Summary
• Path model of teacher expectancy effects on children’s
achievement evaluated in sample of 376 elementary
school children
• Two moderators
Kuklinsky, M. R. & Weinstein, R. S. (2001).
Classroom & developmental differences in a
path model of teacher expectancy effects.
– classroom perceived differential treatment
– Developmental differences
• One mediator: children’s self -expectations
• Findings:
– Both moderators impacted effect of teacher expectancies
Child Development, 72, 15541578
• Stronger effects of teacher expectancies in classrooms with more
salient expectancy-related cues
– Indirect (mediating) effect of children’s self-expectations limited
to upper grades with high differential treatment
• Moderate effect sizes found in classrooms with highly
salient expectancy -related messages
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Introduction
2
Purpose
• Previous research: support for significant but modest
teacher expectancy effects on children’s achievement.
• Teacher expectancy effects likely to be larger when
teacher expectations expressed in salient differences in
student treatment that favor high over low achievers
• Differences in educational opportunities, teacher-student
interaction patterns, and classroom emotional climates
that favor high- over low-achieving students can pose
direct and indirect risks to children’s adaptation.
• Children may internalize teacher expectations as their
own
• To examine two moderators
– classroom differences in content of PDT
– Developmental differences in children
– Lead to performance- over mastery- oriented goals
– Lead to use of superficial rather than deep strategies for learning
new material
– Teacher expectancy effects are likely to increase as child gets
older and social comparison influence performance assessments 3
• One mediator (children’s late in the year
expectations)
• On a path model of teacher expectancy
effecgts on elementary school children’s
year-end reading achievement
4
Hypotheses
Path Model
• Direct teacher expectancy effects on ending
achievements (Path 4)
– stronger in classrooms in which expectancy -related
cues were salient to children
1
• Direct teacher expectancy effects on children’s
self-expectations (Path 5)
4
3
– stronger in classrooms in which expectancy -related
cues were salient to children, and with increasing age
Entering
Reading
Achievement
E
2
Teacher
Expectancies
In Reading
E
5
Children’s SelfExpectations in
Reading
E
6
Children’s SelfExpectations in
Reading
E
• Indirect, or child-mediated pathways to teacher
expectancy effects on ending achievement
(operating through the mediating variable of
children’s self expectation, Paths 5 & 6)
– critical to fit of model in classrooms in which
• differential treatment was salient
• With increasing age.
5
6
1
Measures
Method
Participants
Children’s perceptions of differential teacher
treatment of high- and low - achieving students
(Teacher Treatment Inventory: TTI)
• 30 teacher behaviors toward high- and low achieving students
• 376 children and 48 teachers
– First graders
– Third graders
– Fifth graders
– “Teacher makes R feel that R has not done the work
well.”
– “The teacher asks R if R understands the work.”
– “The teacher asks R to lead activities.”
• Up to 12 children per classroom
– 4 high, 4 low, 4 moderate teacher expectancy
students
• Ethnicity: African American, Caucasian,
Chicano/Latino, Asian American, Native
American
• 50% parents gave permission to participate in
study
• PDT score = high achieving score – low
achieving score (-9 to +9)
• Averaged across children within classroom
• Classrooms median split into high and low PDT
classrooms
7
8
Measures: Teacher Expectancy
Measures: Child’s Self Expectancy
• In fall, teachers rated children from 1
(poor) to 5 (outstanding) in expectations
for year-end achievement in readintg
•
•
•
•
30 circles in a column
Top of the class (at top of column)
Bottom of class (at bottom of column)
Asked to indicate how well they thought
they would perform in reading by the end
of the school year
• Scores reversed to correspond with high
achievement expectations
9
Measures:
Children’s Reading Achievement
10
Procedures
• Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills
(CTBS)
• Given at end of year
• Scores measured in normal curve
equivalents, derived from national
percentile ranks
• Entering achievement operationalized as
last year’s achievement
• Children completed High Achiever and
Low Achiever versions of TTI in small
group testing sessions in fall
• Children completed self-expectations
during individual testing sessions held in
spring
• Standardized achievement scores (from
group testing) obtained from district
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12
2
Analysis
Results
• Classrooms assigned to high- and low-PDT comparison
groups and three age groups to test moderating
hypotheses through separate analyses
• Entering achievement significantly predicted ending
achievement (Path 1) and teacher expectations (Path 2)
at all grade levels
– Failure to fit same path weights to more than one group =
evidence of moderating effects
– Magnitudes increased with age
– Children’s achievement differences became more stable with
age
• Raw data standardized on entire sample to ease
interpretation of parameters
• Entering achievement significantly predicted children’s
self expectations (Path 3) only in Grade 1
– Children’s self expectations transformed (square root) to
stabilize variance
• Support for hypotheses: small χ 2 statistic (relative to
degrees of freedom) and large probability values
considered desirable
• If probability was between .05 and .10, and RMSEA =
.05, fit considered adequate
• R 2 used to assess effect size
• Two stage hypothesis testing:
– magnitude of relation declined with age only in high-PDT
classrooms
• Relation between children’s self -expectations and ending
achievement (Path 6) did not
– increase with age
– dramatically differ between high- and low-PDT classrooms
– Omnibus test of moderation for paths 4 and 6; one set of parameters did
not work for all six groups; preliminary evidence for moderation
13
– Series of focused comparisons
• Dramatic increase in R2 values for ending achievement
over elementary school years
– Related to increasing stability of children’s achievement
differences.
