Research on instructional quality has been of great interest for several decades, leading to an immense and diverse body of literature. However, due to different definitions and operationalisations, the picture of what characteristics are important for instructional quality is not entirely clear. Therefore, in this paper, a scoping review was performed to provide an overview of existing evidence of both generic and subject-didactic characteristics with regard to student performance. More precisely, this paper aims to (a) identify both generic and subject-didactic characteristics affecting student performance in mathematics in secondary school, (b) cluster these characteristics into categories to show areas for quality teaching, and (c) analyse and assess the effects of these characteristics on student performance to rate the scientific evidence in the context of the articles considered. The results reveal that teaching characteristics, and not just the instruments for recording the quality of teaching as described in previous research, can be placed on a continuum ranging from generic to subject-didactic. Moreover, on account of the inconsistent definition of subject-didactic characteristics, the category of ‘subject-didactic specifics’ needs further development to establish it as a separate category in empirical research. Finally, this study represents a further step toward understanding the effects of teaching characteristics on student performance by providing an overview of teaching characteristics and their effects and evidence.

School quality has become a guiding concept that increasingly shapes educational planning and school development. For many decades, it has been a topic of significant interest, resulting in a wide-ranging and diverse research field. However, it is far from clear how school quality should be defined, what it should encompass, and how it influences student performance. The goal of this scoping review is to examine the existing evidence of the relationship between characteristics of school quality and student cognitive output/ student performance in secondary school. More precisely, it aims to (a) identify, (b) categorize, and (c) examine and evaluate the effects of characteristics of school quality affecting student performance and teaching characteristics in secondary school. In order to achieve these aims, we selected, clustered, and analyses 37 articles. The process was conducted by the research group through regular meetings, discussions, and consensus decisions. Our findings contribute to the comprehensive body of literature by identifying the following dimensions: aims and strategies for quality development, leadership and management, professionalism, school culture, and resources. Furthermore, the review revealed that although the field of school quality has been extensively researched, it lacks consistency, with many different operationalisations and definitions, making comparisons and syntheses challenging or even impossible. We believe that clear operationalisations and definitions are crucial to achieving comparability. Additionally, to achieve a standardized understanding of school quality and establish the categories internationally, uniform, theoretically sound, and content-related definitions of each category are necessary.