1. Exploring Hong Kong Secondary School Teachers’
Teaching Beliefs of Differentiated Instruction
Coby Ka-Yau WU
Sally Wai-Yan WAN
Ylena Yan WONG
Faculty of Education
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Corresponding email: sallywywan@cuhk.edu.hk
ABSTRACT
• Catering for learner diversity is one of the key concerns in
Hong Kong curriculum reform.
• Differentiated instruction is introduced in teacher training
sectors.
• With the use of a survey and focus group interviews, this
mixed-method study attempts to explore teachers’
beliefs of differentiated instruction in two Hong Kong
secondary schools.
INTRODUCTION
Differentiated instruction:
• Aim of differentiated instruction:
• To address the diverse needs of individual learners
who are provided with an opportunity to work at a
moderately challenging level (Tomlinson et al., 2003)
Teaching beliefs:
• Definition of teaching beliefs:
• “tacit, often unconsciously held assumptions about
students, classrooms, and the academic material to be
taught” (Kagan, 1992: 65)
• Teachers play a vital role in developing classroom
routines that address learner variance
• Whether Hong Kong teachers are able to successfully
carry out differentiated instruction depends on their
teaching beliefs.
OBJECTIVES
• To investigate in-service teachers' teaching beliefs of the
use of differentiated instruction
• To inform teacher educators in pre- and in-service
teacher education
• Research question: What are in-service
teachers‘ teaching beliefs with respect to differentiated
instruction?
METHODOLOGY
Mixed methods design:
• A questionnaire to two secondary schools
• Two focus group interviews
Questionnaire
• To explore teachers’ teaching beliefs upon inclusive and
differentiated teaching practices
• Based on Scott & Spencer’s (2006) 15-item scale about
teaching beliefs upon differentiated instruction
• 6-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree to 6=strongly agree)
Semi-structured interviews
• To obtain in-depth information
• Use of guiding questions in an interview guide
Data Analysis:
• The quantitative data was analyzed including frequencies,
percentages, means and standard deviations
• Interview data was analyzed by the use of constant
comparative method and found the similarities or
differences
RESULTS
• Positive attitudes towards differentiated instruction, with
a mean score of 4.46 (S.D.=0.73) [Table 1]
• Teachers’ teaching beliefs towards differentiated strategies
(M=4.54, S.D.=0.73) are stronger than that of inclusive
education (M=4.26, S.D.=0.73) [Table 1]
• Teachers were doubtful about the effectiveness of
inclusive education.
• Both quantitative and qualitative data reveal that teachers
tended to use teacher-centered approaches in
differentiated instruction.
• Great concerns about big class problem as brought by
inclusive education, for example, big teacher-student ratio.
• Family support was regarded as an important
environmental factor affecting differentiated instruction.
RESULTS
CONCLUSION
• Teachers generally held positive attitudes towards
differentiation.
• Teachers faced struggles towards differentiation due to
high-stake examinations and inclusive education.
• To achieve effective differentiated instruction, careful
considerations should be attempted at different aspects.
Poster presented at the ISATT 2015, Auckland, New Zealand, 14 July 2015
LIMITATIONS
• Use of self-reported findings only
• Not intend to make generalizations to other schools or
countries
• Suggestions for further research
• Combined with class observation, professional
development records, and journal entries
• In-depth understanding in the Asian context
“Is this really the best method to students?”
(S01-19 written comment)