Synthesizing research on teaching quality

Scientific progress in research on teaching quality has been slowed by thematic fragmentation, competing theoretical and methodological approaches, and an inadequate infrastructure for collaborative research. However, over the last years significant improvements have been made in ways of conceptualizing, operationalizing, and measuring teaching quality. Innovations in video-based classroom research have created promising opportunities for collaboration between researchers in the joint analysis of data, and for reusing data by letting new researchers study the video material produced by primary researchers’ e.g. secondary analysis. SYNTEQ implements a model of programmatic research stages that will produce added value to extant research on teaching quality by strengthening: (1) the integration of qualitative and quantitative video data, (2) the reuse of video data in secondary analyses and collaborative research, thereby creating (3) new potentials for conceptual validation, instrument development, and (4) theoretical and methodological development relevant for comparative classroom studies. SYNTEQ is designed as a project where researchers involved in secondary analysis partly overlap with the primary researchers. Through re-analyses, joint coding workshops and expert panels (researchers and teachers), the project refine and test out different frameworks across various approaches to inquiry such as standardized observation manuals and different qualitative approaches (i.e. ethnography, thematic analyses, subject specific analyses) These activities draw on the primary data produced within : (1) the LISA project with video observations from about 100 Norwegian lower secondary classrooms in language arts and mathematics (N= 400 lessons) and (2) similar data coordinated within the Nordic Center of Excellence Quality in Nordic Teaching (NordForsk) from lower secondary 150 classrooms in all five Nordic countries (N= 500 lessons).

In an era where education has become a key factor in shaping global economic and social development, teaching is being recognized as a key aspect impacting students learning. However, research on teaching quality has been slowed by thematic fragmentation, a multitude of small-scale studies and competing theoretical paradigms/methodological approaches. SYNTEQ will reframe research on teaching quality by developing programmatic and collaborative research for secondary analyses of classroom video studies. It combines a validation of observation manuals, the development of a safe and flexible eInfrastructure for secondary video-based analyses and a synthesis of a large corpus of primary data and analyses from Nordic classrooms - in the most important school subjects at lower secondary level. The project integrates correlative multi-level analyses and qualitative process analyses of classroom interaction that provide complementary evidence for theory development. The researchers behind SYNTEQ represent an excellent mix of expertise in the relevant methodological and substantive areas, and the project is supported by international leading educational researchers. The added value of SYNTEQ comes from bundling the primary research of teaching quality in the Nordic countries, the timely reanalysis of the empirical material on teaching quality and an embedded validation of observational manuals, thus multiplying the potential for theoretical and methodological development. This synthetization and integration is going to strengthen the development of a long-term research agenda that will take a leading role in international research on teaching quality.