The longitudinal relations of teacher expectations to achievement in the early school years.

There is relatively little research on the role of teacher expectations in the early school years or the importance of teacher expectations as a predictor of future academic achievement. The current study investigated these issues in the reading and mathematic domains for young children. Data from nearly 1,000 children and families at 1st, 3rd, and 5th grades were included. Child sex and social skills emerged as consistent predictors of teacher expectations of reading and, to a lesser extent, math ability. In predicting actual future academic achievement, results showed that teacher expectations were differentially related to achievement in reading and math. There was no evidence that teacher expectations accumulate but some evidence that they remain durable over time for math achievement. In addition, teacher expectations were more strongly related to later achievement for groups of children who might be considered to be at risk. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do gender differences in help avoidance vary by ethnicity? An examination of African American and European American students during early adolescence.

The present research examined whether the nature of gender differences varies by race for two types of academic engagement in the classroom (help avoidance and voice with the teacher) in a sample of early adolescents (N = 456; 55% female, 60% African American and 40% European American) making the transition to middle school. Growth curve analyses indicated that help avoidance increased over time, voice remained stable, and achievement declined. In line with hypotheses based on cultural variations in the female role, there were no gender differences in help avoidance for African American students, whereas for European American students, girls were lower in help avoidance than were boys. For African American students, there were no gender differences in voice with the teacher, whereas for European American students, girls were higher than were boys. These group differences were present at all 3 waves. For all students, increases in help avoidance negatively predicted changes in achievement, whereas increases in voice positively predicted achievement. Results underscore the importance of examining gender and ethnicity together to understand academic adjustment during early adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning what's taught: Sex differences in instruction.

Research indicates that boys perform better on mathematics tests and girls perform better on reading tests. An investigation of why boys' and girls' performance differs was made by coding 33 teacher interactions with 2nd grade students during reading and mathematics instruction. Teachers made more academic contacts with girls in reading and with boys in math; teachers spent relatively more cognitive time with girls in reading and boys in math; teachers made consistently more managerial contacts with boys than girls; and, although there were no differences in initial abilities, sex differences were found in end-of-year achievement in reading. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender difference as a factor in teachers' perceptions of students.

Elementary school teachers' perceptions of students were assessed by having teachers rate 157 boys and 127 girls in their 1st–6th grade classes on the School Behavior Check List. Multiple regression was used to examine the relationship between the student characteristics of sex, IQ, reading achievement, and grade level and teacher ratings of students on the Check List. This technique was used because sex, academic ability, and achievement are confounded variables in elementary school populations. Results show that student ability and achievement were more potent factors in teacher perceptions than gender per se. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading achievement gaps, correlates, and moderators of early reading achievement: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) kindergarten to first grade sample.

This study estimated reading achievement gaps in different ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic groups of 1st graders in the U.S. compared with specific reference groups and identified statistically significant correlates and moderators of early reading achievement. A subset of 2,296 students nested in 184 schools from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) kindergarten to 1st-grade cohort were analyzed with hierarchical linear models. With child-level background differences controlled, significant 1st-grade reading differentials were found in African American children (-0.51 SD units below Whites), boys (-0.31 SD units below girls), and children from high-poverty households (-0.61 to -1.0 SD units below well-to-do children). In all 3 comparisons, the size of the reading gaps increased from kindergarten entry to 1st grade. Reading level at kindergarten entry was a significant child-level correlate, related to poverty status. At the school level, class size and elementary teacher certification rate were significant reading correlates in 1st grade. Cross-level interactions indicated reading achievement in African American children was moderated by the schools students attended, with attendance rates and reading time at home explaining the variance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An examination of predictive bias for second grade reading outcomes from measures of early literacy skills in kindergarten with respect to English-language learners and ethnic subgroups.

