Raising teacher expectations, changing beliefs and enhancing student achievement

1. Raising teacher expectations, changing beliefs and enhancing student achievement An intervention study

2. Welcome to the project • Introductions • Teachers • Researchers • Outline of the project • Questions • Understandings/expectations

3. Plan for the day • 9.45 – Research background: • Rosenthal • Teacher behaviours • Student characteristics: Gender, social class, ethnicity • 10.30 – Morning tea • 11.00 – Characteristics: • Student characteristics: ethnicity • Teacher characteristics: Babad, Weinstein, Rubie-Davies • 12.15 – Lunch • 1.15 – Whole class expectations: • The evidence • View/analyse own videos • Areas for development: grouping and learning experiences, motivation and evaluation, class climate and student responsibility for learning • Identification of areas for growth

4. A ground-breaking study • Rosenthal and Jacobson • Rosenthal and rats • Experimenter effects • Expectations in classrooms • Pygmalion in the classroom • Conclusions • Controversy

6. A Model of Teacher Expectations Socioemotional Environment Student Outcomes: Social/Academic Instructional Practices Formation of Class Expectations Teacher Beliefs Opportunities to Learn Instructional Environment

7. Research directions after Pygmalion • Formation of expectations • Personality correlates of teachers • Transmission of differential expectations • Student perceptions • Educational and social outcomes

8. Formation of expectations • Portfolio information • Gender • Ethnicity • Social class • Diagnostic labels • Attractiveness • Siblings • Names • Language style • Personality and social skills • Teacher/ student background Greater influences Lesser influences

9. Transmission of differential expectations (Brophy, 1983) • Teachers interact more in private with lows; monitor and structure activities closely • Differential grading of tests • Less friendly interaction with lows • Less informative feedback to lows • Lows receive less eye contact and nonverbal communication • Less intrusive instruction of highs • Less use of effective instructional methods with lows • Wait time less for lows • Give lows the answer/ ask someone else • Inappropriate reinforcement • Criticising lows for failure • Praise lows less for success • Fail to provide feedback to public response of lows • Pay less attention to/ interact less with lows • Call on lows less frequently • Seat lows farther from the teacher • Demand less from lows

10. Some specific teacher differential behaviours • not helping enough to improve students’ answers • praising incorrect answers or inappropriate behaviours • demanding less of them • shorter and less informative feedback • less intrusive instruction • less use of time-consuming instructional methods • less opportunity to perform publicly • less opportunity to think and analyse • less choice on assignments/ tasks • less autonomy and more frequent monitoring • more gratuitous and less contingent feedback Brophy (1985) behaviours towards low expectancy students Good and Weinstein (1986) teachers provided less capable students with:

11. Importance of teacher differential behaviour • Development of research into teacher differential behaviour • Positives and negatives related to teacher differential behaviour

12. Rosenthal’s four-factor theory • Climate • Feedback • Input • Output

13. Harris and Rosenthal (1985) meta-analysis • Stronger effects for affective climate and instructional input • A smaller effect for output • A practically negligible effect for differential feedback behaviours

14. Operationalising teacher differential behaviour • What are the specific types of differential behaviours? • What is the ideological legitimacy and educational desirability of each type of differential behaviour? • Which group of students receives an advantage from each type of teacher differential behaviour? • What is the teachers’ natural tendency and how would they wish to deal with particular students and different groups of students? • To what extent are teachers able to control their specific verbal and non-verbal behaviours?

15. The affective domain • The components of the theory clash • Affective displays and actual feelings • Controlling affective displays: verbal and non-verbal

16. Students’ perceptions of teacher differential behaviour • Do students perceive teacher differential behaviour? • Interpreting behaviours differently • Perceptions of teacher interactions

17. Comparison of student and teacher perceptions • Is there agreement in relation to degrees of learning support? • Is there agreement in relation to degrees of emotional support?

18. The social/ emotional effects of teacher differential behaviour • Effects on students • Classroom climate and morale • Fairness and equity • Social comparison process is powerful and prevalent in schools

19. Equity theory • Adams (1965) • Balance between what we put in and what we get out • Influenced by others • Sense of justice

20. Teacher’s pet: a special case of teacher differential behaviour

21. Characteristics • Student characteristics • Ethnicity • Teacher characteristics • High bias and low bias teachers: Babad • High differentiating and low differentiating teachers: Weinstein • High expectation and low expectation teachers: Rubie-Davies

22. Gender Ethnicity Social class Diagnostic labels Physical attractiveness Language style Personality and social skills Teacher/student background Names Other siblings Student characteristics - labelling

23. Gender • Primary school girls • Secondary school boys – maths, science • Ability/effort • Teacher interactions • PE • Reading and language • Social behaviour

24. Social class • Middle class students are expected to perform at higher levels than lower social class • Low social class are vulnerable to teacher expectations • Some evidence teachers’ assessments for lower class are accurate but over-rate middle class • But what about NZ?

