This presentation is concerned with the question of whether the formal qualification of teachers has an effect on student proficiency based on nationally representative data from TIMSS 2011 conducted in Germany assessing mathematics competence among fourth-graders. Previously studies doing research on this topic have compared mean scores, have applied regression models without taking the different levels into account, or have conducted multi-level regression modelling without taking the class composition explicitly into account or without modeling interactions between characteristics of the class and the teachers. We address these issues by presenting findings from multilevel regression analyses that include variables on different levels and include interactions between teacher qualifications and student body characteristics. Our results clearly indicate that not only multi-level modelling is needed, but also class characteristics need to be integrated in order to account for the effects teacher qualification may have. After describing our findings, we discuss the consequences for professional teacher training and the interpretation of studies that are concerned with teacher qualification effects.

.