ZDM Mathematics Education (2013) 45:583–594
DOI 10.1007/s11858-013-0491-9
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Building coherence in research on mathematics teacher
characteristics by developing practice-based approaches
Mark Thames • Laura R. Van Zoest
Accepted: 1 February 2013 / Published online: 1 March 2013
Ó FIZ Karlsruhe 2013
Abstract Scholars have debated which teacher charac-
teristics are primary in determining teachers’ practice.
Some claim that identity is at the core of teachers’ ways of
being and acting; others argue that teachers’ actions depend
principally on their knowledge or beliefs. We argue that,
whichever is examined, it is important to study how
teachers use specific characteristics in their work, and how
the work of teaching is shaped by that use. We claim that
this can be done by addressing research questions about
teacher characteristics in ways that provide insight into
how they contribute to shaping interactions in class-
rooms—what we call a practice-based approach. To
develop and illustrate our argument, we discuss studies that
exemplify what we mean by a practice-based approach to
the study of a teacher characteristic and we unpack ways in
which these studies distinctively contribute to understand-
ing and improving practice. Further, we explore ways in
which the development of practice-based approaches might
support coherence across efforts to study different char-
acteristics and innovation in studies that consider the
interplay of different teacher characteristics in teaching.
Keywords Teacher identity
Teacher knowledge

Teacher beliefs
Practice
Research on teaching
M. Thames
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, USA
e-mail: mthames@umich.edu
L. R. Van Zoest (&)
Western Michigan University,
Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
e-mail: laura.vanzoest@wmich.edu
1 Introduction
Evidence that teachers matter is compelling. Studies
spanning the past 30 years indicate that: (1) after adjusting
for student background, roughly one tenth of the variance
in annual student achievement gains is associated with
teachers; (2) cumulative effects are even larger; and (3)
effective teaching substantially lessens differences in stu-
dent achievement predicted by student background, spe-
cifically differences predicted by race/ethnicity and social
class (Goldhaber, 1999; Nye, Konstantopoulos, & Hedges,
2004; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005; Rockoff, 2004;
Sanders & Rivers, 1996).
Although it is clear that substantial differences in
achievement gains are associated with differences in
teachers within schools, our ability to effectively concep-
tualize and to measure teacher quality remains limited
(Goe, 2007). As Goldhaber and Anthony (2007) point out:
‘‘There is a seeming contradiction between the fact that
teachers have a large impact on student achievement, but
specific teacher attributes are not consistently found to
directly impact student achievement’’ (p. 135). In short, we
know that teachers and teaching make a difference, but we
do not adequately understand how and why. With com-
pelling evidence that something about teachers matters, but
limited understanding of what matters, researchers have
investigated different, shifting avenues. Progress on iden-
tifying sizable and reliable effects on learning, though, has
been limited. For example, process–product research of the
mid 1900s investigated teacher behaviors associated with
achievement gains, but was unable to identify and under-
stand behaviors well enough to establish clear effects for
specific behaviors (see, e.g., Brophy & Good, 1986).
During the 1980s, significant attention shifted to teacher
knowledge (see, e.g., Fennema & Franke, 1992; Shulman,
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584
1987), thought processes (see, e.g., Clark & Peterson,
1986), and belief systems (see, e.g., Eisenhart, Shrum,
Harding, & Cuthbert, 1988; Thompson, 1992). Recent
work has continued to investigate these characteristics,
with additional attention to teacher identity and community
(see, e.g., Battey & Franke, 2008; Jaworski, 2012).
Although recent studies have made important advances,
many still focus on describing teachers as a distinct group
of people in relation to a given characteristic or to exam-
ining the relationship of a characteristic to general features
of schooling. Moreover, robust analyses of effects on stu-
dent learning using validated measures and examinations
of how given characteristics shape specific teacher actions
are rare. For example, some progress has been made on
measuring and analyzing effects of teachers’ mathematical
knowledge for teaching on student achievement (Baumert
et al. 2010; Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005; Kersting et al.,
2012; Rockoff, Jacob, Kane, & Staiger, 2011), but little is
known about how knowledge shapes classroom interac-
tions. Similarly, studies on teacher efficacy beliefs reflect
an attempt to consider ways in which teacher beliefs might
more directly influence teaching (e.g., Rubie-Davies, Flint,
& McDonald, 2012; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), but,
to date, no work develops and tests models for how these
beliefs shape what teachers do when teaching and what
students do when learning. Looking more broadly at
research on beliefs, Philipp (2007) identifies three major
areas: beliefs about student thinking, curriculum, and
technology. In each area, the relationship between beliefs
and practice is seen as important, but for the most part,
practice is only considered as ranked categories, such as
low, medium and high. Thus, the basic challenge of
explaining the large impact of teachers and using it to
improve teaching and learning remains.
In their review of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and
practices, Ponte and Chapman (2008) reach a similar
conclusion:
As we previously pointed out, many of the studies of
teachers’ beliefs and conceptions also tended to focus
on describing the nature of these teacher character-
istics as an end in itself with no real connections to
other aspects of teachers’ activities (p. 487).
