Missing link: how teachers’ understanding of student common struggles is key to their instructional response

Source abstract

Abstract Teachers’ knowledge of common student struggles is instrumental for effective teaching and student learning. However, how this knowledge informs teachers’ instructional responses to help students overcome such struggles lacks a clear explanation. In this research, we used a mixed-methods approach to investigate how teachers’ characterization of and rationale for common student struggles is related to their reported instructional strategies. The results indicate that the reasons teachers provided for why students demonstrated these struggles were closely related to the ways in which they reported addressing these struggles during instruction.