitung unterrichtlicher Maßnahmen und deren Evaluation durch multiple Datenquellen verortet wird.

Pedagogical/psychological knowledge (PPK) is a crucial part of teachers' professional knowledge. We examined the latent structure of preservice teachers' PPK and its relationship to learning opportunities provided as part of university programs in teacher education: content covered in university courses, and teaching experience provided through internships. Based on a sample of 1036 participants, the results confirmed a four-dimensional structure of preservice teachers' PPK. Course content explained differences in all dimensions of PPK. Teaching experience incrementally accounted for differences in the dimensions of instruction and individual learning processes and motivation, but not in the dimensions of classroom management or assessment.

Formative Assessment (FA) is a promising teaching practice for supporting students’ learning at school. However, implementing FA into teaching (mathematics) is challenging, effects of implementation of FA vary between empirical studies. Therefore, recent studies additionally consider instructional quality of teaching when analyzing effects of FA on students’ learning. The current exploratory study builds on this idea and highlights the added value of considering both generic and subject-specific instructional quality (GIQ and SSIQ) when analyzing effects of FA: Based on a re-analyzation of data from the research project Co2CA, 856 students from 39 mathematics classes of German middle schools took part in an intervention control-study aiming at implementing FA into mathematics education at school. On the student level, students’ mathematics achievement is assessed by standardized tests before and after the intervention. During the intervention, on the class level GIQ and SSIQ are assessed by low- and high-inference ratings of 72 video-taped lessons. GIQ is based on the model of Three Basic Dimensions, SSIQ is based on the normative idea that mathematics teaching should offer opportunities for a deep understanding of subject matter and for building up competencies. Multi-level regression analyses highlight different (interaction) effects of GIQ and SIQ on students’ performances. It becomes obvious: Considering GIQ and SIQ can have an added value for the better understanding of implementing FA into teaching (in mathematics education).

»Eine lebendige Klasse muss eng geführt werden«, »Feste Regeln unterbinden die Autonomie der Schüler:innen« oder »Wer keine natürliche Autorität hat, wird eine Klasse nie führen können«. Über Klassenführung kursieren diverse Glaubenssätze, die durch empirische Forschungsergebnisse widerlegt werden können.

Zusammenfassung Die Unterrichtswissenschaft feiert ein Jubiläum – sie erscheint im Jahr 2023 seit 50 Jahren. Dieser Beitrag ist die Einführung für das Jubiläumsheft (Heft 1, 2023). Er stellt zunächst die Gründung der Zeitschrift dar. Anhand der Protokolle der Herausgebersitzungen wird skizziert, wie sich die „Unterrichtswissenschaft“ als Zeitschrift der empirischen Lehr-Lernforschung entwickelt hat und welche Herausforderungen dabei zu bewältigen waren. Abschließend werden die bisherigen Überlegungen der derzeitigen Herausgeber*innen für die Entwicklung der Zeitschrift und der Lehr-Lern-Forschung vorgestellt.

Although promoting student interest is a pivotal educational goal, student interest in science, and particularly in physics, declines substantially during secondary school. This study focused on the long-term development of interest in physics at the lower secondary level (grades 5-7) and examined the role of teaching and teaching quality on the development. In particular, the study investigated the role of whether or not physics was taught in class and the role of perceived teaching quality for classes' interest trajectories. The results provide evidence of declining interest in physics from Grade 5 to 7, with stronger declines from Grade 5 to 6. Whether classes participated in physics teaching or not neither notably reduced nor increased interest in physics. However, several dimensions of perceived teaching quality (in particular, cognitive activation and cognitive support) mitigated the decline in interest.

When people navigate a space to perform tasks, their body and eye movements are closely linked. Within the classroom context, characteristics of teachers' body movements may be related to the noticing of relevant classroom events, in particular, visual attention to student disruptions. In the current study, we investigated this relationship in an immersive virtual reality (IVR) classroom that offered a standardized environment for tracking teachers' body and eye movements. Based on time series data collected during a short teaching task with 21 preservice teachers, we conducted K-means clustering with body movement features. We identified three distinctive patterns, which we labeled as immobile, anchored, and dynamic (body) movement patterns. Teachers with dynamic movement patterns venture away from the teacher's desk to far corners of the room; they don't dwell in one location for long but rather move continuously to various parts of the classroom, creating a dispersed movement. Dynamic movement patterns were associated with the best visual attention performance, defined as the number, speed, and duration of fixations on a classroom disruption. Our findings demonstrate the existence of unique and differentiable movement patterns among preservice teachers that have implications for teacher noticing, teacher–student interaction, and instructional quality.

