Identifying effective teachers: the relation between teaching profiles and students’ development in achievement and enjoyment

Teaching effectiveness has often been described from a variable-centered perspective according to instructional, organizational, and emotional teaching characteristics and their prediction of students’ outcomes. Adopting a person-centered approach, the present study analyzed how multiple variables of teaching quality co-occur simultaneously within teachers and how these teaching profiles are related to students’ development in achievement and enjoyment. Data from 3483 secondary students and their 155 mathematics teachers were analyzed at two measurement points. A latent profile analysis identified high-, medium-, and low-quality teaching profiles. Multilevel analyses revealed that the high-quality profile—as compared to the medium-quality profile—was positively related to achievement gains, whereas no significant difference was found for students’ development in enjoyment. The findings reveal quantitative instead of qualitative teaching profiles and challenge the implicit assumption the higher the better. In particular, effective teachers may not need to display the highest levels in all teaching aspects. Instead, different thresholds for teaching effectiveness may apply for students’ achievement gains and emotional development, respectively