Abstract:

Teaching quality reflects teacher behaviours in the classroom and always contributes to students learning outcomes (Hattie, 2008). Previous studies have shown the relationships between classroom composition, teacher background and teacher characteristics and teaching practice/teaching quality (GOE, 2007). The Confucian Regions maintain the leading status in the results of large-scale international assessments (PISA, TIMSS, PIRL), with the top-performing in mathematics, science and reading subjects. This, therefore, dives us to explore what direct and indirect associations between these indicators and teaching practice across Confucian Regions.

The following research questions will lead our study:
(1) What are the measurement properties of teaching practice from teachers’ perceptions? Is it possible to compare teaching practice across diverse educational systems?
(2) Which teacher personal and professional characteristics are significantly related to teaching practice? Is it possible to identify the similar relational patterns that exist across countries/regions?
(3) To what extent do classroom context features explain variations in teaching practice?

The total participants for six Confucian Regions (i.e., China-Shanghai, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam) in TALIS 2018 consists of 21,402 teachers in 1,122 schools. All analyses were set up in Mplus 8.4 (Muthén & Muthén, 2017). Bifactor-exploratory structural equation modelling (B-ESEM) was applied to test the multidimensionality of teaching practice. We tested the measurement invariance using multi-group modelling to evaluate whether it is appropriate to make a cross-country/region comparison. If the metric invariance level was reached, the path analysis was set up to demonstrate the mechanism patterns through classroom context features and teacher characteristics were related to teaching practice.

B-ESEM identified the general factor-teaching quality and three specific factors and the model reached to metric invariance level - making country-comparison. The relations were examined in path analysis, in which all teacher personal and professional characteristics regressed on the general factor and three specific factors. The model fitted the data well in each country/region. However, diverse mechanisms existed in different countries/regions, but similar patterns were identified in some clusters. Six separate path analyses were performed to examine the relationships between classroom context features and teaching practice. The results Teacher perceived disciplinary climate were significant predictors of rating of the general factor teaching practice in four countries/regions. Classroom composition and teacher-student relations were only significant in a small number of countries/regions. Classroom academic environment was not significantly related to the teaching practice in any country/region. The consistent and positive relationship between classroom composition and cognitive activation were found in Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Considering the predictors to classroom management, disciplinary climate showed a consistent relationship across the six countries, but the relationship was inconsistent for the classroom academic environment.

Keywords:

Teaching practice, TALIS 2018, teacher characteristics, classroom composition, classroom climate.