Extending this point, we argue that research on teacher
characteristics would better inform the improvement of
classroom instruction if greater coherence were developed
between research and practice and among the different areas
of research on teacher characteristics. We propose that
coherence would be improved by developing practice-based
approaches to the study of teacher characteristics—
approaches that formulate questions about teacher charac-
teristics in explicit relationship to instruction and that
develop research designs and methods suited for the study
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M. Thames, L. R. Van Zoest
of these relationships. Such approaches would contribute to
the alignment of research and practice by routinely gener-
ating questions that have an immediate relevance to
teaching, by developing (of necessity) a language and
framing of practice, and by situating the study of teacher
characteristics within pedagogical contexts that provide a
sense of the ways those characteristics might make a dif-
ference in practice. The imperative of these approaches to
address the instructional dynamic would require work on
conceptualizing practice. This, in turn, would lead to shared
conceptual terrain across studies of teacher characteristics
and might well provide a basis for comparing, communi-
cating, and synthesizing studies.
We begin by proposing a set of requirements for
research on teacher characteristics to be in a position to
inform practice. We use this discussion to elaborate on
what we mean by practice-based approaches and why such
approaches would contribute to greater coherence between
research on teacher characteristics and practice. We then
examine several examples of practice-based studies and
use these to illustrate what attention to practice might
entail. By discussing different types of studies, we aim to
exemplify the generality of our argument for the study of
teacher characteristics and the variety of ways in which
researchers might take up the call for developing practice-
based approaches. We end by proposing ways in which an
increase in practice-based approaches might contribute to
greater coherence in the field.
2 Building coherence between research on mathematics
teacher characteristics and practice
We agree with Cohen, Raudenbush, and Ball (2003) that
the primary causal agents of student outcomes are situated
in instruction—‘‘within the interactions among teachers
and students around content, in environments’’ (p. 122).
They describe instructional interactions as occurring within
a triangular arrangement with vertices identified as stu-
dents, teachers, and content, and edges consisting of bidi-
rectional arrows that represent the influences of one on
another (see Fig. 1).
These interactions are key to learning. For instance, a
new curriculum will improve student outcomes only if,
with its adoption, interactions among teachers and students
around content are altered. If it is put on a shelf and not
used, it will not increase student learning. If it is used, but
in a manner that mirrors use of the prior textbook—sec-
tions rearranged to be familiar, problems and activities
extracted and deployed as before, explanations replaced
with tried-and-true ones—learning is unlikely to funda-
mentally change. The implication is that for any proposal
to succeed in increasing student learning it must change the
Building coherence in research
Fig. 1 Instruction as interaction (Ball & Forzani, 2007; Cohen et al.,
2003)
instructional dynamics that occur in classrooms. The
question to ask, then, is how research on teacher charac-
teristics can be done in such a way that it effectively
contributes to understanding impact on the interactions of
instruction. This question leads us to propose that research
on teacher characteristics would benefit from more
squarely focusing on instructional dynamics.
Our argument draws from that of Ball and Forzani
(2007), who are concerned with the issue of making edu-
cation research, across the board, relevant to practice. They
argue for research that deliberately presses into the
instructional dynamic, what they call ‘‘research in educa-
tion.’’ They call for studies that treat instruction, at various
grain sizes, as the key variable in educational problems and
they identify such research as the unique province of
education scholarship—one that education researchers
need to claim. They point out that, instead, researchers
often focus on one of the vertices of the instructional tri-
angle, or on the environment, rather than on the interac-
tions among them. They argue that as long as education
research is dominated by studies that focus on factors
remote from instruction or on components of the triangle
treated in isolation, it will continue to provide limited help
for understanding and improving practice. They propose
that the way to increase the relevance of education research
to practice is to turn its investigative gaze on questions that
directly relate to the instructional dynamic at play.
Research on mathematics teacher characteristics repre-
sents a case in point of the argument made by Ball and
Forzani. In particular, because the research is about char-
acteristics of teachers, it tends to focus on teachers without
attending to their interactive role in shaping the dynamics
of instruction. For example, researchers have investigated
questions about what teachers know or how teachers’
585
identities change during teacher preparation and through-
out their careers. Such questions, while potentially impor-
tant, do not address the dynamics of instruction and do not
have clear implications for practice. Even for characteris-
tics, such as teacher knowledge or teacher efficacy beliefs,
where studies have provided evidence of effects on student
learning, research has established little clarity about how
teacher characteristics influence the dynamics of instruc-
tion and, consequently, about what can be done to improve
teaching and learning. If the field is to address practical
problems, it needs to open up the proverbial black box and
understand the mechanisms at play. Short of this,
improvement efforts are left to intuition and good
intentions.
A practice-based approach to the study of teacher
characteristics involves investigating questions about the
role characteristics play in shaping instruction. At the core
of such an approach are research questions that probe
deeply into the heart of the instructional dynamic. For
example, such a study might ask about what a teacher
characteristic enables a teacher to do or impedes a teacher
from doing as she engages with students around content.
Or, it might examine how the teacher characteristic shapes
students’ perceptions of a teacher in ways that influence
what students do. Contrast this, for example, with a study
on teacher identity that focuses on how teachers see
themselves in relation to mathematics content, a study on
teacher knowledge that focuses on teachers’ understanding
of specific mathematics, or a study on teacher beliefs that
focuses on teachers’ beliefs about that content. All of these
would provide potentially useful information about math-
ematics teachers, but little assurance of the relevance of the
results for improving classroom instruction.
