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Correction to: Educational Psychology Review (2024) 36:34https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09870-5

The extent to which teacher assessments reflect students' abilities in creative problem solving, i.e., the ability to produce original, complete, and practical ideas, was examined. 610 Dutch students from 4th to 6th grade were assessed with two tasks. The alignment between teachers (N = 26) and trained raters (N = 2) was studied for both absolute assessments and the relative ordering of students' scores. The main finding of this study was that elementary school teachers were able to assess creative problem solving in a relative way. Teachers' creative problem solving assessments were not affected by students’ gender or academic achievement.

In some tracked educational systems, track recommendations are formulated by primary school teachers to determine the secondary school level that students will be allocated to. While teachers mostly base their track recommendations on students’ prior achievement, the extent to which teachers also consider perceived student attributes, such as students’ perceived work habits or parental involvement, and the extent to which these perceived student attributes are predictive for secondary school performance is unclear. Therefore, we first investigated the extent to which teachers consider their perceptions of student attributes in their track recommendations (RQ1). Differences between students from different backgrounds and differences between teachers were taken into account. Second, we examined the extent to which primary school teachers’ perceptions of student attributes are predictive for their secondary school performance (RQ2). Participants were 17,953 Grade 6 students from 1105 Dutch primary school teachers (RQ1) and 4150 Grade 9 students from 1289 Dutch secondary school classes (RQ2). Data used in this research were analysed using multilevel models. Findings indicated that teacher-perceived student attributes played only a minor role in track recommendations and secondary school performance. Yet the extent to which these attributes were considered by teachers differed based on students’ background and differed between teachers. For secondary school performance, teacher-perceived student attributes to have limited predictive value. The limited predictive value of teacher-perceived student attributes for students’ performance in secondary education suggests that teachers may need to be careful with taking perceived student attributes into account when formulating track recommendations.

We explored the potential of using a peer relations approach for researching children’s citizenship in elementary classrooms. Children express or enact citizenship through their behavior toward classmates and the relationships they engage in (i.e., lived citizenship). These behaviors and relationships can be more or less in line with goals for citizenship education. We propose that, through peer relations methodology, these behaviors and relationships can be assessed systematically. In addition, some of the widely researched behaviors and relationships in peer relations research already closely align with goals for citizenship education. With this theoretical and methodological argument, we consider recent publications on classroom behaviors (i.e., prosocial behavior and aggression) and relationships (i.e., positive and negative affect) and their meaning for exemplary goals for citizenship education (i.e., solidarity, peace, and social cohesion). We show how individual children and classroom peer groups differ in these regards and thus in their citizenship and how these differences can be stratified by gender, ethnic background, and socioeconomic status. Specific attention is paid to the role of teachers, as organizers of the social structures in their classrooms and as educators who can promote citizenship. Finally, we propose new ways for using peer reports to study citizenship in elementary classrooms more directly and to discover potential avenues for teachers to foster citizenship through peer relations.

For students who perform inconsistently across subjects, teachers face challenges in formulating track recommendations, as their achievement will not point to one secondary school track. This issue may be more prominent for students from diverse backgrounds, given the achievement differences between specific subject domains within these groups. Therefore, we examined the impact of achievement inconsistency (by comparing standardised achievement levels between reading comprehension and mathematics within students) on students’ track recommendations in the Dutch educational system (N = 4,248). Most student perform rather consistently. Approximately 20% of the students performed inconsistently (>1 SD difference between subjects). While the overall effect of inconsistency on track recommendations was small, achievement inconsistency primarily seemed to affect track recommendations when the inconsistency was moderate to large. Teachers formulated more “careful” (i.e., lower) track recommendations when the inconsistency was large. This effect was slightly more pronounced for higher-SES students, with no gender differences.

Aims: Two studies are reported to give insight in the nature of creative problem solving in primary school students. Study 1 focused on the process and aimed to determine to what extent behaviors in response to a task matched the Creative Problem Solving model (CPS model; Isaksen et al., 2011; Treffinger, 1995). Study 2 focused on the product and aimed to determine the relations among creative problem solving outcomes and the overlap of these outcomes with divergent thinking and academic achievement outcomes. Sample: 13 fourth graders participated in Study 1; 594 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders participated in Study 2. Methods: In study 1, students were asked to think aloud while completing a structured task. Their behaviors were coded based on the CPS model. In study 2, students completed similar tasks for three problem situations. Students’ ideas were rated on four CPS indicators. A measurement model and structural model were tested. Results: Study 1 showed that behaviors could be described with the CPS model. All elements were found: understanding the challenge, generating ideas, preparing for action, and planning your approach. The number of utterances within elements and the sequence of the creative problem solving processes varied across students. Study 2 showed that the relations of the creative problem solving indicators corresponded with theory and with relations found in earlier studies. Conclusions: The CPS model can be applied in the primary school context and creative problem solving capability is already evident in primary school students.

