And there’s a controversial study:
Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson‘s study showed that children’s performance was enhanced if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from children.[5] By the same token, if teachers were led to expect lower performance from children, then the children’s performance would be diminished. The authors purported that the study’s results supported the hypothesis that performance can be positively or negatively influenced by the expectations of others. This phenomenon is called the observer-expectancy effect. Rosenthal argued that biased expectancies could affect reality and create self-fulfilling prophecies.[6]
All students in a single California elementary school were given a disguised IQ test at the beginning of the study. These scores were not disclosed to teachers. Teachers were told that some of their students (about 20% of the school chosen at random) could be expected to be „intellectual bloomers” that year, doing better than expected in comparison to their classmates. The bloomers’ names were made known to the teachers. At the end of the study, all students were again tested with the same IQ test used at the beginning of the study. All six grades in both experimental and control groups showed a mean gain in IQ from before the test to after the test. However, first- and second-graders showed statistically significant gains favoring the experimental group of „intellectual bloomers”. This led to the conclusion that teacher expectations, particularly for the youngest children, can influence student achievement. Rosenthal believed that even attitude or mood could positively affect the students when the teacher was made aware of the „bloomers”. The teacher may pay closer attention to and even treat the child differently in times of difficulty.
Rosenthal predicted that elementary school teachers may subconsciously behave in ways that facilitate and encourage the students’ success. When finished, Rosenthal theorized that future studies could be implemented to find teachers who would encourage their students naturally without changing their teaching methods. Rosenthal and Jacobson’s study of the Pygmalion effect was criticized for both weak methodology and lack of replicability (see Pygmalion in the Classroom).
While the study may be flawed, I like to think of it as being right.
I like to think that there is some truth in it.
Also:
In a narrative review we investigated teacher beliefs that moderate teacher expectation effects. An extensive literature search revealed that only three researchers had systematically examined (in at least three studies) teacher beliefs’ differences and consequent expectation effects for students. Babad explored teachers who believed stereotypical information about students and showed how that bias translated into teacher-student interactions. Highly biased teachers had large negative self-fulfilling prophecy effects on student outcomes. Overall, the difference in contrasts between high and low bias teachers (those who did not accept stereotypes) was d = 0.92. Weinstein’s research investigated teachers who believed all students should be treated similarly versus teachers who believed high and low achievers should be treated quite differently (low and high differentiating teachers). The average effect size of the differences between these teachers was d = 0.85. Rubie-Davies examined the idea that some teachers believe that all students can make large gains (high class-level expectations) whereas others believe their students will make little progress (low class-level expectations); the average effect size difference between high and low expectation teachers was d = 0.87. Hence, the review showed that effect size differences between these different teacher types were remarkably consistent, and all were large.
Full article: The powerful impact of teacher expectations: a narrative review