The assessment of early literacy skills during the kindergarten year can provide useful information about student performance in prereading skills, which are predictors of later reading achievement. This study examined the use of fluency-based prompts of student phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, and oral reading at the end of kindergarten for predicting later reading achievement at the end of second grade. Predictive validity and bias studies were undertaken with respect to English-language learners (ELLs) and four selected ethnic subgroups: European American (EA), African American (AA), Asian American (AsA), and Hispanic American (HA). Results indicated that the predictive validity of the early literacy measures was strong, and no evidence of predictive bias for ELL and non-ELL groups was found. However, evidence of a small amount of predictive bias was found between the EA and HA students with respect to intercept differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in children's mathematics achievement: Solving computations and story problems.

Examined the performance of 144,462 male and 142,305 female California 6th-graders (aged 135–261 mo) on 2 types of mathematics items: computations and story problems. Data represent Ss' responses to the Survey of Basic Skills, Grade 6, of the California Assessment Program. Results indicate that girls were more likely than boys to solve computations successfully, whereas boys were more likely than girls to be successful with story problems. Sex is shown to be a significant factor in predicting student success. Problem-solving success for the 2 types of items is also examined in relation to reading achievement, SES, primary language, and age. It was found that girls had higher measured reading achievement than boys; however, girls who achieved higher scores in reading were nonetheless relatively weaker in solving story problems than both other girls and boys. Little or no interaction was found between SES or language and sex. Age was not found to be a factor that contributes to sex differences in performance. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teacher expectations: II. Construction and reflection of student achievement.

Tested hypotheses regarding self-fulfilling prophecies, perceptual biases, and accuracy using longitudinal data relating 98 6th-grade math teachers' expectations to 1,731 students' performance. Consistent with the self-fulfilling prophecy hypothesis, teacher expectations predicted changes in student achievement beyond effects accounted for by previous achievement and motivation. Consistent with the perceptual bias hypothesis, teacher expectations predicted their own evaluations of students' performance more strongly than they predicted standardized test scores. Consistent with the accuracy hypothesis, path coefficients relating teacher expectations to standardized achievement tests were about 80% lower than zero-order correlations, and the path coefficients relating teacher expectations to students' grades were 45% to 65% lower than the zero-order correlations. These results support a weak constructivist perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross-national variation in the size of sex differences in values: Effects of gender equality.

How does gender equality relate to men’s and women’s value priorities? It is hypothesized that, for both sexes, the importance of benevolence, universalism, stimulation, hedonism, and self-direction values increases with greater gender equality, whereas the importance of power, achievement, security, and tradition values decreases. Of particular relevance to the present study, increased gender equality should also permit both sexes to pursue more freely the values they inherently care about more. Drawing on evolutionary and role theories, the authors postulate that women inherently value benevolence and universalism more than men do, whereas men inherently value power, achievement, and stimulation more than women do. Thus, as gender equality increases, sex differences in these values should increase, whereas sex differences in other values should not be affected by increases in gender equality. Studies of 25 representative national samples and of students from 68 countries confirmed the hypotheses except for tradition values. Implications for cross-cultural research on sex differences in values and traits are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading group membership in first grade: Teacher behaviors and pupil experience over time.

Examined the implementation of reading groups in 3 1st grade classrooms (N = 60) and its effects over the 1st 5 mo of the school year on pupil mobility, on patterns of teacher-child contact as measured by J. E. Brophy and T. L. Good's (1970) dyadic interaction system, and on pupil measures of reading achievement and related factors. Results indicate that relatively fixed membership in reading groups did not emerge until the end of the 1st month of school. Group membership was found to contribute a significant increment of 25% to the prediction of pupil reading achievement at midyear over and above initial readiness differences among the students. Differential teacher feedback favoring members of the highest reading group was not documented. Additional qualitative evidence suggested a reconceptualization concerning the mediation of the expectancy effect. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in learned helplessness: II. The contingencies of evaluative feedback in the classroom and III. An experimental analysis.

