Facing increasing student diversity, the establishment of inclusive classrooms and quality education has become a priority for policy-makers worldwide (Unesco, 2021). Students differ e.g. in their academic readiness, motivation, psychosocial development, socio-economic or cultural background, or special educational needs. Consequently, teachers are in need to differentiate their instruction according to their students’ individual learning needs (Schwab et al., 2019). Differentiated Instruction (DI) can be defined as the intentional, systematically planned and reflected practices that enable teachers to meet the needs of all learners in heterogeneous classrooms (e.g. Graham et al., 2021). Pozas and Schneider (2019) established six categories of DI teaching strategies: 1) tiered assignments, 2) intentional grouping of students, 3) tutoring systems, 4) staggered nonverbal learning aids, 5) mastery learning and 6) open education/granting autonomy to students. According to this definition, the process of DI requires intentional planning of specific practices as well as a reflected evaluation of whether their implementation into classroom teaching was successful (Letzel et al., 2020). Depending on this evaluation, teachers may adjust their future planning and implementation of DI (Letzel et al., 2020). Intentions that teachers might have when planning differentiated practices can be a support of low achieving learners, a support of high achieving learners, to increase every student’s learning success, to foster autonomous learning or social competences, or to increase student activity and motivation (Letzel et al., 2019). An online survey was completed by 275 German teachers working at advanced secondary, comprehensive or general secondary schools. The analysis was led by the research questions 1) Which intentions do teachers pursue when implementing DI practices and do they vary across school tracks? 2) Is there a relation between the intention teachers’ have while planning the implementation of different inclusive practices, the implementation itself and the evaluation afterwards? In order to investigate these research questions, mixed ANOVA and correlation analyses were conducted. First, results indicate that teachers follow different intentions with the use different DI practices. Furthermore, advanced secondary school teachers rated their intentions for implementing DI lower than their general or comprehensive secondary school teachers’ counterparts. Second, teachers did not only differentiate their instruction with the intention to support students’ domain-related learning and achievement but also to foster non-achievement outcomes such as motivation or social competences. Finally, substantial correlations between teachers’ intentions, frequency of the DI practice, and their evaluationof the DI practice were found.

Letzel, V., Schneider, C. & Pozas, M. (2020). Binnendifferenzierende Herangehensweisen zum Umgang mit Heterogenität im Unterricht der Sekundarstufe I. Vorschlag einer Taxonomie zur Systematisierung. Empirische Pädagogik, 34 (4), 331-352. Pozas, M., Letzel, V. & Schneider, C. (2019). Introduction to a Differentiated Instruction (DI) Taxonomy: A qualitative and quantitative approach. Paper presented at the 2019 European Educational Research Association (ECER/EERA), Hamburg, Germany Pozas, M. & Schneider, C. (2019). Shedding light into the convoluted terrain of differentiated instruction. Proposal of a taxonomy of within-class differentiation in the heterogeneous classroom. Open Education Studies. Schwab, S., Sharma, U. & Hoffmann, L. (2019). How inclusive are the teaching practices of my German, Maths and English teachers? – psychometric properties of a newly developed scale to assess personalisation and differentiation in teaching practices. International Journal of Inclusive Education. Unesco (2021). Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education. Retrieved at 19.01.2022. https://unesdoc.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379707