In addition, research questions that focus on the
dynamics of instruction call for theoretical tools and
research designs appropriate to the study of these dynam-
ics. For instance, a study might analyze video of classroom
interactions to identify ways in which a teacher charac-
teristic can serve as a resource for the work of teaching.
This would require a conceptualization of instruction,
teaching, resources, and relationships among them, as well
as associated methods. Or a study might use a theory of
instructional interaction, for instance, to design a student
survey about interactions that, once validated, could be
combined with teacher background and student achieve-
ment data to test hypotheses about how specific teacher
characteristics shape the dynamics of instruction to the
benefit or detriment of learning. (For instance, the Tripod
Instrument used in the Measures of Effective Teaching
study (Kane & Staiger, 2012) was based on a theory of
instruction and could be used in this manner.)
Practice-based approaches for research on teacher
characteristics have the potential to build coherence
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between research and practice. That is, if one takes such an
approach, practice is more likely to meaningful shape what
is studied and results are more likely to be useful to
practice. In the next section we offer several paradigmatic
examples to elaborate on our conception of practice-based
approaches for the study of mathematics teacher charac-
teristics and to illustrate the distinctive nature and benefit
of these approaches.
3 Examples of practice-based approaches to studying
mathematics teacher identity, knowledge, and beliefs
Next we discuss four examples of research on mathematics
teacher characteristics that illustrate what we mean by a
practice-based approach to studying mathematics teachers
and that clarify the difference between approaches to the
study of teacher characteristics that are practice-based and
those that are not. Our goal is to elaborate ways in which
such studies contribute to broad efforts to understand and
improve practice.
3.1 Example 1: using teacher identity to understand
how professional development makes its way
into classrooms
Noting the lack of research on how professional develop-
ment makes its way into classrooms, Battey and Franke
(2008) set out to understand ‘‘the dilemmas and choices
teachers face in making use of learned practices’’ (p. 127).
To do so, they adapted Holland et al.’s (2001) notion of the
ways in which a process of identity formation and refor-
mation occurs within existing personal and social contexts.
That is, they used identity development to analyze teach-
ers’ incorporation of their learning into their teaching
practice. As Battey and Franke described it, a focus on
identity offered opportunities to consider: (1) teacher
learning as a complex system situated in practice, (2) the
varieties of ways teachers participate in and make sense of
professional development, and (3) why professional
development can look very different as teachers take new
ideas and put them into classroom practice (p. 128).
To capitalize on these opportunities, Battey and Franke
analyzed participation, content-specific knowledge, and
teachers’ relationships with students, mathematics, and
colleagues. They generated a set of questions that addres-
sed each element in relation to instructional interactions in
the classroom. For example, with regard to knowledge,
they asked: ‘‘What content did teachers engage students in?
Could teachers anticipate how students would solve the
problem? What strategies did students use to find a solu-
tion?’’ (p. 135). Some questions could only be addressed
through classroom data, but others, though pertinent to
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M. Thames, L. R. Van Zoest
classroom interactions, could be answered from an analysis
of workshop video and teacher interview data. Aspects of
their research design, such as asking teachers to use the
same mathematics problem in their classroom as was used
in the professional development, positioned the researchers
to make connections between the teachers’ developing
identities and their instructional practice in ways that
would not otherwise have been possible.
From multiple sources of data, Battey and Franke
identified ways in which teachers’ identities shaped how
they engaged in the professional development program and
how teachers did and did not incorporate the resources
offered in the professional development into their class-
room teaching. They found that uptake required a rene-
gotiation of established patterns of interaction that had to
be co-constructed with students and that needed to be
understood in the context of teachers’ existing identities. In
particular, they found that the adoption of a new practice—
such as having students act out a problem—even when
implemented mechanically, provided the teacher with ways
of beginning to modify existing practice to be more
responsive to student thinking. Battey and Franke consid-
ered how the specific activities and the growing profes-
sional community supported teachers in renegotiation of
classroom practice. Their study raises important questions.
For instance, what is required for renegotiation to occur
and to what degree is teacher development idiosyncratic to
individual teacher narratives? Might there be a small col-
lection of archetype identities that shape ways in which
teachers integrate learning about teaching into their prac-
tice and could professional development plan for these?
Their study provides valuable documentation of a path
from collective work in professional development to
teaching and the role of teacher identity in shaping that
path.
This study provides a good example of a practice-based
approach to the study of teacher identity because of its
consistent focus on how teacher identity mediates the
process of incorporating ideas from professional develop-
ment into practice. Rather than simply looking at the
identities teachers exhibit, the challenges their identities
pose for them, or experiences that affect how they think
about themselves, Battey and Franke attended to how
teachers’ identities shape the ways in which they incor-
porate, and do not incorporate, ideas from professional
development into the dynamics of instruction.
Battey and Franke turn a basic question of the effec-
tiveness of professional development into one that asks
about specific ways in which work in professional devel-
opment shapes what teachers and students do. The theo-
retical underpinnings of the study explicitly connect
identity to instructional interactions. This can be seen in
their rationale for using Holland et al.’s (2001, p. 270)
Building coherence in research
conception of identity as ‘‘the means by which selves and
the sets of actions they organize form and re-form’’ to
examine ways in which teachers incorporate and do not
incorporate professional development into their teaching.
