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Do Teachers’ Instructional Practices Moderate Equity in Mathematical and Scientific Literacy?: an Investigation of the PISA 2012 and 2015

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A Correction to this article was published on 01 August 2018

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Abstract

Many efforts have been made to reach educational equity, especially to reduce mathematics and science achievement gaps by students’ socioeconomic status. Across countries, educators strive to reform traditional teacher-centered instructional approaches to more student-centered/inquiry-based instruction to improve equity in education. In this context, this study examines whether relationships between socioeconomic status and scientific or mathematical literacy are moderated by student-centered instruction. Ten countries covering a wide range of achievement levels as well as equity in education are selected for an international comparison. A linear regression analysis is applied to student achievement, equity, and frequency of student-centered instruction data from the PISA 2012 and PISA 2015. We find mixed results: As student-centered instruction is offered more frequently, the gap in mathematical and scientific literacy between low and high socioeconomic status is generally narrowed or maintained. In most countries, students’ mathematical and scientific literacy scores are expected to decrease across all socioeconomic status as student-centered instruction is given more frequently. The findings necessitate further scrutiny of how teachers implement student-centered instruction in various educational systems. This further research need to consider the complexity of implementation related to sociological and pedagogical aspects.

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Change history

  • 01 August 2018

    This correction stands to correct Fig. 1 and Table 4 in the original article. This correction is due to Fig. 1 not having the red circles showing the strength of the socioeconomic gradient mean performance of the 10 selected countries. Additionally, some coefficients in Table 4 were not interpretable, which should be corrected.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Iowa, Iowa City, 52242, IA, USA

    Jihyun Hwang, Yejun Bae & Dong Hoon Shin

  2. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Kyong Mi Choi

Authors
  1. Jihyun Hwang
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  2. Kyong Mi Choi
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  3. Yejun Bae
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  4. Dong Hoon Shin
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Correspondence to Jihyun Hwang.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 Linear models of the relationships between mathematical literacy and index of economic, social, and cultural status moderated by student-oriented instruction in PISA 2012
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Table 6 Linear models of the relationships between scientific literacy and index of economic, social, and cultural status moderated by inquiry-based instruction in PISA 2015
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Hwang, J., Choi, K.M., Bae, Y. et al. Do Teachers’ Instructional Practices Moderate Equity in Mathematical and Scientific Literacy?: an Investigation of the PISA 2012 and 2015. Int J of Sci and Math Educ 16 (Suppl 1), 25–45 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-018-9909-8

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