ABSTRACT
The literature on how teachers’ expectancies influence students’ achievement outcomes has flourished since the publication of Rosenthal and Jacobson's (1968) classic and controversial study of Pygmalion in the classroom. In that study elementary school teachers were given false information that some students in their classes would be “intellectual bloomers.” Results showed that at some grades the children identified as bloomers performed much higher on a year-end intelligence test. Rosenthal and Jacobson concluded that teachers’ expectancies about students, even if those beliefs are based on arbitrary information about children's intellectual capabilities, can influence children's achievement. Thus, teacher expectancies act as self-fulfilling prophecies because children's achievement comes to reflect the teachers’ expectancies. This conclusion has been the subject of a heated and ongoing debate (e.g., Elashoff & Snow, 1971; Rosenthal, 1985; Thorndike, 1968). Since 1968 a great deal of research has ensued that attempted to determine when and how teachers’ expectancies influence students’ achievement, and whether those expectancies act as self-fulfilling prophecies (see Braun, 1976; Brophy, 1983, 1985; Brophy & Good, 1974; Cooper, 1979; Cooper & Good, 1983; Dusek, 1975, 1985; Rosenthal, 1974; West & Anderson, 1976, for reviews of this work). So much has been written in this area that readers may wonder what more needs to be said!