Similarly, it can be seen in their use of ‘‘storied identities’’
to ‘‘view how the teacher sees herself in relation to
teaching, to the content of mathematics, to her students,
and to her community’’ (p. 128) and their emphasis on
teachers’ use of professional identity to ‘‘navigate dilem-
mas’’ of instruction (p. 129). The researchers did not focus
on the teacher vertex alone, as is typical in identity work,
but rather on the instructional dynamic. This allowed them
to move beyond understanding the teachers’ identities as an
independent construct to understanding how identities
interact with practice.
In addition, the design of their intervention provided
opportunities to develop the teachers’ mathematical iden-
tities and to examine that development and its influence on
instruction. For example, the problem for the final profes-
sional development session was chosen to provide oppor-
tunities for teachers to discuss and expand their nascent
identities as mathematics teachers who engage students in
developing mathematical reasoning. Simultaneously, these
discussions provided the researchers with windows into the
teachers’ identities as they talked about their practice. The
connections to practice created by first observing the
teachers as they taught a lesson in their classroom centered
on the problem the teachers had worked with during the
final professional development session and then interview-
ing them about that lesson is not typical of data collection in
studies on identity. Specifically, this design not only col-
lected artifacts of practice, but also developed a structure to
look at the interrelationships between identity and practice.
Furthermore, the focus of the analysis on the three main
categories—participation, content-specific engagement,
and relationships—allowed the researchers to examine how
identity plays a role in instructional dynamics.
Finally, rather than stop with descriptions of the case
study teachers, the researchers used those cases to illustrate
how an understanding of teachers’ identities can be used to
support the development of those identities in ways that
others can use to design professional development. The
focus on identifying ways in which identity can be a
resource for practice and on implications for improving the
instructional dynamic by providing a mechanism for change
exemplifies the kind of benefit that might come from a
practice-based approach to the study of teacher identity.
3.2 Example 2: analyzing and measuring
the mathematical knowledge demands of teaching
Building on ideas developed by Shulman’s knowledge-
growth-in-teaching studies, Ball and Bass researched
587
mathematics teacher content knowledge. They hypothe-
sized that, in light of research that found little evidence that
teachers’ mathematics coursework could explain effects on
student achievement, there must be distinctive mathemat-
ical demands for teaching. Thus, they investigated the
entailments of teaching evident in records of classroom
instruction. Ball and Bass (2000) described their strategy as
turning the usual approach to studying teacher knowledge
on its head. Instead of measuring teacher knowledge and
looking for effects, they scrutinized what was happening in
classrooms and used this to consider knowledge that might
be useful. Contrasting their approach with ones that ask
what teachers need to know based on consideration of the
curriculum, they asked what teaching is and what its
mathematical demands are. In particular, they asked what a
practice of mathematical reasoning involves and what
mathematical knowledge demands for teachers arise in
establishing and maintaining a practice of mathematical
reasoning in classrooms.
To answer their questions, Ball and Bass (2000) used a
disciplinary understanding of mathematical reasoning to
view children’s mathematical reasoning in classroom
interactions, in particular in public talk. Their analysis
revealed ways in which children’s learning of mathemat-
ics—the successful construction of locally new knowl-
edge—depends on whether or not students develop
mathematical reasons for that knowledge. They identified
elements of teaching that build mathematical conviction
that is key for student learning and they considered ways in
which these elements create mathematical demands for
teaching.
Their study of mathematical demands evident in teach-
ing is an important example of a practice-based approach to
the study of teacher knowledge because it directly analyzes
the dynamics of instruction as the primary basis for con-
ceptualizing teacher content knowledge. Note that both
individual vertices of the instructional triangle and their
interactions play important roles in Ball and Bass’s anal-
ysis. They examine, as interrelated components, students’
reasoning and exchanges among students, ways in which
teachers might guide reasoning or introduce key language,
and mathematical issues that arise. It is the transactions
among the vertices that matter most. Student reasoning,
when it happens, is supportive of student learning. How-
ever, given the nature of student reasoning on a particular
problem, what teachers say and do—such as creating
public records as a means of firming up what can be taken
as known and naming ideas so that students can more
effectively communicate—plays an important part in
determining whether or not such reasoning occurs.
Understanding teaching in such ways has implications for
understanding the mathematical knowledge that would be
useful to teachers.
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Ball and Bass’s focus on the instructional dynamic
distinguishes their analyses from studies that investigate
teacher content knowledge by asking what teachers know
or do not know, what mathematics is involved in solving
problems in curriculum materials, or what knowledge is
being taught and learned in teacher education or profes-
sional development. Such studies can provide valuable
information and can contribute to specific aspects of the
problem of teacher content knowledge, for instance
informing the design of teacher education. However, they
do not contribute to understanding the unexplained impact
of teachers on students’ mathematical learning. Analysis of
video of instruction is on the rise in the study of teacher
content knowledge, but if research questions focus only on
what teachers know or on teacher learning, they will con-
tinue to provide limited understanding of what matters and
how it matters, in instruction, for student learning. Much
work remains to be done before we have a clear sense of
whether Ball and Bass’s identification of knowledge about
language and the role of a base of common knowledge in
mathematical reasoning would, as hypothesized, support
reasoning in classrooms, and thus contribute to an under-
standing of how content knowledge for teaching helps to
explain the important role of teachers. However, their
research question about the relationship between teacher
content knowledge and instructional interactions is central
to efforts to account for learning.