Girls show greater evidence than boys of learned helplessness in achievement situations with adult (but not peer) evaluators: They attribute their failures to lack of ability rather than motivation and thus show impaired performance under failure. Two studies are reported linking sex differences in attributions to adults' use of evaluative feedback. Study 1, with 52 4th graders and 27 5th graders, revealed that both the contingencies of feedback in classrooms and the attributions made by teachers were ones that would render negative evaluation more indicative of ability for girls than boys. For example, negative evaluation of girls' performance referred almost exclusively to intellectual inadequacies, whereas 45% of boys' work-related criticism referred to nonintellectual aspects. Moreover, teachers attributed the boys' failures to lack of motivation significantly more than they did the girls' failures. In Study 2, with 60 5th graders, teacher–boy and teacher–girl contingencies of work-related criticism observed in classrooms were programmed in an experimental situation. Both boys and girls receiving the teacher–girl contingency were more likely to view subsequent failure feedback from that evaluator as indicative of their ability. Implications for developmental theories and for development are addressed. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The other half of the expectancy equation: Pygmalion.

The central position of this study is that both expectancy research and compensatory educational theory have reached an impasse because expectancy manipulation has largely been confined to the teacher. 45 inner-city 5-6 yr old Blacks enrolled in a compensatory program were exposed to different positive expectancy inductions in order to assess the effects of manipulating Ss' expectations alone, teacher's alone, and the 2 simultaneously on reading achievement test scores (Metropolitan Reading Readiness Test, Form A). Results show that postexperimental scores improved significantly for all 3 expectancy conditions. Moreover, inducing positive expectations in Ss was more effective than the conventional teacher manipulation and was as successful as the group in which both teachers and Ss were given controlled feedback. It is concluded that perhaps the focus of educational programs should be the potentially malleable child rather than the sometimes intransigent teacher. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading level design: Conceptual and methodological issues in reading research.

Researchers have recently begun to use the reading level design, in which reading-disabled children are compared with younger normal children at the same level of reading achievement, in an attempt to overcome some of the interpretational problems in the field. The potential of this design for testing hypotheses is explored by using examples from current research, and a more general design is introduced that extends the utility of the design from studying reading disability to investigating normal or superior reading acquisition. Limitations and practical problems associated with this approach are discussed, and methodological issues in the implementation of reading level designs are considered in terms of the choice of a criterion of reading achievement for matching the groups, the question of whether groups should be matched on IQ, and the identification of subgroups of reading disabled children. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-discipline gives girls the edge: Gender in self-discipline, grades, and achievement test scores.

Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, girls earn higher grades than boys in all major subjects. Girls, however, do not outperform boys on achievement or IQ tests. To date, explanations for the underprediction of girls' GPAs by standardized tests have focused on gender differences favoring boys on such tests. The authors' investigation suggests an additional explanation: Girls are more self-disciplined, and this advantage is more relevant to report card grades than to achievement or aptitude tests. Eighth-grade girls at an urban magnet school were more self-disciplined than their male counterparts according to delay of gratification measures and self-report, teacher, and parent ratings. Whereas girls earned higher grades in all courses, they did only marginally better on an achievement test and worse on an IQ test. Mediation analyses suggested girls earned higher GPAs at least in part because they were more self-disciplined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-efficacy, attribution, and outcome expectancy mechanisms in reading and writing achievement: Grade-level and achievement-level differences.

This study examined grade- and achievement-level differences in 4th-, 7th-, and 10th-grade students' control-related beliefs and relations between students' beliefs and their reading and writing achievement. MANOVA results indicated grade- and achievement-level differences in self-efficacy, causal attribution, and outcome expectancy beliefs but no interaction between grade and achievement level. Canonical correlations identified a single dimension linking students' beliefs to achievement in both reading and writing. Quadratic relations to achievement were found for outcome expectancy and intelligence attributions. As grade increased, beliefs for reading were more highly related to comprehension skill relative to component skills, whereas beliefs for writing were more highly related to component skills relative to communication skills. At all achievement levels, a similar pattern of beliefs was related to achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Extended early childhood intervention and school achievement: age thirteen findings from the Chicago Longitudinal Study

