Teacher Expectations Article Review

Article Review - Teacher expectations and perceptions of student attributes: Is there a relationship?

Summary

This article continues the research foundation of over forty years of study on teacher expectations. This study narrows in beyond expectations for individual students to focus on expectations from teachers on a class level, thus providing insight into specific teacher factors that are helpful or not helpful for students’ cognitive growth. The research focused on how high expectation and low expectation teachers rated their students’ personal attributes and how this may relate to achievement.

Citation

Rubie-Davies, C.M. (2010). Teacher expectations and perceptions of student attributes: Is there a relationship?. British Journal of Educational Psychology, (80) 121-135.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christine_Rubie-Davies/publication/26685794_Teacher_expectations_and_perceptions_of_student_attributes_Is_there_a_relationship/links/0deec52a7533581599000000.pdf

Purpose of the research

This study’s purpose is to determine if teacher expectations on a class level have an impact on student achievement. Specifically, to explore levels of expectations, how students are perceived, and what the student response is with performance based on the class expectations from the teacher.

Research questions

The research study aimed to deepen the understanding of  HiEx and LoEx teachers’ characteristics by analyzing their perception of student attributes. Next they explored the positive or negative correlation between teacher expectation of a class and perceived  +/- learning environments.

       (1)    How do teachers’ expectations relate to perceptions of student attitudes to schooling;

       (2)    How do teacher perceptions of students’ attitudes to schooling relate to student achievement?

Methods

Primary school teachers (N=24) completed a questionnaire at the beginning of the academic year where they rated their expectation for what students would achieve in their class. The researchers compared expectations with students’ previous achievement levels and labeled 6 HiEx teachers with 144 students and 3 LoEx teachers with 76 students. Students were equally divided by high, average and low abilities. Teachers “also rated their students attitudes toward schoolwork , relationship with others, and home support,” using a scale created by St. George (1983) with some slight modifications for 15 characteristics rated on a Smartadata program (Davies, 2007).

Subjects

The subjects include 9 teachers and 220 primary students.

Results

Techniques used included “means and standard deviations for class level teacher expectations, student achievement,” and independent t-tests “were conducted to determine whether there were any significant differences between the HiEx and LoEx teachers’ ratings of the students’ characteristics.”

Teachers with high expectations for their students per class rated them highly, while low expectation teachers rated students below their achievement level yet perceived them positively. There was a statistically significant difference between HiEx and LoEx teachers for their ratings of:

• students’ perseverance (t ¼  2: 18, df ¼  218,p , : 03),
• independence (t ¼  2: 45, df ¼  218, p , : 02),
• reaction to new work (t ¼  3: 77, df ¼  218, p , : 001),
• interest in schoolwork (t ¼  2: 47, df ¼  218, p , : 01),
• cognitive engagement (t ¼  2: 93, df ¼  218, p , : 004),
• participation in class (t ¼  4: 59, df ¼  218, p , : 001),
• motivation (t ¼  2: 18, df ¼  218, p , : 03),
• confidence (t ¼  2: 60, df ¼  218, p , :01),
• self-esteem ( t ¼ 5:65,  df ¼ 218,  p , :001),
• classroom behavior ( t ¼ 2:24,  df ¼ 218,  p , :001),
• peer relationships ( t ¼ 4:98,  df ¼ 218,  p , :001),
• teacher relationships ( t ¼ 4:71,  df ¼ 218,  p , :001),
• parent attitudes to school ( t ¼ 3:52,  df ¼ 218,  p , :001),
• home environment ( t ¼ 6:60,  df ¼ 218,  p , :001), and
• homework completion ( t ¼ 3:24,  df ¼ 218,  p , :001).

HiEx teachers rated their students more highly on each scale item and had more positive perceptions of their students than did LoEx teachers.

Next using Pearson correlations the “relationship between teachers’ expectations and their perceptions of students’ attitudes and characteristics were calculated.” There was a statistically significant and positive correlation between HiEx teachers’ “perceptions of all student attitudes and their expectations (p , :001 for all variables).” The following items moderately correlated with teacher’s expectations of their students:

• independence,
• perseverance,
• reaction to new work,
• interest in schoolwork,
• participation in class,
• motivation,
• confidence,
• self-esteem,
• classroom behaviour,
• relationships with peers,
• relationships with the teacher,
• parent attitudes to school,
• home environment, and
• completion of homework.

The correlation “between teacher perceptions of student engagement and teachers’ expectations was strong,” as HiEx instructors had positive views that were reflected in positive expectations. LoEx had less expectations and the statistic correlation was small and negative with:

• interest in schoolwork,
• motivation,
• classroom behaviour,
• peer relationships,
• teacher relationships, and
• homework completion.

Interesting to note, that while “teachers’ expectations for their students were low their perceptions of some student attributes were not similarly low” as it appears they believed that “their students tried hard (interest in schoolwork and motivation), behaved in class (classroom behaviour), and related well to others (peer relationships and teacher relationships) even though their expectations for student achievement were low.”

Discussion and Implications

HiEx teachers seemed to perceived student attributes positively and thus with their achievement. For LoEx teachers the only statistically significant correlation was small and was between student achievement and teachers’ perceptions of student cognitive engagement. Hence, LoEx teachers seem to perceive that “student achievement was related to student engagement with the task.”

Overall, the perceptions of LoEx teachers did not match up to what the students could achieve.  Students in classes with HiEx teachers performed better with the positive environment, possibly because their teachers had high expectations and viewed their attributes positively so their learning was enhanced. For LoEx teachers, students might receive confusing messages with some positive and some negative messages associated with the low expectations despite ability level.

Contribution and future research

There has been a lot of research about how students’ performance in the class is affected by teachers’ individual expectations. Years ago folks hypothesized that teachers’ expectations of their whole class would have even more of an impact. Yet there has not been as much research done in class expectations, with a majority coming in the last decade.

With additional research on class expectations combined with deepening the understanding of individual expectations, we will be able to understand more how teachers can potential positively or negatively impact their students’ academic performance based on their beliefs of their attributes, where they set the bar for individual/group levels, and the biases and discriminating behaviors they show in the classrooms. The self-fulfilling prophesy for classes may hold even more impact than individual expectations.

Implications for the technology-enhanced learning (TEL) environment
The “Smartadata” program, and other similar programs to capture teacher perceptions, will continue to be helpful in research studies. There is also incredible promise to build simulated learning programs where teachers learn about biases, self-fulfilling prophesy, discriminating behavior, and impact of expectations on student attributes and performance. Very similar to the program Dr. Folkestad built!