Dialogic teaching practices and student performance in mathematics in Asian countries

Volker Schöer; Jose G. Clavel; Volker Schöer; Jose G. Clavel

doi:10.3934/math.20241391

AIMS Mathematics

2024, Volume 9, Issue 10: 28671-28697. doi: 10.3934/math.20241391

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Research article Special Issues

Dialogic teaching practices and student performance in mathematics in Asian countries

Volker Schöer ^1,2,
Jose G. Clavel ^{3
,
,}

1.
School of Economics and Finance, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
2.
School of Business and Economics, University of Tübingen, Germany
3.
Department of Quantitative Methods, Universidad de Murcia, Spain

Received: 29 June 2024 Revised: 14 August 2024 Accepted: 06 September 2024 Published: 09 October 2024
MSC : 97A40, 97C50, 97D10, 97D40

Improving the mathematics performance of school children is an objective for many policy-makers around the world. Student-centered interactive pedagogies like classroom discussions and other dialogic interaction practices have been considered the best practice to engage learners effectively in the learning process. However, dialogic teaching practices are least used in most Asian countries that on average achieve the highest mathematics scores in international assessments. Based on this conundrum, this paper utilized a large-scale education dataset for five Asian countries, namely the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) dataset for learner data from Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore to examine the relationship between dialogic classroom interaction teaching practices and the mathematics performance of 8th-grade learners. Using a within-learner-between-subject estimation strategy to account for endogeneity, we established that learners who are taught more frequently through dialogic interactive teaching practices in mathematics classes achieve higher mathematics scores. Our results confirm that interactive pedagogies do provide learning benefits, even in countries that use them sparingly. Thus, our findings challenge the held assumption that the efficacy of dialogic classroom interaction practices is context and learning culture specific. Nevertheless, our study also shows that the highly endogenous nature of the teaching and learning environment and learner performance limits the ability of any study that uses observational data to establish the true impact of dialogic practices on learner mathematics performance.
- TIMSS,
- plausible values,
- teaching mathematics strategies,
- student achievement,
- dialogic classroom interaction pedagogies,
- Asian teaching and learning culture,
- Chinese learner paradox
Citation: Volker Schöer, Jose G. Clavel. Dialogic teaching practices and student performance in mathematics in Asian countries[J]. AIMS Mathematics, 2024, 9(10): 28671-28697. doi: 10.3934/math.20241391

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Abstract

Improving the mathematics performance of school children is an objective for many policy-makers around the world. Student-centered interactive pedagogies like classroom discussions and other dialogic interaction practices have been considered the best practice to engage learners effectively in the learning process. However, dialogic teaching practices are least used in most Asian countries that on average achieve the highest mathematics scores in international assessments. Based on this conundrum, this paper utilized a large-scale education dataset for five Asian countries, namely the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) dataset for learner data from Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore to examine the relationship between dialogic classroom interaction teaching practices and the mathematics performance of 8th-grade learners. Using a within-learner-between-subject estimation strategy to account for endogeneity, we established that learners who are taught more frequently through dialogic interactive teaching practices in mathematics classes achieve higher mathematics scores. Our results confirm that interactive pedagogies do provide learning benefits, even in countries that use them sparingly. Thus, our findings challenge the held assumption that the efficacy of dialogic classroom interaction practices is context and learning culture specific. Nevertheless, our study also shows that the highly endogenous nature of the teaching and learning environment and learner performance limits the ability of any study that uses observational data to establish the true impact of dialogic practices on learner mathematics performance.

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