We evaluated the effects of participation in an extended program of compensatory education for 559 low-income, inner-city African American children up to seventh grade. The intervention is the federal and state-funded Chicago Child-Parent Center and Expansion Program, which began in 1967. Groups included 426 children who participated in the program from preschool to grades 2 or 3 and 133 children whose participation ceased in kindergarten. After taking into account initial differences in achievement at kindergarten entry and at the end of kindergarten, and after taking into account sample selection bias, program participation for 2 or 3 years after preschool and kindergarten was associated with significantly higher reading achievement up to seventh grade and with lower rates of cumulative grade retention and special education placement (4 to 5 years postprogram). Children participating in the follow-on program for 3 years had significantly higher reading achievement in seventh grade and a lower rate of grade retention than 3 year participants. Only 3 year participants had significantly higher math achievement than the comparison group. Study findings provide rare longitudinal evidence of the beneficial effects of a large-scale community-based program of extended early childhood intervention.     

Teacher–student interactions and their relationship to student achievement: A comparison of Mexican-American and Anglo-American children.

J. E. Brophy and T. L. Good's (1969) teacher–child dyadic interaction system was used to record 5 teachers' interactions with 40 Mexican-American (MA) and 59 Anglo-American (AA) 4th and 5th graders in 5 classrooms. 14 interaction variables were subjected to an Ethnicity?×?Sex?×?Classroom ANOVA. The correlation between these interaction variables and students' achievement was computed separately for MAs and AAs. Results show that AAs received more teacher affirmation following correct responses than MAs. Teacher affirmation was also significantly related to achievement for MAs but not AAs. Overall, teacher interaction variables showed a stronger relationship to achievement for MAs. A significant main effect of sex revealed that girls initiated more work-related contacts with teachers. There were no Ethnicity?×?Sex interactions. Findings indicate that even after controlling for potentially confounding variables, ethnicity still affects teacher–student interactions. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in achievement: A test of alternate theories.

200 students in Grades 8–10 were given the following attitudinal measures regarding both math and English: self-concept of ability, subjective task value, perceived task difficulty, and continuing motivation. In a follow-up, Ss" math course enrollment decisions were assessed each year through high school. 142 of the Ss also were exposed to 2 sets of trials: a number sequence set and an anagram set. Outcome was manipulated across trials (success, failure, success). For each series, Ss provided estimates of their ability, their expectations for continued success, and causal attributions. Their response time, persistence, and accuracy were recorded. Finally, teacher estimates of learned helplessness were obtained in Year 1 of the study for all Ss. Subjective task value emerged as the strongest mediator of sex differences in achievement-related behaviors and plans. There was little support for learned-helplessness models of sex differences in achievement. There was some evidence of sex differences in ability attributions, but these differences occurred only among low-expectancy Ss. Verbal and behavioral indexes of achievement beliefs were often inconsistent. Implications for general attribution theory and for sex-difference theory are discussed. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in analgesic, reinforcing, discriminative, and motoric effects of opioids.

This review summarizes evidence for sex differences in behavioral effects of opioids, primarily in rats. Whereas mu agonists have been found to be more potent and in some cases more efficacious in producing analgesia and sedation in males than females, females are more sensitive than males to reinforcing and locomotor stimulant effects of opioids. Sex differences in motoric effects of opioids may contribute to sex differences in other behavioral effects of opioids; for example, sex differences in rats' ability to discriminate morphine from saline can be attributed entirely to greater morphine-induced sedation in males. Chronic estradiol blunts females' sensitivity to morphine's analgesic and sedative effects, but enhances females' sensitivity to the reinforcing and locomotor stimulant effects of mu opioids. The neurobiological basis for sex differences in and estradiol modulation of behavioral effects of opioids includes brain opioid receptor density (greater in males and under low-estradiol conditions in females) and dopaminergic function (greater in females and under high-estradiol conditions). Given the significant and growing use of opioids by women, both medicinally and recreationally, understanding how female biology influences analgesic and other effects of opioids is crucial. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)