Classroom Management and its impact on lesson outcomes in physics

The major purpose of research in the present study was to contribute to the clarification of physics-related learning conditions in the phase when students' change from primary to secondary school stage. This purpose goes back to the divergent performance of German primary and secondary school students in the science part of international comparative studies. There is a wide consensus that, in developing efficient classroom management strategies, teachers can guarantee a higher amount of academic learning time, which proves relevant not only for students’ school performance, but also for fostering their motivation to learn. The present study firstly aimed at contributing to the demand of a theoretical conceptualization that regards classroom management in the overall structure of quality of instruction in physics. Against this background, the study suggests a definition of classroom management with three subconstructs discipline, rules and rituals and prevention of disruption, but also addresses the desiderata in terms of subject-specific research on classroom management. Relating the classroom management data to student achievement did not explain as much variance as was expected based on literature review. However, most of the published studies regard classroom management as a whole and do not differentiate between its sub-facets though experts on Rasch analysis—which was used in the present study—highly recommended a three-dimensional model. To sum up, the findings of this study refer to interrelations of aspects of quality of instruction within a school stage or to a cross-sectional comparison of quality of instruction between school stages.