Instructional differentiation in secondary education: Teachers’ actions and reasoning

Instructional differentiation is a complex teaching approach in which teachers make instructional adaptations in response to their students' diverse learner characteristics. To better understand the complexity of this approach we explored the reasoning of seven secondary school teachers who regularly realized and valued instructional differentiation. Teachers' instructional differentiation strategies and its underlying reasoning were analysed. Results showed that teachers’ differentiation strategies were multifaceted, including simultaneous adaptations of several instructional elements to various learner characteristics in relation to multiple educational purposes. This study highlights the importance of addressing the complexity of reasoning that underlies instructional differentiation in research and practice. • Instructional differentiation strategies involved the simultaneous adaptation of multiple instructional elements. • The instructional elements were adapted in response to several students’ learner characteristics. • Teachers’ instructional differentiation strategies were aimed at multiple educational goals. • Teachers experienced conflicting goals which they tried to reconcile in practice.