Ability Grouping and Teacher-Students Interaction among High and Low Achieving Students in Middle Primary Schools in the United Arab Emirates

This research investigated teacher-students interaction in various learning settings in middle primary schools in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These settings include mixed- and same-ability classrooms as well as mixed- and same-ability learning groups within the same classroom. The sample consisted of 16 low-and high-achieving male and female students selected from two middle primary schools from Al-Ain City, Abu Dhabi. The results indicate that high-achieving students in all groups interacted more than low-achieving ones and high-achieving girls interacted more than high-achieving boys. Boys interacted in the same-ability classrooms more than they did in mixed-ability classrooms but girls showed opposite results. Students in the same-ability groups interacted more than those in the mixed-ability groups. The results also reveal that teachers interacted with boys in all groups more than they did with girls and with high-achieving students more than they did with low-achieving ones. They also interacted with low-achieving boys more than they did with low-achieving girls. Teachers interacted with highachieving boys in the same-ability classrooms more than they did with the boys in mixed-ability classroom. They interacted with low- achieving boys and girls in the mixed-ability classrooms more than they did with these boy and girls in the sameability classrooms. The patterns of interaction that were used by teachers and all students in all settings were also identified in the study.