Higher expectations lead to increased performance.
Rosenthal and Jacobson's 1968 classroom study is methodologically weak — the test was unpublished and the effect concentrated in the youngest grades. Expectancy effects are real and smaller than the original claim.
In practice
- A teacher told a class is a strong set gives harder work, marks it more closely, and the class outperforms the one taught next door.
- The same teacher given an accurate description of a middling set produces a gap far smaller than the staffroom expects, which is roughly where the honest estimate sits.
- Possible explanations
- One explanation is differential treatment: teachers give pupils they expect more of more time, harder material and warmer feedback. Another is the pupil's own expectation, altered by how they are treated.
- In its favour
- Expectancy effects are real and do replicate, particularly where the expectation is induced before a teacher has other information about a pupil.
- Against it
- The original study's test was unpublished and its effect concentrated in the youngest classes, meta-analysis finds small average effects, and teachers' expectations are usually accurate rather than self-fulfilling.
- Standing
- The original classroom study is methodologically weak; expectancy effects are real but smaller.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- What works in learning, and what schools can and cannot change