Moderating effects
14
Magnitude of effects
• Grade level differences moderated strength of
direct teacher expectancy effects on ending
achievement (Path 4).
• Teacher expectations had practical
importance for models of children’s ending
achievement in Grade 1 and Grade 3 highPDT classrooms
– Declined from Grade 1 to Grade 5
– As path 1 and path 5 became stronger
• In later grades, teacher expectations had
relatively strong sustaining effects on children’s
achievement differences
• In earlier grades, teacher expectations had
relatively strong self -fulfilling prophecy effects.
– Effects largest in Grade 1 (10% - 12%
explained variance)
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16
Teacher Expectancy and
Child’s Self-expectations
Expected class rank
Children’s Self-expectations
• Stronger in high- PDT classrooms, particularly in
higher grades
• Teacher expectancy effects on children’s selfexpectations (Path 5) increased with age, but
only when performance cues were salient
• In early and middle grades, children’s selfexpectations remained independent of teacher
expectations (after controlling for entering
achievement levels)
• Effect size = moderate in Grade 5 high- PDT
classrooms (additional 9% of explained
variance)
9.00
7.00
5.00
3.00
1.00
Grade 1
Grade 3
Grade 5
High PDT
Low PDT
Classroom environment
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18
3
Indirect child-mediated teacher expectancy
effects on ending achievement
Self-Expectations as Mediators
• Hypothesis: child-mediated pathway would be
critical to model fit in high- PDT classrooms and
with increasing age.
• Partial support: removing path 5 significantly
hampered fit of model
1
.75***
.01
– direct effects
– indirect teacher expectancy effects operated through
mediator of child’s self expectations (e.g., Grade 5
high-PDT classroom)
– Indirect effects not needed in Grades 1 and 3 classes,
regardless of PDT climate
• Indirect effects: magnitude small, except in
Grade 5 high PDT classroom
Entering
Reading
Achievement
Teacher
Expectancies
In Reading
2
.60***
E
4
3
5
Children’s SelfExpectations in
Reading
.38***
E
.19***
6
Children’s SelfExpectations in
Reading
.09*
E
E
Figure 2. Path model results for Grade 5 High PDT classroom
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Strengths, Limits,
and Future Directions
Discussion
• Findings provided strong support that both
classroom environment and grade-level
differences moderated the strength of direct and
indirect teacher expectancy effects.
• Variability in effect size was related to
differences in the classroom differential
treatment environment and children’s age
• Strengths
– Longitudinal
– Effects of teacher expectancy after controlling for
entry achievement
• Limits
– Strongest direct effects of expectancy -related
messages and ending achievement in Grade 1 in all
environments
– Similar magnitude of effects in high-PDT Grade 3
classrooms
– Small sample size
– Not experimental design
• Future:
– Need for explicit attention to moderators, mediators,
and multiple outcomes in expectancy research:
“to what extent and under what conditions?”
• Question: role of teacher expectations in
sustaining or preserving, but not adding to,
differences in children’s entering achievement
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