Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 655
3rd Tarumanagara International Conference on the Applications of Social Sciences and Humanities (TICASH 2021)
Differentiated Instruction Implementation: A Survey
Study Among Elementary School Teachers
Muhamad Nanang Suprayogi1* Budi Sulaeman1 Baydhowi Baydhowi1
1
Psychology Department, Faculty of Humanities, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta 11480, Indonesia
*
Corresponding author. Email: msuprayogi@[Link]
ABSTRACT
The students in the classroom come from various characteristics and backgrounds. Dealing with this diversity
of students, the teacher needs to apply multiple teaching strategies and learning activities, rather than using One
Size Fits All (OSFA) teaching strategy. Many authors suggest applying Differentiated Instruction (DI) to cope
with student diversity. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the teacher's understanding of DI and compare it
with the implementation of DI among elementary school teachers. The study involved 113 elementary school
teachers from 5 schools from public schools and private schools. The result revealed that the mean score of
teachers understanding of DI was 104.42, while teacher implementation of DI was 98.51. Using the paired
samples test, it showed that there was a significant difference between the understanding of DI and the
implementation of DI. Based on the finding, this study recommends schools to provide a specific program to
increase DI implementation among teachers. The program can be professional development on DI and sharing
session among teachers who already have good experience in DI implementation. Therefore, the increase in DI
implementation will help sustainable teaching and learning activities for all teachers and students.
Keywords: Differentiated instruction, elementary school, Indonesia
1. INTRODUCTION students' learning needs and purposeful planning activities
[6]. The implementation of DI will help sustainable
Differentiated instruction (DI) is a teaching approach to teaching and learning activities for all teachers and students.
cater to the diversity of students and to improve students' Furthermore, in the context of Indonesia, the student
achievement [1]. Teachers who teach students in their learning outcome faces the challenge. The recent
classes realize that their students are divers. Students are international assessment of student achievement in 2018,
different in many aspects, such as ability, interest, known as Program for International Student Assessment
readiness, and learning profile, so teachers need to cope (PISA) held by Organization for Economic Co-operation
with this kind of student diversity [2]. Teachers need to and Development (OECD), assessed the student
implement a teaching approach to cater to the diverse needs achievement on reading, math, and science. It revealed that
and characteristics of students. among 76 countries, Indonesia was in the rank of 70 [7].
In the meantime, the student diversity grows, looks The international data echoed the previous PISA in 2015, in
unavoidable, and has become undoubted fact [2, 3]. The which Indonesia ranked 62 among 70 countries [8]. Then,
growth of diversity is related to the growth of the population Program for the International Assessment of Adult
worldwide. Indonesia is currently the fourth most populated Competencies (PIAAC) measuring the competency of
country [4]. Consequently, applying the appropriate students in numeracy, literacy, and problem-solving ranked
teaching approach is needed [3]. Indonesia 34 out of 34 countries [9]. These international
In terms of teaching and learning, the conventional teaching assessments put a strong recommendation for Indonesia to
strategy known as One Size Fits All (OSFA) treats all provide serious action for the better quality of education.
students in the classroom with only one teaching strategy to Considering the growing of student diversity and the need
cater to students' diverse needs. To deal with student to improve the quality education mentioned, many authors
diversity, the conventional teaching strategy OSFA put forward the promising solution to apply DI on teaching
currently does not fit anymore to cater to all the student's and learning activity. The DI implementation will help
diverse characteristics [5, 6]. Teachers need to apply every student to receive better educational treatment and
various teaching strategies to accommodate the diverse follow the better education process.