Identifying personal characteristics associated with teachers’ stress is a longstanding research goal with important implications for practice. The present work revisits the effects of cognitive (intelligence) and non-cognitive (neuroticism, classroom management self -efficacy) teacher characteristics on stress using virtual reality (VR). Relying on a sample of 56 German pre-service teachers (Mage = 22.73, SDage = 4.93; 50.9% females), we capitalized on a VR classroom environment that allowed the integration of experimental control and authentic teaching situations, where pre-service teachers responded to the disruptive behaviors of the student avatars. We focused on stress responses in terms of psychological stress (self reported stress) assessed after the VR session, and physiological stress (heart rate) assessed during the VR. Results from linear mixed effects models revealed that neuroticism positively predicted psychological and physiological stress responses in pre-service teachers. Classroom management self-efficacy and intelligence were not significantly related to stress responses. This study underlines the value of VR as a tool for psychological research. Our findings contribute to existing knowledge on teacher characteristics and stress, and support the adoption of a personality psychology perspective to better understand teachers’ stress in challenging situations.

Video is a widely used medium in teacher training for situating student teachers in classroom scenarios. Although the emerging technology of virtual reality (VR) provides similar, and arguably more powerful, capabilities for immersing teachers in lifelike situations, its benefits and risks relative to video formats have received little attention in the research to date. The current study used a randomized pretest-posttest experimental design to examine the influence of a video- versus VR-based task on changing situational interest and self-efficacy in classroom management. Results from 49 student teachers revealed that the VR simulation led to higher increments in self-reported triggered interest and self-efficacy in classroom management, but also invoked higher extraneous cognitive load than a video viewing task. We discussed the implications of these results for pre-service teacher education and the design of VR environments for professional training purposes. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic Video is a popular teacher training medium given its ability to display classroom situations. Virtual reality (VR) also immerses users in lifelike situations and has gained popularity in recent years. Situational interest and self-efficacy in classroom management is vital for student teachers' professional development. What this paper adds VR outperforms video in promoting student teachers' triggered interest in classroom management. Student teachers felt more efficacious in classroom management after participating in VR. VR also invoked higher extraneous cognitive load than the video. Implications for practice and/or policy VR provides an authentic teacher training environment for classroom management. The design of the VR training environment needs to ensure a low extraneous cognitive load.

Video is a widely used medium in teacher training for situating student teachers in classroom scenarios. Although the emerging technology of virtual reality (VR) provides similar, and arguably more powerful, capabilities for immersing teachers in lifelike situations, its benefits and risks relative to video formats have received little attention in the research to date. The current study used a randomized pretest–posttest experimental design to examine the influence of a video- versus VR-based task on changing situational interest and self-efficacy in classroom management. Results from 49 student teachers revealed that the VR simulation led to higher increments in self-reported triggered interest and self-efficacy in classroom management, but also invoked higher extraneous cognitive load than a video viewing task. We discussed the implications of these results for pre-service teacher education and the design of VR environments for professional training purposes.

Identifying personal characteristics associated with teachers’ stress is a longstanding research goal with important implications for practice. The present work revisits the effects of individual characteristics in terms of neuroticism, classroom management self-efficacy, and cognitive (reasoning) abilities on stress using virtual reality (VR). Relying on a sample of 56 German pre-service teachers ( M age = 22.73 , SD age = 4.93; 50.9% females), we capitalized on a VR classroom environment that allowed the integration of experimental control and authentic teaching situations, where pre-service teachers responded to the disruptive behaviors of the student avatars. We focused on stress responses in terms of psychological stress (self-reported stress) assessed after the VR session, and physiological stress (heart rate) assessed during the VR session. A total of 30 (26) participants was assigned to a condition with higher (lower) levels of disruptive student behavior, referred to as higher and lower complexity condition, respectively. Results from linear mixed-effects models revealed that neuroticism positively predicted psychological and physiological stress responses in pre-service teachers, whereas classroom management self-efficacy and cognitive (reasoning) abilities were not significantly related to stress responses. Level of complexity and the interaction between complexity and individual characteristics did not have an effect. This study underlines the value of VR as a tool for psychological research and contributes to existing knowledge on teacher characteristics and stress.

