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Version 1.1 – Updated August 2021

Teacher expectations

Overview

  • Influence: Teacher expectations
  • Domain: Teacher
  • Sub-Domain: Teacher attributes
  • Potential to Accelerate Student Achievement: Potential to accelerate
  • Influence Definition: The expectations about student performance held by teachers. These can be accurate or effected by biases (social background, gender, culture), but more often teachers hold either low, medium or high expectations for all their students.

Evidence

  • Number of meta-analyses: 7
  • Number of studies: 613
  • Number of students: 0
  • Number of effects: 731
  • Effect size: 0.42

Meta-Analyses

Meta-Analyses
Journal Title Author First Author's Country Article Name Year Published Variable Number of Studies Number of Students Number of Effects Effect Size
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences Rosenthal & Rubin USA Interpersonal expectancy effects: The first 345 studies 1978 Teacher expectations 345 0 345 0.70
Evaluation in Education Smith USA Teacher expectations 1980 Teacher expectations 46 0 149 0.82
Journal of Educational Psychology Dusek & Joseph USA The bases of teacher expectancies: A meta-analysis 1983 Teacher expectations 102 0 102 0.39
Journal of Educational Psychology Raudenbush USA Magnitude of teacher expectancy effects on pupil IQ as a function of the credibility of expectancy induction: A synthesis of findings from 18 experiments 1984 Teacher expectations 18 0 33 0.08
Psychological Bulletin Harris & Rosenthal USA Mediation of interpersonal expectancy effects: 31 meta-analyses 1985 Teacher expectations 53 0 53 0.41
Journal of Educational Psychology Tenebaum & Ruck England Are teachers' expectations different for racial minority than for European American students? A meta-analysis 2007 Teacher expectations 39 0 39 0.23
Educational Research and Evaluation de Boer, Timmermans, & van der Werf Netherlands The effects of teacher expectation interventions on teachers' expectations and student achievement; Narrative review and meta-analysis. 2018 Teacher expectations 10 0 10 0.30
TOTAL/AVERAGE 613 0 731 0.42

Confidence

The Confidence is the average of these four measures, each divided into five approximately equal groups and assigned a value from 1 to 5 based on the following criteria:

  • Number of Meta-analyses
    • 1 = 1
    • 2 = 2–3
    • 3 = 4–6
    • 4 = 7–9
    • 5 = 10+
  • Number of Studies
    • 1 = 1–10
    • 2 = 11–50
    • 3 = 51–200
    • 4 = 201–400
    • 5 = 400+
  • Number of Students
    • 1 = 1–2,500
    • 2 = 2,501–10,000
    • 3 = 10,000–20,000
    • 4 = 20,000–100,000
    • 5 = 100,001+
  • Number of Effects
    • 1 = 1–100
    • 2 = 101–300
    • 3 = 301–600
    • 4 = 601–1,200
    • 5 = 1,200+
Confidences
Number of Meta-Analyses Number of Studies Number of Students Number of Effects Overall Confidence
Confidence Factor 4 5 1 4 4
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