Zolang we het leraarschap als statisch blijven zien, zullen we de problemen rond de lerarenopleidingen niet structureel kunnen oplossen. Het perspectief van een beroep waarin leraren zich gedurende hun loopbaan professioneel blijven ontwikkelen zou dan ook leidend moeten zijn voor de inrichting van de opleiding.

In deze bijdrage van de Universiteit Utrecht wordt beschreven hoe docenten van de lerarenopleiding adaptieve expertise voorleven om de ontwikkeling van adaptieve expertise van studenten te ondersteunen

This chapter discusses six transnational forces in Dutch education over the last 60 years. These forces were inspired for the larger part by a mix of elements with a societal background and by educational research studies: (1) New Public Management and the autonomy of schools’ governing bodies; (2) Striving for equity in education which led to fighting early stratification; (3) Designing education and specifically teaching based on evidence with a continuous debate on what counts as evidence; (4) Social constructivism as a source for inspiration of a new pedagogy in secondary education; (5) The gimmick of the knowledge society and its curricular implications; and (6) International benchmarking of student outcomes. For the influence of the role of evidence in education and the social constructivist turn in education, the developments in the Netherlands seem to follow the transnational forces quite well with little national counterforces. For New Public Management and school autonomy, fighting early tracking, and international benchmarking, we can see that national influences among others inspired by the constitution are competing with the transnational ones and at times even seem to be stronger. Before discussing these forces, we sketch the Dutch educational system in order to understand the context of these forces in Dutch education. Specifically, we focus on the role of the Dutch constitution, the inspectorate, and the final examinations in secondary education in guaranteeing the quality of education. This chapter is concluded with a short note on the influence of digitalization and commercialization.

In dit whitepaper richten we ons op de oplopende lerarentekorten die een steeds groter maatschappelijk probleem vormen. In diverse adviezen is aangedrongen op meer landelijke regie op de maatregelen om deze tekorten terug te dringen, rekening houdend met verschillen in regionale situaties. Recent hebben de ministers van OCW hiertoe beleid ontwikkeld. Daarbij wordt niet alleen ingezet op meer regie, maar ook op meer uitgewerkte kaders voor HRM-beleid in het onderwijs, meer tijd voor leraren door het beter benutten van de kaders voor het organiseren van de onderwijstijd, en meer ruimte voor professionele ontwikkeling van leraren. In onze bijdrage aan de discussie formuleren we een aantal aangrijpingspunten om het beleid gericht op het terugdringen van de lerarentekorten verder te ontwikkelen. Analyses van de oorzaken van het lerarentekort vormen daarbij het startpunt.

Disciplinary knowledge lies at the heart of academic work. However, connecting academics’ disciplinary knowledge to their professional development as teachers has been a longstanding challenge for (research-intensive) universities. This is reflected in criticism of the practices that aim to support the professional development of university teachers. In order to create better connections, a deeper understanding is needed of how academics’ disciplinary knowledge relates to the development of their teaching. In this paper, we therefore aim to advance theoretical insights about how academics’ disciplinary knowledge connects to their professional development as university teachers. We do so by providing a conceptual analysis of teacher expertise and teacher knowledge perspectives. Literature discussed as part of the teacher expertise perspective provides insights into how knowledge is structured in order to perform teacher tasks. In our discussion of the teacher knowledge perspective, we include bodies of literature about teachers’ knowledge base to explore the role of disciplinary knowledge in how to teach and about powerful knowledge to explore the role of disciplinary knowledge in what to teach. Insights from these bodies of literature can, from a teacher knowledge perspective, offer theoretical underpinnings for connecting academics’ disciplinary knowledge to their professional development as university teachers. Adaptive expertise and practical knowledge are identified as concepts that include elements of both teacher expertise and teacher knowledge perspectives. Based on the conceptual analysis, we identify and discuss three aspects related to supporting the professional development of university teachers where attention to connection with teachers’ disciplinary knowledge is important.

