The Pygmalion Effect

Teachers are the most influential part of education by far, their involvement and interaction with a student is extremely important. Teacher attention is a primary key factor as well as a key indicator as to how well a student performs, however what happens to the student who does not receive their teacher’s attention? Research studies performed by various scholars including Robert Rosenthal, Lenore Jacobson, Christine Rubies-Davies, John Hattie, and Richard Hamilton explore how teachers’ expectations directly correlate with a students’ academic achievement.
In the early 1960’s a study conducted by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson depicted the impact of teacher expectations and how it positively influenced student achievement. They began their research by conducting an IQ test at the beginning of the school year. They randomly selected one-fifth of the students and deeming them exceptionally gifted. Rosenthal and Jacobson then delivered the names of the “high-scoring students” to their teacher informing the teacher that these students had promise and were likely to do great things. Rosenthal and Jacobson in their hypothesis knew that news of this magnitude would spike an increased interest in the teachers’ expectations of the “gifted” students, as well as the students whom now believed that they were above average. Later that year, the students then took another IQ test and the results came back as originally hypothesized. The increased expectations of their teachers caused the students to do exceptionally well on their IQ tests; thus proving that teachers expectations directly correlates with student achievement (Conley 509-510).
In a similar research study conducted by Christine M. Rubies-Davies of the University of Auckl...

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...oincide with student achievement.
Various studies have been conducted and yet all the results remain consistent: the more involvement and the higher the expectation a teacher has on their students the greater the achievement their student will meet.

Works Cited

Conley, Dalton. You May Ask Yourself An Introduction To Thinking Like A Sociologist.
New York, London: W. W. Norton 2013. EBook Logon. Web. 3 March 2014.
Rubies-Davies, Christine M. "Classroom Interactions: Exploring The Practices Of High- And
Low-Expectation Teachers." British Journal Of Educational Psychology 77.2 (2007):
289-306. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 March 2014.
Rubies-Davies, Christine M. "Teacher Expectations And Perceptions Of Student Attributes:
Is There A Relationship?." British Journal Of Educational Psychology 80.1 (2010): 121-135. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 March 2014.