Instructional quality (InQua) is considered to be an important classroom variable, as it is significantly related to student achievement and motivation (Baumert et al., 2010; Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008). It is a very broad concept that comprises instructional practices in order to cognitively activate students, support them, manage the classroom, and establish clear instruction (Fauth et al., 2014; Seidel & Shavelson, 2007). Existing studies in educational effectiveness furthermore identified a positive relation between InQua and school climate, suggesting that the school environment plays a significant role for teachers’ instructional practices (Thapa et al., 2013). School climate is a broad concept which includes many dimensions. Although it is defined somewhat differently across fields, certain key aspects were identified (Wang & Degol, 2015), for instance, emphasis on academic success, safety, and order in schools. Bringing these two concepts together, we investigated the relation between different aspects of school climate and students’ achievement motivation, thereby studying the potential mediating role of InQua. We specifically examined the TIMSS 2011 grade 8 mathematics data obtained from 50 educationally and culturally diverse countries. On the basis of these data, we studied the role of InQua as a mediator by performing two modeling steps: First, since sufficient degrees of comparability of the measures involved in this study form the prerequisite for conducting an international, cross-country study, we tested these measures for their invariance across countries, applying multi-group multilevel confirmatory factor analyses. Second, if at least metric invariance was achieved, these analyses were extended to a multi-group multilevel structural equation model, which allowed us to test the mediation hypothesis. In our analyses, we considered three aspects of school climate (i.e., emphasis on academic success, safety, and order in schools) and three aspects of achievement motivation (i.e., self-concept, intrinsic value, and extrinsic value; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). Following Marsh et al.’s (2012) recommendations, we focused on the classroom level as the appropriate level of analysis. For all constructs under investigation, metric invariance could be established, thus allowing for comparisons between their relations across countries (Millsap, 2011). In general, there was a significant positive effect of InQua on achievement motivation at the classroom level; in some countries, a partial mediation of InQua between school climate and achievement motivation was apparent. We present the results by distinguishing between four main patterns of relations. These findings are discussed with respect to implications for educational effectiveness research.

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