3.3 Example 3: supporting the development
of teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching
We now turn to an example of a study of teacher content
knowledge that focuses on the context of teacher learning,
yet investigates questions rooted in teaching and the
dynamics of instruction. Deciding that teacher content
knowledge is a key factor to improved instruction and that
teacher learning is best supported when activities are sit-
uated in artifacts of practice within a supportive profes-
sional community, Borko and her colleagues developed a
series of three interconnected workshops for teachers,
organized around a rich mathematical task (a model they
call a problem-solving cycle). In order to understand ways
in which the model supported the development of teacher
content knowledge, Koellner et al. (2007) asked: (1) what
opportunities for learning specific content knowledge arise
in different aspects of the work of teaching, and (2) how
does knowledge develop as it is needed and used?
To investigate these questions, Koellner et al. (2007)
carried out, studied, and refined their professional devel-
opment model. They used vignette analysis to create
characteristic stories of teachers’ engagement with math-
ematics and then identified themes related to the ways that
knowledge was developing. They found that domains of
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M. Thames, L. R. Van Zoest
mathematical knowledge for teaching were interconnected,
but that each arose in unique ways in teaching activities. In
particular, they reported on opportunities afforded by dif-
ferent kinds of pedagogical work, They foregrounded: (1)
specialized content knowledge in the early work of doing
the problem and initial lesson planning (e.g., in considering
multiple ways of solving and representing the problem); (2)
knowledge of content and teaching in the analysis of tea-
cher questioning (e.g., in considering which teacher ques-
tions were more likely and less likely to be effective with
specific mathematics and for specific purposes); and (3)
knowledge of content and students in the later work of
reflecting on the way a group of students had approached
the problem. In the latter case, they found that a structured
examination of student work significantly deepened
teachers’ understanding of the mathematics of the problem
and led them to consider ways they might better support the
variety of approaches students might use.
One contribution of Koellner et al.’s study is the detail it
provides about the ways in which specialized knowledge
about multiple ways of modeling and solving the problem
combine with pedagogical content knowledge as teachers
interpret student thinking and sequence instructional work.
A second contribution is the insight it provides into the
interplay between teachers feeling prepared to teach specific
content and seeing the need within their practice for knowing
more mathematics. On several occasions throughout the
workshops, teachers expressed their sense of feeling pre-
pared to teach the problem to students and seemed not
inclined to pursue mathematical investigation further, only
to re-engage in doing mathematics when something from
practice emerged as puzzling or problematic.
Their study provides an example of a practice-based
approach to the study of teacher knowledge because it
focused on where and how teacher knowledge work arises
inside practice. Rather than simply measure whether
teachers participating in the professional development
workshops learned mathematical knowledge for teaching,
the researchers attended to which aspects of teaching and
which related activities of the professional development
provided occasions for mathematical work. They were
interested in showing the extent to which teachers devel-
oped professional knowledge, but also in understanding
ways in which professional development activities can
provide opportunities for learning mathematics and ways in
which teaching can provide motivation for learning math-
ematics. The researchers recognized that important ques-
tions about teacher content knowledge and its development
need to be understood in relation to instances in which
specific content knowledge is demanded by specific peda-
gogical tasks. Their study provides insight not only into the
design of professional development, but also into ways in
which individual domains of mathematical knowledge for
Building coherence in research
teaching can be both prominent as well as interconnected in
different aspects of specific work of teaching. Because the
professional development had teachers teaching, videotap-
ing, and reflecting critically on their teaching, the
researchers were able to consider ways in which the
knowledge being developed in the workshops bore on
classroom interactions. A study that lacked this practice-
based focus on where and when such knowledge arises in,
and is needed for, teaching would provide limited insight
into what it was about the design of the problem solving
cycle that was important.
What distinguishes the approach taken by Koellner et al.
is its explicit focus on how teachers and students engage in
specific mathematics and interact with one another in their
work. Their study yields insights into the use of multiple
knowledge domains in the planning, implementation, and
reflection stages of teaching. It offers a clearer picture of
how the tight coupling between content and tasks of
teaching provides a basis for prompting teachers to take up
content issues that are a good match with teachers’ current
mathematical understanding and teaching practice. It also
shows how repeated cycling through stages of planning,
implementation, and reflection, even when some of the
cycle is expedited with video or only briefly considered,
can lead teachers to revisit and substantially expand on,
and demand more of, their mathematical understanding in
ways that matter for their learning and their teaching. Each
of these benefits contributes to the potential of research on
teacher knowledge to inform the improvement of practice.
3.4 Example 4: effects of professional learning
on teacher efficacy beliefs and student achievement
in light of teachers’ practice
In reviewing the literature on teacher beliefs, Pajares
(1992) claimed that an important requirement in defining
beliefs is that they be about something. Consistent with this
call, scholars have increasingly turned their attention to
specific beliefs. The increased focus and specificity has
been accompanied by more nuanced attention to why and
how beliefs matter, which has led to conceptualizations
that are more mindful of practice. A case in point is the
study of teacher efficacy beliefs. Teacher efficacy beliefs
have been shown to be associated with student achieve-
ment, but also with aspects of practice, such as teachers’
persistence in meeting their instructional goals and their
inclination to experiment with challenging strategies and to
take personal risks in their teaching (Tschannen-Moran,
Hoy, 2001).
