Teacher support for student learning

2. Teacher support: Why it matters

Teacher support: How it is defined and measured in PISA

In the context of education, teacher support refers to the help and encouragement teachers offer to their students, making it easier for them to not only accomplish tasks and succeed academically, but also to develop holistically and foster socio-emotional growth and well-being. Supporting students with their learning may involve various teacher practices, such as helping students set achievable goals, offering guidance or subject-specific knowledge as required, tailoring instruction to meet the needs of students with learning difficulties or advanced skills, providing constructive feedback and praise, and demonstrating care and concern for students’ academic progress and socio-emotional needs, among other approaches (Lei, Cui and Chiu, 2018[4]; Prananto et al., 2025[5]; Huang and Wang, 2023[6]). Additionally, research synthesized by Hattie (2008[7]) underscores the importance of teacher-student relationships and feedback on fostering academic and socio-emotional growth.

In PISA 2022, teacher support was measured through student responses to the following question included in the student questionnaire (STQ): “How often do these things happen in your mathematics lessons?”, with four items capturing teacher support practices offered (see Table 1). These items reflect the overall support that students reported teachers provide in the classroom, rather than the specific support individual students believe they personally received from their teacher.

Table 1. How PISA measured teacher support in 2022

Items included in the student questionnaire and scaled into the index of teacher support in mathematics lessons

How often do these things happen in your mathematics lessons? (Response choices: Every lesson, most lessons, some lessons, never or almost never)

Item 1) The teacher shows an interest in every student's learning

Item 2) The teacher gives extra help when students need it

Item 3) The teacher helps students with their learning

Item 4) The teacher continues teaching until students understand

Notes: Data from these four items were combined into an index of teacher support in mathematics lessons (TEACHSUP) with an average of zero and a standard deviation of one across OECD countries. Positive values on the index mean that the student reported more frequent teacher support in mathematics lessons than did students on average across OECD countries.

Source: OECD (2023[8]), PISA 2022 Assessment and Analytical Framework, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Students were asked the same question and items in PISA 2012 and PISA 2003, when mathematics was also the main domain of assessment. Thus, for each of these items, it is possible to analyse trends over time, and these trend results are included in this report. In addition, the same question and items were asked in 2015 with regard to science lessons, and in 2018 with regard to reading lessons.

In the research literature, teacher support is considered a basic dimension of instructional quality, together with teaching practices such as classroom management, clarity of instruction and cognitive activation (Le Donné, Fraser and Bousquet, 2016[9]; OECD, 2016[10]). These practices can complement one another. For example, PISA has shown that students who report that their teachers are supportive more often attend schools with greater cognitive-activation instruction (Echazarra et al., 2016[11]).

Why does teacher support matter? Student performance, well-being and equity

Teacher support plays a crucial role in education, as it is linked to better student performance and well-being. As illustrated in Figure 2, students who feel more supported by their teachers in their mathematics lessons tend to achieve higher mathematics performance, report lower levels of mathematics anxiety, and exhibit greater motivation to learn new things at school – this holds true even after accounting for students’ and schools’ socio-economic profile.1

Moreover, teacher support has the potential to reduce the socio-economic performance gap among students, as evidenced by findings from PISA (Liu et al., 2024[12]). In PISA 2022, in the majority of countries/economies, socio-economically disadvantaged students reported receiving higher levels of teacher support compared to their advantaged peers (see Figure 3). This targeted support appears to play a role in narrowing performance disparities, as countries where disadvantaged students receive more assistance show a smaller socio-economic gap in achievement across OECD countries (this system-level relationship is not observed across all PISA-participating countries).2

Figure 2. Teacher support and students’ performance and well-being

Change in mathematics performance, mathematics anxiety and love of learning new things associated with one unit change in the index of teacher support; OECD average

Notes: Changes are accounting for students' and schools' socio-economic profiles.

Socio-economic profile is measured by the PISA index of economic, social and cultural status.

All coefficients are statistically significant (see Reader’s Guide).

Source: OECD, PISA 2022 Database, Table B.16.

Figure 3. Teacher support, by socio-economic status

Index of teacher support in mathematics lessons, results based on students’ reports

Notes: Only countries and economies with available data are shown.

A socio-economically disadvantaged (advantaged) student is a student in the bottom (top) quarter of the PISA index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS) in his or her own country/economy.

Statistically significant differences between advantaged and disadvantaged students are shown in a darker tone (see Reader’s Guide).

Countries and economies are ranked in descending order of the difference in the index of teacher support in mathematics between advantaged and disadvantaged students (advantaged minus disadvantaged).

Source: OECD, PISA 2022 Database, Table B.2.

Notes

← 1.  Change in mathematics performance associated with a one-unit increase in the index of teacher support is positive and statistically significant in 40 out of the 79 countries/economies with available data, before accounting for students' and schools' socio-economic profile. It is positive and statistically significant in 54 out of the 79 countries/economies with available data, after accounting for students' and schools' socio-economic profile (Source: Table II.B1.3.5 in OECD (2023[2])).

← 2.  The system-level correlation between the socio-economic gap in the index of teacher support in mathematics lessons and the socio-economic gap in mathematics performance is negative and moderate in strength across OECD countries (r coefficient = -0.35) and null across all countries.