A scoping review of 20 years of research on differentiation: investigating conceptualisation, characteristics, and methods used

Abstract

The use of a pedagogical practice known as ‘differentiation’ has become more common over time as educators have sought to respond to increases in the diversity of students enrolling in their local school. However, there are now so many misperceptions and definitional inconsistencies that it is difficult to know what is being enacted in the name of differentiation or indeed what is being researched internationally. The aim of this scoping review was to identify key characteristics of and conceptualisations within peer‐reviewed empirical research on differentiation published between 1999 and 2019, as well as to map the ways in which this body of research was produced. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were used to inform a systematic screening process and resulted in a final sample of 34 articles focusing on differentiation in regular schools. Half were conducted in the United States and most in the elementary school phase. Survey and case study designs were dominant, as was research of and influences on teacher practice. Only a small group of studies focused on differentiation's impact on student outcomes and these typically only examined specific elements of differentiation or its use in specific academic domains. The diversity of focus and methodological approaches across the 34 studies prevents comparison of findings and weakens the evidential basis to make claims of either differentiation's effectiveness or indeed its ineffectiveness. The review concludes with recommendations for future research and practice in this important area of practice.

Voices in practice: challenges to implementing differentiated instruction by teachers and school leaders in an Australian mainstream secondary school

“…Overall the barriers presented by the teachers in our study are somewhat similar to those experienced by many teachers globally (Graham et al, 2021;Lavania & Nor, 2020) and highlight the necessity for teachers to be provided with the necessary means to enable them to effectively implement DI. This includes time for curriculum and instruction planning, expanding teacher resources so that teachers can create the necessary teaching materials required to ensure all students are engaged in the learning process, and a flexible classroom environment which encourages student motivation and learning.…”

The Benefits of Cooperative Learning of Language in Different Subject Lessons as Seen by Primary School Pupils: The Case of One Lithuanian City School

“…For this reason, it would be useful to differentiate the instructions for the activities and to explain to the pupils in more detail why they should listen to others' opinions and how to do this in a good way. ese insights from the study are supported by the work of other researchers [42][43][44][45][46][47]. In addition, pupils' attitudes towards cooperative learning should be more closely linked to direct achievement, as lowachieving students are more in need of additional learning support [42].…”

“…For low-achieving pupils in the classroom, well-structured learning interventions are important [43]. However, differentiation of educational content is a complex process, although it helps to address equity issues [44] when it considers the child's individual needs and capabilities. Future research could organise activities to find out what roles children have had in cooperative learning and link their individual contributions directly to their responses to the questionnaire.…”

Class composition, student achievement, and the role of the learning environment.

“…Overall, differentiated instruction has been proposed as a powerful instructional strategy to address diverse student needs (Tomlinson, 2014). However, because differentiated instruction has been conceptualized in diverging ways (Graham et al, 2021), estimates of its association with student achievement have been inconsistent, ranging from very weak (Seidel & Shavelson, 2007) to moderate (Smale-Jacobse et al, 2019). In this study, we defined differentiated instruction as instructing students with different capacities differently, for example by providing students with different tasks according to their ability.…”