How teachers develop skills for implementing differentiated instruction: Helpful and hindering factors

Abstract

By administering a self-assessment survey among 288 primary school teachers, we gained detailed insight into the implementation of strategies for differentiated instruction (DI) in mathematics. Besides implementation, we asked about the relative difficulty of each DI strategy, and about the factors helpful and hindering for the development of skills for implementing DI. The findings from the current study are in line with previous research, and provide additional and more detailed insights. Beginning teachers indicate their implementation of DI significantly lower than teachers with more than three years of experience. Strategies that are reported to be implemented more often, are also more often regarded easy to learn. Next to gaining experience and sufficient time for DI, an important factor for developing DI skills seems to lie in the community of practice within schools.