need of students. Teachers also need to provide various DI is recommended because of various reasons found in the
learning activities to facilitate the student's learning literature. It avoids teachers' teaching to the middle ability
experience. DI reflects teachers' thoughtful diagnosis of by responding to the whole range of student needs [3]. It
Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
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Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 655
presents a concrete list of ways to handle student differences 2.2. Measure
[10]. It also offers the possibility to create various
expectation levels about task completion [11]. It is based on This study uses the two-scale of DI. The first scale using a
student interest, learning profile, and student readiness [12]. Likert scale asked teachers to identify their understanding
Available research also underpins the positive impact of DI. of DI. The second scale using a Likert scale asked teachers
It is revealed that students in the DI setting achieve higher to determine their ability to implement DI. The first and
academic scores than students in conventional instruction second scales of DI were organized by the six components
setting [13]. It is also reported that DI results in more of DI, as developed by Carol A. Tomlinson and modified
motivated and enthusiastic students. by Sandra Page. There were Student Interest (4 items),
Furthermore, setting up specific school subjects also Assessment (5 items), Lesson Planning (5 items), Content
reiterates the positive impact of DI [14]. DI also results in (4 items), Process (4 items), and Product (4 items).
significant progress in reading [15]. DI impacts the higher There were 26 items of the first scale measuring the
reading fluency and reading comprehension [16]. Then, teachers' DI understanding, and 26 items of the second scale
there is also a positive impact on student literacy [10]. Next, for the teacher implementation of DI. The reliability of the
regarding the influence on language literacy, researchers scale for understanding was .921 Cronbach's Alpha. In
show a positive influence on math achievement [17]. comparison, the reliability for implementation was .954
The DI is based on the socio-cultural theory of Vigotsky. Cronbach's Alpha. It was counted as a high-reliability
Following this theory, learning takes place in a Zone of index.
Proximate Development (ZPD) [18]. The ZPD is the actual
gap between what a student can achieve individually at this
moment sand at this level versus the level he/she can 2.3. Procedure
achieve with some support. This support can be provided by
peer students, experts, or teachers. This support is also We applied an online questionnaire and paper and pencil
labeled as 'mediation' to pursue the next step of questionnaire. Three schools were administrated using
achievement. paper and pencil questionnaire, and two schools were asked
Because the benefit of DI implementation is the increase in using an online questionnaire.
students' achievement and improvement of quality of Before we started the data collection, we came to school to
education, this study will focus on a survey study of DI inform and asked permission to have a survey study for
among elementary teachers. The survey will assess the informed consent. After receiving the school agreement, we
teacher's understanding of DI and the implementation of DI. provided the questionnaire of the study to the teachers.
The research focuses on elementary school teachers, as the Every teacher involved in the study also provided their
elementary school is the basic and fundamental compulsory informed consent. Three schools agreed to have the paper
education. The result of the study will provide academic and pencil questionnaire. Two other schools agreed to have
information for the Indonesian government for further an online questionnaire. As the study was voluntary, we
necessary action for a better quality of education. only received the data from the teacher who agreed to
participate in this study.
2. METHOD
3. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
2.1. Participant The results are divided into two sections: the first section is
demographic data and the second section is DI
This study involved 113 elementary school teachers in implementation.
Jakarta and South Tangerang. There were five schools
comprising three private schools with 80 teachers and two
public schools with 33 teachers. The initial schools are MP 3.1. Demographic Data
(35 teachers), BC (10 teachers), P (18 teachers), K (15
teachers), and ST (35 teachers). The demographic data of the participants consist of gender
Related to gender, there are 78 female and 35 male teachers. of the participants and the school status. The complete
The participants are voluntarily based, and they agree to demographic data can be seen in Table 1.
participate in this study.
Table 1 Demographic Data
Aspect N N Total
Gender Female: 78 Male: 35 113
School status Private: 80 Public: 33 113
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Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 655
The researchers collected the data from 113 teachers from 3.2. DI Understanding and DI Implementation
five schools: three private schools with 80 teachers and two
public schools with 33 teachers. We had more female The data shown the understanding of DI and the
teachers (78) than the male teachers (35). implementation of DI among the teachers’ participant were
in Table 2.
