Educability-and-Group-Differences-1973-by-Arthur-Robert-Jensen

Teacher Expectancy 263
To date there have been nine attempts all together to replicate
the Rosenthal and Jacobson (RJ) Pygmalion effect. Elashoff and
Snow (1971, pp. 158-9) in their review of these studies concluded
. . . it can be seen that of nine studies (other than RJ) attempting
to demonstrate teacher expectancy effects on IQ, none has
succeeded. Of twelve expectancy studies including pupil
achievement measures as criteria, six have succeeded. Of seven
studies including measures of observable pupil behavior, three
have succeeded. And of seventeen studies including measures
of observable teacher behavior, fourteen have succeeded. Thus
it seems that teacher expectancy effects are most likely to
influence proximal variables (those ‘closest’ in a psychological
sense to the source of effect, e.g., teacher behavior) and progressively
less likely to influence distal variables (or variables psychologically
remote from the source of expectations). IQ, the most
remote of pupil variables, is unlikely to be affected. These
results are consistent with a Brunswikian view of teacher-learner
interaction. . . . They suggest that teacher expectancies may be
important and are certainly deserving of study, but they fail
utterly to support Pygmalion's celebrated effect on IQ.
NOTES
1. Unfortunately, this study did not include IQs that were deflated.
Teachers’ judgments of the degree of accuracy of their pupils’ IQs
may not be symmetrical for inflated and deflated values; that is to
say, teachers may be more (or less) sensitive to an overestimate of
their pupils’ intelligence than to an underestimate.
Teachers are capable of making fairly accurate judgments of their
pupils’ intelligence based on their classroom performance. The
writer recently asked teachers in eight elementary school classes
(grades 4, 5, 6) to rate their own impression, near the end of the
school year, of each pupil’s intelligence. Each pupil was rated on a
5-point scale. None had been given any psychometric tests prior to
the teachers’ assessments. The teacher ratings had the following
correlations: Lorge-Thorndike Verbal IQ, 0-66; Lorge-Thorndike
Non-verbal IQ, 0-58; Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices, 0-49;
Rote Memory Test, 0-44. The teacher’s rating had a loading of 0-79