The use of a pedagogical practice known as ‘differentiation’ has become more common over time as educators have sought to respond to increases in the diversity of students enrolling in their local school. However, there are now so many misperceptions and definitional inconsistencies that it is difficult to know what is being enacted in the name of differentiation or indeed what is being researched internationally. The aim of this scoping review was to identify key characteristics of and conceptualisations within peer‐reviewed empirical research on differentiation published between 1999 and 2019, as well as to map the ways in which this body of research was produced. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were used to inform a systematic screening process and resulted in a final sample of 34 articles focusing on differentiation in regular schools. Half were conducted in the United States and most in the elementary school phase. Survey and case study designs were dominant, as was research of and influences on teacher practice. Only a small group of studies focused on differentiation's impact on student outcomes and these typically only examined specific elements of differentiation or its use in specific academic domains. The diversity of focus and methodological approaches across the 34 studies prevents comparison of findings and weakens the evidential basis to make claims of either differentiation's effectiveness or indeed its ineffectiveness. The review concludes with recommendations for future research and practice in this important area of practice.

中文翻译：

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关于差异化研究20年的范围回顾：调查概念，使用的特征和使用的方法

随着时间的流逝，随着教育工作者试图应对本地学校就读学生人数的增加，使用称为“差异化”的教学实践变得越来越普遍。但是，现在存在着太多的误解和定义上的不一致，以至于很难知道以差异化的名义制定了什么，或者实际上是国际上正在研究的是什么。范围界定审查的目的是确定在1999年至2019年之间发表的同行评议的关于差异的实证研究中的关键特征和概念化，并绘制出该研究体系的产生方式。系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目（PRISMA）指南用于告知系统的筛选过程，并最终获得了34篇文章的最终样本，这些文章侧重于常规学校的差异化。一半在美国进行，大部分在小学阶段进行。调查和案例研究设计占主导地位，对教师实践的研究及其影响也是如此。只有一小部分研究侧重于差异对学生成绩的影响，这些研究通常仅检查差异的特定要素或在特定学术领域的应用。在这34项研究中，重点和方法论方法的多样性阻碍了对结果的比较，并削弱了证据依据，以证明分化的有效性或实际上是无效的。