Bruce, Esmonde, Ross, Dookie, and Beatty’s (2010)
study of the effects of a professional learning program on
teacher efficacy beliefs and student achievement illustrates
ways in which research on efficacy has begun to attend
589
more closely to practice. Expecting their professional
learning program to increase teachers’ sense of efficacy,
which in turn would increase student achievement, they
anticipated that increases for teacher efficacy beliefs and
student achievement would be uniform across districts or
that districts with lower pre-test scores would benefit more
from the program, thus leading to greater gains and the
closing of gaps across districts. Neither of these hypotheses
was supported by the data. To understand the different
effects on districts, they analyzed two districts, chosen
because the initially lower performing district out-per-
formed the initially higher performing district on measures
of both teacher efficacy beliefs and student achievement
after the program. They wanted to understand the dynamics
that would account for this unexpected outcome.
To investigate their questions, Bruce et al. analyzed both
quantitative and qualitative data, including observations of
classrooms and professional learning sessions and inter-
views with teachers and other school personnel. Their
analysis focused on how the program impacted teacher
learning communities, teaching practice, and student
learning in classrooms. They found that: (1) inflated tea-
cher efficacy beliefs can be disabling; (2) teachers’ sense of
efficacy operates indirectly on instructional dynamics by
influencing teachers’ goal setting and persistence; and (3)
prior professional learning can motivate teachers and pro-
vide tools for further learning.
This study has practice-based features and reflects ways
in which the study of teacher efficacy beliefs has increas-
ingly attended to practice and benefited from that attention.
As such, it allows us to make several points about practice-
based studies. First of all, the construct of teacher efficacy
beliefs includes mastery experience as a primary compo-
nent; namely, having success with challenging teaching.
It is not surprising then that, as Bruce et al. point out, there
is increasing evidence that teacher efficacy beliefs and
professional learning are reciprocal. When professional
development provides experiences with successful, chal-
lenging teaching, teachers’ sense of efficacy increases, as
does their students’ achievement, and when teachers are
successful and have an accurate sense of that success, they
are able to use professional development opportunities to
good advantage. Bruce et al. explore ways that specific
contexts and histories shape these influences. For instance,
they argue that because the initially higher performing
district had been focusing intensely on literacy instruction,
teachers’ successes with literacy seemed to lead to a false
sense of efficacy in other subject areas, and engagement in
the new mathematics professional development may have
done as much to expose weaknesses that eroded efficacy
beliefs as it did to provide experiences that generated
success and built a sense of efficacy. In contrast, the ini-
tially lower performing district had recently invested in
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building functioning professional learning communities for
mathematics teaching, thus the teachers had engaged in
thoughtful self-evaluation, recognized their need to
improve, and were positioned to use the professional
development effectively.
In addition, the design of the professional development
involved strong links between the work with teachers
outside the classroom and the teachers’ own classroom
practice. Teachers co-planned and co-taught or observed a
common lesson, collectively analyzed student work sam-
ples, and repeated this cycle. The links to practice created
opportunities for the professional development to explore
classroom dynamics and for researchers to gather data
about those dynamics and investigate ways in which other
constructs, such as teacher efficacy and student achieve-
ment, influenced and were influenced by those dynamics. It
is these opportunities that led Bruce et al. to recognize that
prior professional learning can be an important enabling
condition for engagement in current professional develop-
ment in ways that can contribute to evidence-based teacher
efficacy beliefs.
However, despite their attention to practical issues, the
primary research questions Bruce and her colleagues
investigate, and consequently the primary claims they
make, are a step removed from the kind of attention to
instructional interactions that serve to define practice-based
approaches. We do not mean this as a criticism of the
study, for we acknowledge that important contributions can
be made by studies that seek to identify factors and
investigate relationships among variables, but rather as a
comment on the limited extent to which the study can
directly contribute to understanding and improving
instructional dynamics. Bruce et al. demonstrate a concern
for and attention to practice, and many of the issues they
address on the inside of their study explore questions
related to practice. However, their primary research ques-
tions are about effects of professional learning on teacher
efficacy and student achievement, and their primary results
and implications are about these relationships. We suggest
that when, across a body of work on a teacher character-
istic, the formulation of research questions stops short of
explicitly addressing the dynamics of instruction—as it
does in the current literature on teacher efficacy beliefs—
the relevance for practice will be limited.
3.5 Summary
Research on teacher characteristics is motivated by the
desire to improve teaching and learning. In the studies
described above, researchers attended to the dynamics of
instruction and, in doing so, contributed to understanding
how teacher characteristics play a role in shaping interac-
tions in classrooms. More researchers engaging in such
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M. Thames, L. R. Van Zoest
work, we argue, would lead to greater coherence in
research on teacher characteristics and between that
research and practice. We do not mean to suggest that
teaching and doing research merge into a single activity.
These are fundamentally distinct activities. Instead, we
mean to highlight that education research, taken as a whole,
is at its core a practice-driven endeavor. In the long run, we
argue, practice-based approaches to research on teacher
characteristics would be more likely to generate research-
able questions and disciplined results that would support
the improvement of practice.