25. Diagnostic labels • Expectations vary according to whether or not a child has a label, e.g. ADHD • Stinnett (2001): 144 preservice teachers • ADHD, no label; Ritalin, in Special Ed • Description of child; vignette Rubie-Davies

26. Other factors • Physical attractiveness • Language style • Personality and social skills • Teacher/student background • Names • Siblings Rubie-Davies

27. Ethnicity • African American/ White students • Hispanic/ White students • Vulnerability • UK • But what about NZ? • St George (1983) academic • Stoddart (1998) social skills • Rubie-Davies, Hattie, Hamilton (2006) Rubie-Davies

28. A New Zealand study • Rubie-Davies (2006) British Journal of Educational Psychology • 21 teachers • 540 students • 261 NZ European • 88 Maori • 91 PI • 94 Asian Rubie-Davies

29. Measures • Expectation survey • 1-7 Likert scale • Teacher judgement of student achievement • Running records Rubie-Davies

30. Rubie-Davies

31. Rubie-Davies

32. Rubie-Davies

33. Conclusions • Teacher expectations • Ethnicity or social class? • Societal stereotypes • Lowered expectations • Effect on pedagogy • Lesson pace • Structured environment • Ability • Self-fulfilling prophecy effect/ sustaining expectation effect Rubie-Davies

34. Bias, prejudice and stereotype • Prejudice (bias) is a negative attitude • A stereotype is a generalisation, a belief • http://www.understandingprejudice.org/iat/

35. Stereotypes • A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people • Stereotypes are sometimes over-generalised, inaccurate and resistant to new information • Stereotypes are shortcuts • Stereotypes are biased • Problems with the use of stereotypes • Prejudice: A set of negative stereotypes loaded with aggression and strong emotions carrying the idea that ‘we’ are better than ‘them’

36. Teachers’ bias • Often based on commonly held stereotypes • What is teacher bias? • Objectivity appears to be difficult • Experimental vs naturalistic studies? • Reversed bias • Reducing bias

37. Personality correlates of susceptible teachers • Babad (1998) Draw-a-Person Intelligence test • One-sixth of teachers objective • One half mildly biased • One-quarter highly biased • A small proportion reverse biased

38. Profile of the biased teacher • In theory • In practice • Personality questionnaire • Classroom behaviour

39. Exploring teacher personality and beliefs • Elisha Babad • Rhona Weinstein • Christine Rubie-Davies

40. Elisha Babad • Preferential affect is at the heart of the teacher expectation issue • Identified high and low bias teachers

41. Teacher differential behaviour in teachers’ non-verbal behaviour • Video clips • Ten-second exposure • Babad’s studies in elementary and secondary schools and at university

42. Students as judges • Babad et al, 1989; 1991; Babad & Taylor, 1992 • Adult judges of teacher non-verbal behaviour • What young students perceived in teachers’ non-verbal behaviour • Students from different grade levels • In Israel and New Zealand • Students made guesses about the student the teacher was talking to or about • Results

43. Rhona Weinstein • Students live different lives in one classroom • Student perceptions of differential treatment in the classroom

45. Student perceptions (Weinstein): the Teacher Treatment Inventory • Favoured in teacher interactions • Higher expectations • More opportunity and more choice • Receive more frequent negative feedback • More teacher-directed treatment High achievers Low achievers

46. Interviews • Teacher is the defining agent of ability not themselves, peers or parents • Public incidents • Importance of nonverbal cues • Children relate smartness to conforming behaviour and fast completion of work • Effects on children’s feelings

47. Gleaning information about ability • Ways in which students are grouped for instruction • Materials and activities through which the curriculum is taught • Evaluation system that teachers use to assess learning • Motivational system used to engage students • Responsibility that students have in directing and evaluating learning • Climate of relationships within the class, with parents and with the school

48. Ability grouping Highly differentiated curriculum Intelligence is fixed Learning for external reward Teacher as director Teacher as academic instructor Variety of grouping Challenging learning experiences Intelligence is malleable Learning for personal growth Teacher as facilitator Teacher as socialiser High and low differentiating teachers (Weinstein, 2002)

49. Christine Rubie-Davies • The question is not, what is it about students that mean teachers have high or low expectations for them; the question we should be asking is, what is it about teachers that means some have high or low expectations for all their students?

50. Projecting messages • What do we portray in our verbal and non-verbal behaviour? • Lie to Me video clip