Leraren in het voortgezet onderwijs die formatief handelen geven informatie over hoe het beoogde doel te bereiken. Leraren die summatief toetsen geven een geïnformeerd oordeel over prestaties. Formatief handelen heeft een motiverende werking, terwijl summatief toetsen niet per se schadelijk is voor de motivatie van leerlingen. Op basis van de resultaten uit het proefschrift van Krijgsman (2021) adviseren we formatief handelen en summatief toetsen te combineren, zodat beide functies elkaar versterken (synergie) zonder eenzijdig de nadruk op een van beiden te leggen (balans). Tot op heden blijft deze synergie en balans uit. Factoren in het gehele onderwijs-ecosysteem beïnvloeden dit. Scholen hebben bijvoorbeeld een grote mate van autonomie op het gebied van toetsing. Tegelijk ontbreekt er een eenduidig landelijk kader voor toetsbeleid en is er behoefte aan professionele ontwikkeling voor schoolleiders, teamleiders en leraren op het gebied van toetsdeskundigheid. Daarnaast worden de behoeften van leerlingen rondom toetsing veelal niet geïnventariseerd bij de ontwikkeling van toetsvisie en -beleid. We pleiten voor een samenwerking tussen leerlingen, leraren, teamleiders, schoolleiders, regionale of nationale leiders, beleidsmakers en wetenschappers, om vanuit een systemisch perspectief dit complexe vraagstuk aan te pakken.

Er is inmiddels veel wetenschappelijke kennis beschikbaar over wat het verschil maakt als het gaat om bekwaamheid van leraren en ook over hoe leraren bekwaam worden en zo goed mogelijk kunnen worden opgeleid. Die wetenschappelijke kennis wordt in het eerste deel van deze themabeschrijving gepresenteerd, zonder de pretentie te hebben daarin uitputtend te zijn. Vervolgens worden in het tweede deel de actuele discussies geschetst die relevant zijn voor het thema. Voortbouwend op de beschikbare kennis worden daarbij vragen benoemd die mede richting kunnen geven aan de kennisagenda voor het onderwijs met betrekking tot dit thema.

Despite the growing number of studies that acknowledge a crucial role of distributed leadership within schools, limited knowledge exists on how to describe and measure this multi-faceted concept. In a social network study with 130 respondents, from 14 Dutch school teams carrying out collaborative innovation, we theoretically describe three core aspects of the social interaction process of distributed leadership: collective, dynamic, or relational. Furthermore, we empirically explore how to measure all these three aspects of distributed leadership from a social network perspective, whereas most research focuses on either collective or dynamic. Our findings indicate that three network measures (density, reciprocity, indegree centralization) form a coherent combination to measure distributed leadership in school teams in terms of collective, relational, and dynamic, respectively. Furthermore, based on the combination of measures we found differences in distributed leadership between school teams. Thus, adding the relational aspect in addition to the collective and dynamic aspects seems to be informative to measure distributed leadership. Our study motivates to take a social network perspective, instead of the mostly used aggregation approaches, to measure distributed leadership in school teams.

Tasks are essential in fostering students’ learning processes, and thinking skills are considered to be of central importance to learning. In order to analyse how tasks promote the development of thinking skills in school geography, we need an instrument that looks beyond a simple distinction between lower and higher order thinking. It should be able to identify types of tasks based on distinctive elements on the way to acquiring powerful knowledge or knowledge of high epistemic quality. In this paper, we describe the development of an instrument based on the adaptation of existing categorisations and the use of Bernstein’s recognition and realisation rules. The instrument distinguishes five levels of thinking: lower order thinking, use of thinking strategies, parts of higher order thinking, higher order thinking, and reflection. The instrument was employed to analyse tasks in geography textbooks used in the Netherlands and the German State North Rhine-Westphalia, with researchers and teacher educators in both states considering its efficacy both plausible and practicable. The results show that the instrument is sufficiently sensitive to identify differences in types of tasks and the extent to which access to powerful knowledge is fostered.

This chapter reviews and summarizes research that has been carried out on classroom management from an interpersonal perspective since 2006. The interpersonal approach to classroom management analyzes teaching in terms of the interactions and relationships between teachers and their students. After an introduction of the basic concepts and mechanisms of interpersonal theory, such as the Interpersonal Circle, and its application to teaching and classroom management, this chapter describes how using concepts derived from social dynamic systems theory can help understand interpersonal dynamics between teachers and students. Then, measurement instruments for teacher-student interactions, (e.g., the Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics) and its representation in State Space Grids, and for relationships (the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction) are presented. Associations are discussed of these interactions and relationships with other educational variables such as student, class, and teacher characteristics, student achievement and emotions and teacher job satisfaction and physiological measures. Changes in interactions and relationships are reviewed on three different timescales: how teacher and student behaviors feed into moment-to-moment classroom interactions, how interactions are associated with teacher-student relationships and social climate developing over weeks and months, and with a teacher’s interpersonal style which develops over the teacher’s professional life.