4 Building coherence across research on teacher
characteristics
In addition to research on teacher characteristics needing to
more directly examine the role of characteristics in shaping
the dynamics of instruction, another problem limiting
progress on understanding the importance of teacher
characteristics is that studies on a specific teacher charac-
teristic typically do not build on or contribute to research
on other teacher characteristics. For instance, research on
teacher knowledge does not make much use of research on
teacher identity to understand why knowledge is used in
some situations and not others, or why some teachers are
motivated to learn specific knowledge while others are not.
Research on identity does not often consider when and how
limited knowledge might keep a teacher from being the
kind of teacher they want to be. It is worth noting that
research studies on different teacher characteristics have
the same basic goal and that the teacher characteristics
being studied by different scholars necessarily interact in
the context of teaching. This suggests that research on
different teacher characteristics, if it is to understand the
impact of teachers and contribute to the improvement of
practice, needs to not only develop logical inquiry specific
to a characteristic, but also needs to develop as a collection
of interrelated studies. Unfortunately, several forces work
against this.
The development of research on different characteristics
represents different hunches about what matters for
changing teaching and learning. Much of the research on
teacher beliefs is motivated by the idea that beliefs shape
what one does and what one is open to learning (Pajares,
1992). It also stems from the widespread perception that
teacher education and professional development have
failed to bring about the reforms they seek to make because
teachers hold beliefs that cause them to be resistant to
proposed changes. In contrast, much of the research on
teacher knowledge is motivated by the idea that the prob-
lem is one of capacity. In this thinking, the problem of
teacher change is not a matter of resistance, but of the lack
Building coherence in research
of an identified body of professional knowledge (Ball &
Cohen, 1999). Much of the research on teacher identity is
motivated by the idea that what teachers do is a result of
who teachers understand themselves to be in relation to
social context (Korthagen, 2004). These differences in
commitments and theoretical footing across research on
teacher characteristics help to explain why research exists
as rather distinct camps.
We propose that concerted development of practice-
based approaches might lead to greater coherence across
the study of different teacher characteristics. Practice-based
approaches, because they are driven by dynamics arising in
practice, are more likely to bump up against different
teacher characteristics and interactions among character-
istics. For instance, a study investigating early career
expectations and fears about the kind of teacher one might
become, without examining their role in teaching, is more
likely to focus on developing better theory about dimen-
sions of identity and processes of change. Such a theory-
development focus makes it unlikely to contribute to an
understanding of the role of teacher knowledge in leading
to, or benefiting from, changes in identity. In contrast, a
study analogous to Battey and Franke’s—for instance, one
that examines how expectations and fears about future
identity shape and are shaped by early career teaching
experiences—is likely to raise practical questions about
conditions under which these influences unfold and fea-
tures of the demands and outcomes of teaching that emerge
as significant. Thus, such a study might generate questions
about teacher knowledge. This might lead to asking whe-
ther or not particular knowledge might exacerbate or
ameliorate fears as one begins to teach. The picture that
forms is one of research studies intimately invested in
understanding problems of practice and that increasingly
explores and lays bear the interrelated roles of different
teacher characteristics in shaping instructional dynamics.
We propose that, over time, practice-based studies of
different teacher characteristics may well develop a greater
degree of similarity in research questions—similar in the
sense that the questions may develop parallelism. Some of
this parallelism is likely to follow from the fact that
practice-based approaches focus on questions of how a
given teacher characteristic shapes and is shaped by the
dynamics of instruction. This focus still allows for many
different kinds of questions, but as research questions take
up problems of practice, structure may emerge, potentially
contributing to connections and coherence across studies.
In addition, practice-based approaches of different
characteristics would of necessity need to develop theo-
retical foundations for studying the dynamics of instruc-
tion. This would provide a shared reference point across
studies of potentially very different kinds. For instance,
Battey and Franke view teaching as the practicing of
591
identity in engagement with students and content in
classrooms. Their distinctively sociocultural, community-
of-practice conceptualization of practice is distinct from
Ball and Bass’s (2003) view of practice as carrying out
purposeful tasks based on personal, intellectual and mate-
rial resources. Despite these differences, both studies
structure analyses in terms that directly relate to compo-
nents of instruction described by Cohen, Raudenbush, and
Ball (2003). This leads to several opportunities to consider
potential interplay across the studies. For instance, one
component of Battey and Franke’s analysis, as a conse-
quence of their conceptualization of practice, involved
examining the content-specific knowledge features evident
in the interactions in classrooms (p. 135). It seems quite
plausible that Ball and Bass’s analysis of the mathematical
demands of teaching could contribute to Battey and
Franke’s analysis of content-specific engagement. Like-
wise, Battey and Franke’s analysis of the ways in which
identity can shape teaching begins to suggest what is
involved in developing skill to recognize different ways of
solving a problem and challenges that need to be consid-
ered in teaching teachers to see the methods students use to
solve problems. Ideas about potential interplay between
teacher identity and teacher knowledge may well grow out
of the intersections created when multiple studies engage in
an analysis of practice.
We do not mean to suggest that differences in per-
spectives and in the challenges of reconciling them would
disappear. Indeed, we see these differences (represented in
theoretical multiplicity) as an important source of vitality
for research on teacher characteristics. Instead, we propose
that structurally related research questions and the common
ground needed to theorize practice would provide impor-
tant mechanisms for productive coherence in research
(conducted using different theoretical foundations) that
aims to understand and be able to support the improvement
of teaching and learning.
