Teachers' Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform

Colleagues,

You may be familiar with the 1968 Robert Rosenthal Pygmalian in the Classroom study in which Rosenthal found that teachers’ expectations of their students’ performance affects the students’ actual performance in that classroom. (Read about the Rosenthal study at http://tinyurl.com/co3g329 .)

Teachers' Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform, a recent  (8 ½ minute NPR Morning Edition podcast, (also transcribed as printed text) references this study, and updates it; Robert Pianta, Dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia,  “has studied teachers for years, and [told the interviewer, Alix Speigel] that it is truly hard for teachers to control their expectations.”

Spiegel continues, “But Pianta has a different idea of how to go about changing teachers' expectations. He says it's not effective to try to change their thoughts; the key is to train teachers in an entirely new set of behaviors.”

Pianta and his colleagues recently did a study. They took a group of teachers, assessed their beliefs about children, then gave a portion of them a standard pedagogy course, which included information about appropriate beliefs and expectations. Another portion got intense behavioral training, which taught them a whole new set of skills based on those appropriate beliefs and expectations.”

“For this training, the teachers videotaped their classes over a period of months and worked with personal coaches who watched those videos, then gave them recommendations about different behaviors to try.”

“After that intensive training, Pianta and his colleagues analyzed the beliefs of the teachers again. What he found was that the beliefs of the trained teachers had shifted way more than the beliefs of teachers given a standard informational course.”

“This is why Pianta thinks that to change beliefs, the best thing to do is change behaviors.”

You can hear or read the whole interview at http://tinyurl.com/c58u8cq.

I wonder if the Rosenthal study, or any study of teachers’ expectations of their students, has been done with adult learners. I wonder if the teacher expectations studies findings for children apply to teachers of adults.  Do you know if such studies have been done? If so, please let us all know.  Thanks.

I wonder what you think of Pianta’s findings. Should adult education professional development focus on teacher behaviors?

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

Comments

I was familiar with the original study but not the newer one on behavior change. It only makes good sense. I can read all day on how to become a better bowler but until I get the ball in my hand and have a coach watch me throw it down the alley and give me feedback, I'm not going to improve. So I believe that PD should focus on teacher behavior, whether it's expectations or reading instruction.

If teacher expectations have the same influence on adult students as they do on kids, then everytime I hear a teacher say "My students could never go to college" or "My students would never be able to pass the new GED" them my stomach is going to hurt worse than it already does.

Best,

DI

Hello everyone.

This is my first post on the PD linc. I've been reading and commenting on the math/numeracy link for a couple years. I've taught/tutored GED math for several years and am currently an instructor in developmental math at Front Range Community College, Westminster, CO.

Yes, teachers must show a positive attitude to students. However, we must also be realistic.

In ABE or GED math programs, students may have a low-key, take-as-long-as-you need approach to mastering a subject. Many can master math to a certain level in this climate.

Then the student believes he/she is ready for college work. Because of good luck and guessing on a standardized test like ACCUPLACER, the student tests into the lowest-level developmental math class (whole numbers, fractions, decimals). Whe he/she comes to the first day of class, he/she discovers that what took six months for him/her to learn as basic math skills with whole numbers (not any concepts) is covered in the first four sessions of the class.

The student may be able to learn skills at his/her pace; that student is not going to be able to keep up even in developmental math classes at college.

What is fair for the student - an honest conversation with the ABE/GED teacher or letting the student believe he/she can succeed in college?

Does the teacher's professional sense of what the student may be capable of have to be tossed out?

Your comments, please.

Dorothea Steinke

math instructor, Front Range Community College, Westminster, CO

 

Dorothea,

 

This study suggests that a teacher’s  “positive attitude” may not be as important as a teacher having specific high expectations behaviors, at least for children. In adult basic education and adult secondary education, some other things may also be needed that may not be as much of an issue in K-12. One of them is time on task. Many adult learners just can’t or don’t spend enough time learning the basic math skills they need to succeed in college math. Increasing homework time (for example, online instruction), a teacher having high expectations behaviors, and good teaching are three variables that together might make a difference in student outcomes.

I was unclear on my last post. I agree that teachers need to be realistic with their expectations for their students. But I don't think it's realistic for a teacher to assume that none of his or her students has the ability to go to or succeed in college. As David said in the post after yours, it's not just the belief but the behaviors, as well. A teacher who believes and behaves as if none of his or her students can be successful in college could quite possibly derail that goal for the students who are capable of a postsecondary education. It is up to us as teachers to help our students prepare for their goals and to help them be realistic about those goals and what will be neccessary to achieve them. We have a saying in the GED Scholars' Initiative here at the OLRC: We are not dream killers. Occasionally a person may need to try and fail to see they need more realistic goals. My golf game is a great example of that.

Best,

Dianna

I believe every student who has the potential to get a GED also has the potential to attend college--especially if the college is the University of Alaska!  Our state has thrown good money after bad at "public education" and the UA system has also been mostly a hiring hall. Many "teachers" have come here for their "Alaskan Experience" and contributed very little, so perhaps it is time for people who actually live here to get into those revolving door professions. Native Corporations formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 are depending for their success on aboriginal Alaskans to meet the challenge. 

I tell my students outright that getting a GED is a noble goal but far short of what they need to do if they expect to participate as a full member in the American Dream. Further, if ANYBODY could get a GED it wouldn't be worth anything. In my classes mistakes are just lessons, "so make plenty of mistakes in my class so you don't have to make them on the GED test."  A trusting learning environment allows this to happen.

But most of all, if you don't have at least a GED and you have children, then you owe it to THEM to get a GED and move on to College or Career Training. As the only one among my two siblings to graduate from high school, I tell my students from first-hand experience what they can expect to happen if they don't get at least a GED--two generations down the road, now.

Students must be responsible for their own future; teachers can promote their liklihood of success through enlightened assertion.

Donn Liston, MEd

Anchorage, Alaska

Life is tough, but if you are good at something you make it look easy. Good basketball players had to learn all the elements of ball handling before they could gain teamwork skills. Just because a student took forever to get through the basics of arithmetic doesn't mean they can't apply themselves and excel in more progressive steps of learning math.

Don't coddle 'em, push with a feather...

Donn Liston, MEd

Anchorage, Alaska