Authentic Pedagogy: Its Presence in Social Studies Classrooms and Relationship to Student Performance on State-Mandated Tests

Abstract

challenge present in a diverse sample of U.S. classrooms, investigated whether students from different social and academic contexts were more likely to encounter authentic pedagogy than others, and examined how the level of authentic pedagogy experienced related to student performance on high-stakes tests. We found that high levels of authentic pedagogy were rare, with only 21% of students in the sample attending classes that met the standards for even moderately challenging teaching. Smaller class sizes were positively correlated with higher levels of authentic pedagogy. Females were significantly more likely to encounter higher levels of authentic pedagogy than males. Neither ethnicity nor socioeconomic status was found to have a statistically significant relationship to authentic pedagogy. Higher levels of authentic instruction were generally associated with higher student achievement, and students in classes featuring moderate levels of authentic pedagogy had significantly higher success rates on state-mandated tests than their school averages. (Contains 6 tables and 5 notes.)