Table 2 Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean SD
UoDI 113 54 177 104.42 33.206
IofDI 113 58 188 98.51 34.738
*UoDI: Understanding of DI; IoDI: Implementation of DI
The result revealed that the mean score of the understanding than the teacher's DI implementation. For further analysis,
of DI was 104.42. Meanwhile, the mean score of the we used the paired-sample t-test to check whether the
implementation of DI was 98.51. The score showed that the difference between understanding of DI and teacher
teacher's DI understanding was higher implementation of DI was significant or not significant. The
result of the paired-sample t-test was in Table 3.
Table 3 Paired-Sample Test
Paired Differences t df Sig.
95% CI
Pair Mean SD SEM Lower Upper
UoDI - IoDI 5.90 15.4 1.45 3.02 8.78 4.06 112 .00
*UoDI: Understanding of DI; IoDI: Implementation of DI
The result of the paired-sample t-test showed that the DI became 81,08 %, and the adjusted score of
difference between teacher understanding of DI and teacher implementation of DI was 74.77 %.
implementation of DI was significant with the sig of .00 For further analysis, we used the benchmark to compare the
below .05. adjusted score of teacher understanding of DI and teacher
As the difference between teacher understanding of DI and implementation of DI. The available benchmark was the
teacher implementation of DI was significant, it brought us mastery learning [19], which put the value of 80% (score 8)
to the conclusion that there was a gap between the as a critical benchmark. Compared to the benchmark of
understanding of DI and its implementation among mastery learning, the understanding of DI is higher, and the
elementary school teachers. The teachers' DI implementation of DI is lower.
implementation was lower than their understanding of DI.
It meant that although teachers had known more DI, their 3.3. Public Schools
implementation of DI remained lower than their DI
understanding. The data analysis in public schools was in Table 4 and Table
Furthermore, if we adjusted the mean score of 5.
understanding of DI and mean score of implementations of
DI to the percentage, the adjusted score of understanding of
Table 4 Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean SD
UoDI 33 54 104 85.33 14.92
IoDI 33 67 104 88.15 10.82
*UoDI: Understanding of DI; IoDI: Implementation of DI
Table 5 Paired-Sample Test
Paired Differences t df Sig.
95% CI
Pair Mean SD SEM Lower Upper
UoDI – IoDI -2.82 11.39 1.98 -6.86 1.22 -1.42 32 .16
*UoDI: Understanding of DI; IoDI: Implementation of DI
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In public schools, the teacher implementation of DI was 3.4. Private Schools
88.15, and it was higher than the understanding of DI
(85.15). This result reflected that teachers in public school The data analysis in private schools was in Table 6 and
were more confident to implement the DI. Both Table 7.
implementation of DI and understanding of DI in public
schools were below the score in private school.
Table 6 Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean SD
UoDI 80 63 177 112.29 35.47
IoDI 80 58 188 102.79 40.00
*UoDI: Understanding of DI; IoDI: Implementation of DI
Table 7 Paired-Samples Test
Paired Differences
Pair 95% CI
Mean SD SEM Lower Upper t df Sig.
UoDI – IoDI 9.50 15.53 1.74 6.04 12.96 5.47 79 .000
*UoDI: Understanding of DI; IoDI: Implementation of DI
In private schools, the score of teachers understanding of DI To increase the understanding and implementation of DI,
was 112. 29, while the score of implementations of DI was this study recommends schools to provide the program to
102.79. The score of understanding of DI was higher than improve the DI implementation among teachers. The
the implementation of DI. It reflected that although teachers program can be professional development on DI and
in private schools had a better understanding of DI, their sharing sessions among teachers who have good experience
implementation of DI remained lower. However, compared of DI implementation. The better implementation of DI is,
to public school data, the teachers in private schools showed the more it helps the sustainable teaching and learning
better scores in the understanding and implementation of activities for all teachers and students.
DI. The limitation of this study related to the limitation of the
From the result data provided, teachers in private schools participant from teachers and schools. Further study is
showed a better score than teachers in public schools. recommended to involve more participants to gather more
However, teachers in public schools were more confident in data, and therefore the result will more adequate.
implementing DI.
For the aggregate data in public school and private school,
the teachers' DI understanding was higher than their DI
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