Using case study to investigate Taiwanese ESL teachers' beliefs about differentiated instruction

The goals of this research were (a) to find out how Taiwanese teachers' beliefs about best practices of differentiated instructions compare to the literature of differentiation, and (b) to understand how Taiwanese teachers' beliefs about differentiated instruction are influenced by their colleagues and experts in a case-based exercise.; A total of eight ESL middle school teachers in Taiwan were presented with a multimedia case, featuring a teacher's struggle with students' performances on standardized tests. Each teacher participant was invited to answer a 15-item questionnaire by writing a short essay. Before teacher participants analyzed the case, they were invited to read the case analyses of the researcher and the principal at the target school. Using the content analysis method, teacher essay responses were analyzed to explore Taiwanese teachers' thoughts about case-method teaching and learning---the primary mechanism to generate data collection in this study. In addition, replication logic was used to see whether there were common salient issues represented in participants' answers.; The results showed that Taiwanese teachers' beliefs about differentiated instruction matched the six principles of effective differentiation. However, the results also indicated that participants focused more on students' readiness levels while differentiating their instruction. Due to the influence of standardized testing in Taiwan, teachers view raising students' test scores as the first priority. For the second research question, the results failed to explain how reading the analyses from other teachers and experts influenced teachers' beliefs about differentiated instruction.