Teachers frequently express stress associated with teaching in large classrooms. Despite the time-honored tradition in teacher stress research of treating class size as a job-related stressor, the underlying premise that class size directly impacts teachers’ stress reactions remains untested. In this randomized controlled experiment targeted at preservice teachers, we utilized a standardized virtual reality (VR) classroom to examine whether class size (number of student avatars) directly affected physiological (heart rate) or psychological (subjective rating) stress reactions among 65 preservice teachers. Results from linear mixed-effects modeling (LMM) showed that class size significantly predicted both their physiological and psychological stress reactions in the simulated environment: Average heart rate and subjective stress ratings were both significantly higher in the large class size condition. Further investigations into the causes of this association has been proposed. These findings may contribute to a better understanding of the effects of classroom features on preservice teachers’ emotional experiences and well-being.

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that recreates realistic scenarios in a controllable virtual environment. VR has been widely adopted in professional training of situational, adaptive, and complex skills within various occupations, yet the field of teacher education has only just started to utilize this technology in the recent decade. In order to advance the application of VR in teacher education, the current review presents a synopsis of state-of-the-art literature from 2010 to 2020. We conducted a review regarding the details of program implementation (e.g., VR system and simulated situations), intended outcomes (e.g., factual/conceptual or procedural knowledge), and measures used to evaluate the effectiveness of teacher education programs that implemented various VR systems. Based on the review of 46 empirical studies, we found that 1) VR-based training programs mostly targeted pre-service teachers, and that they most frequently simulated instructional situations; 2) VR has been used most often for fostering procedural knowledge; 3) the majority of studies reported positive results regarding the intended outcomes and the effectiveness of VR has been measured mostly by teachers’ self-reports. We also identified areas of improvement and future directions for the application of VR in teacher education and teacher education research.

Student teachers often struggle to keep track of everything that is happening in the classroom, and particularly to notice and respond when students cause disruptions. The complexity of the classroom environment is a potential contributing factor that has not been empirically tested. In this experimental study, we utilized a virtual reality (VR) classroom to examine whether classroom complexity affects the likelihood of student teachers noticing disruptions and how they react after noticing. Classroom complexity was operationalized as the number of disruptions and the existence of overlapping disruptions (multidimensionality) as well as the existence of parallel teaching tasks (simultaneity). Results showed that student teachers (n = 50) were less likely to notice the scripted disruptions, and also less likely to respond to the disruptions in a comprehensive and effortful manner when facing greater complexity. These results may have implications for both teacher training and the design of VR for training or research purpose. This study contributes to the field from two aspects: 1) it revealed how features of the classroom environment can affect student teachers’ noticing of and reaction to disruptions; and 2) it extends the functionality of the VR environment—from a teacher training tool to a testbed of fundamental classroom processes that are difficult to manipulate in real-life.

Das Modell der drei Basisdimensionen von Unterrichtsqualitat unterscheidet die Dimensionen kognitive Aktivierung, konstruktive Unterstutzung und Klassenfuhrung. Forschung aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen legt nahe, dass kognitive Unterstutzung in dem Modell nicht hinreichend berucksichtigt ist. Faktorenanalysen auf der Basis von Schulereinschatzungen zum naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht (2,659 Schuler*innen, Klasse 4 und 6) weisen in der vorliegenden Studie auf ein vierdimensionales Modell mit kognitiver Unterstutzung als separater Dimension hin. Kognitive Unterstutzung sagte zudem den Lernerfolg der Schuler*innen voraus. Die Ergebnisse unterstreichen, dass die Erganzung um diese Dimension zu einem vollstandigeren, aber dennoch sparsamen Modell von Unterrichtsqualitat beitragt.