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Visible Learning™
Visible Learning MetaX
Version 1.4 – Updated February 2026

Teachers labeling students

Overview

  • Influence: Teachers labeling students
  • Domain: Teacher
  • Sub-Domain: Teacher attributes
  • Potential to Accelerate Student Achievement: Likely to have a negative impact
  • Influence Definition: Consider two students of the same personality, behavior, or aptitude; label one (e.g., Asperger's, naughty, struggling) and not the others. This research investigates the effects of these labels. Labeling can lead to effective intervention and/or could lead to discrimination or exclusion. (Note, this is not implying that these diagnoses are necessarily incorrect.)

Evidence

  • Number of meta-analyses: 2
  • Number of studies: 139
  • Number of students: 8,295
  • Number of effects: 363
  • Weighted mean effect size: -0.53
  • Robustness index: 3

Meta-Analyses

Meta-Analyses
Journal Title Author Article Name Year Published Variable Number of Studies Number of Students Number of Effects Effect Size
Book Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes, Lipsey, & Roberts Is "Learning Disabilities" Just a Fancy Term for Low Achievement? A Meta-Analysis of Reading Differences Between Low Achievers with and without the Label 2002 Low achieving non-disabled students vs. learning disabled in reading 79 NA 79 -0.61
Educational Psychology Review Franz, Richter, Lenhard, Marx, Stein, & Ratz The influence of diagnostic labels on the evaluation of students: A multilevel meta-analysis. 2023 Labeling students 60 8,295 284 -0.42
TOTAL/AVERAGE 139 8,295 363 -0.51
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