5 Conclusion
Current research on teacher characteristics, in the main, has
fallen short of developing explanatory power and sup-
porting systematic improvement in the teaching and
learning of mathematics. We have argued that greater
coherence is needed between research and practice, and
among the different areas of research on teacher charac-
teristics, and that the development of practice-based
approaches to the study of teacher characteristics is a way
to accomplish this.
The examples illustrate how such approaches could
contribute to the alignment of research and practice. As
we saw with the Battey and Franke example, taking a
123
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practice-based approach can engender research questions
that have an immediate relevance to teaching. If these types
of questions were more common, it would lead to a deeper
understanding in the field about how research on teacher
characteristics could affect practice. The Ball and Bass
example highlights how studies taking a practice-based
approach develop language and framing linked to practice.
Doing their work required turning the usual approach to
studying teacher knowledge ‘‘on its head’’ and coming up
with alternative ways to talk and think about the relation-
ship between teacher knowledge and practice. The Koell-
ner et al. study exemplifies how practice-based studies
situate investigation of teacher characteristics within ped-
agogical contexts in ways that provide a sense of how those
characteristics might matter in practice. Their decision to
situate the development of teacher knowledge inside the
work of teaching provided information about how teacher
knowledge being developed in professional development
bears on classroom interactions.
The examples we have described also help us identify
important components of studies that take a practice-based
approach to studying teacher characteristics. Specifically,
commonalities of these studies include: (1) grounding
research questions in practice; (2) selecting research
methods that strategically position researchers to study the
instructional dynamics of interest; and (3) focusing on
results, conclusions, and implications that directly inform
an understanding of instructional dynamics.
Grounding research questions in practice sets the stage
for studies that pay attention to instructional dynamics. As
we saw in the case of the Bruce et al. study, it is possible
for a study to have elements of a practice-based approach,
however, if the study does not include research questions
that specifically attend to the interactions among compo-
nents that matter in instruction, it will fail to reap important
benefits of practice-based approaches. Formulating
research questions that focus on instructional dynamics is a
critical first step in designing studies that will contribute to
identifying teacher characteristics that account for teacher
effects. In saying this, we do not mean to diminish the
value of the Bruce et al. study, or any other. Instead, our
aim is to argue for the importance of practice-based
approaches within any portfolio of work that hopes to
understand factors key to improving teaching and learning.
Answering a practice-based research question requires
attention to conceptualizing the research design and
selecting the research methods. More important than the
type of method chosen are the strategic choices the
researchers make to draw on theoretical frameworks, col-
lect data, and focus the analysis in ways that allow the
study to get at the heart of the characteristic (e.g., teacher
identity, knowledge, or belief) as it plays a role in the
instructional dynamic. We see this, for example, in the
123
M. Thames, L. R. Van Zoest
attention the Battey and Franke study paid to practice in all
aspects of the research design and methodology, from the
theoretical underpinnings to the collection and analysis of
their data. Conceivably, most any method could be used in
the service of a practice-based study. Of course, methods
that include an interface with practice are obvious candi-
dates. For instance, design research and other approaches
that engage in different forms of teaching experiments may
well lend themselves to practice-based approaches because
they typically include data sources that provide a window
on practice. That said, such methods applied to research
questions that do not address relationships between teacher
characteristics and instructional dynamics will, of neces-
sity, fall short.
In addition to grounding research questions, design, and
methods in practice, a practice-based study presents and
interprets the results of the study through a practice-based
lens. That is, the choice of the results that are shared, the
focus of their interpretation, and the implications drawn are
all directed toward understanding impact on the instruc-
tional dynamic. We see this in the way that the Koellner
et al. study focused on presenting opportunities afforded by
the different kinds of pedagogical work in the professional
development sessions and what their findings meant for the
ways teachers might learn and use content knowledge in
instruction as well as for the researchers’ own professional
development work and that of others. Looking at results
through a practice-based lens positions studies to move
beyond understanding the teacher characteristic to under-
standing how characteristics interact with practice, identi-
fying ways in which they can be a resource for practice,
and understanding impact on instructional dynamics.
We close with an observation that arose from review-
ing studies in preparation for writing this article. Much of
the current work that takes a practice-based approach to
studying teacher characteristics involves developing
interventions and using those as a site for research. This
may be because of how difficult it is to study practice and
how little we know about how to do it. It is our
impression that the field lacks methods for studying the
dynamics of instruction per se. This observation returns us
to the argument that Ball and Forzani (2007) gave for
research-in-education as a specialized niche of education
research. The development of the study of instructional
dynamics is likely to require investment in developing
specialized methods—because research that draws on
methods developed to address problems unrelated to the
dynamics of instruction may gravitate back to the prob-
lems those methods were developed to study and away
from problems of instruction.
As we have tried to illustrate, the imperative to address
instructional dynamics requires work on conceptualizing
practice, formulating questions about practice, and
Building coherence in research
developing methods for studying it. Attention to these has
potential for creating shared conceptual and practical ter-
rain and a basis for comparing, communicating, and syn-
thesizing across studies in ways that might provide
valuable insights into ways of improving teaching and
learning. The examples above suggest that movement in
this direction may already be underway. We are excited to
be a part of this effort—one that may someday be able to
account for what Goldhaber (2002) referred to as the
mystery of good teaching.
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