Do Teaching Practices In uence Student Achievement?

Recent studies conclude that teachers are of vital importance for student learning but it remains uncertain what actually makes a good teacher. While most studies focus on observable and unobservable characteristics of the teacher, this study investigates the more neglected relationship between teaching practices and student achievement. Based on matched student-teacher data for the United States, we contrast lecture style teaching with teaching practices that are based on problem solving. Estimating a reduced form educational production function and exploiting between subject vari-ation to control for unobserved student traits, we nd that teaching practices matter for student achievement. Contrary to a widespread belief, the results indicate that more traditional lecture style teaching is associated with signicantly higher student achievement