Are teachers consistently effective across subject matters? Revisiting the issue of differential teacher effectiveness

Abstract

Although consistency in teacher effectiveness has attracted scholarly interest since the 1960s, revived interest in differential teacher effectiveness is recently witnessed, with empirical studies more systematically testing this assumption. Most of these studies, however, focus on cognitive outcomes in “core” subject matters. Drawing on 2 subject matters with differences in teaching context and targeted learning objectives, mathematics and physical education, in this study, we examined how consistent 18 elementary schoolteachers were in promoting student cognitive and psychomotor learning outcomes; we also investigated the consistency in instructional quality across their lessons, as measured by a generic observational instrument. The study provides evidence supporting teacher differential effectiveness across curriculum areas. We discuss the practical implications of the study findings for summative and formative teacher evaluation, their theoretical implications for developing differential models of teaching effectiveness, and their methodological implications for exploring teacher effectiveness using value-added models and classroom observation data.