Cognitive Processes in Teaching: Correlations with Students' Achievement in Mathematics

The present-day knowledge society expects school education to ensure the development of higher-order thinking skills, such as novel problem solving. Experimental evidence shows that such skills can be developed in students by using classroom activities enhancing higher-order cognitive processes more often. However, the impact of such activities on knowledge acquisition in specific disciplines, mathematics in particular, remains unclear. Data obtained in the longitudinal study Trajectories in Education and Careers conducted on a TIMSS-PISA sample is used to evaluate the presence of teaching practices that promote higher- and lower-order thinking in the classroom and the correlations between those strategies, on the one hand, and teacher characteristics and mathematics achievement at the end of 9th grade, on the other hand. Teaching practices of both types were found to be related positively to student achievement in mathematics. Yet, higher-order thinking teaching practices have a stronger positive effect on mathematics achievement gains between 8th and 9th grades, whereas the effects of practices implying lower-order thinking lose their significance or become negative a year later. It is also shown that the use of a specific type of teaching practices is not related to teacher credentials or qualifications.