ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the thinking processes that moderate teacher behaviour and the effects they have on psychological and behavioural outcomes for pupils. Teacher expectancy processes link social perception to social behaviour. Expectancy-confirmation effects can occur at two different levels: cognitive confirmation effects and behavioural confirmation effect. Expectancy research has generally supported the proposition that holding a particular expectation under certain circumstances can influence outcomes for others. These outcomes can be social and/or academic performance and either positive or negative. Social cognitive processes help explain interpersonal relationships in classrooms, including the expectancy process. The processes involved in forming impressions about others are based on a combination of assigning teachers to a particular social category, teachers' wider general knowledge of people in that category, alongside the knowledge teachers believe they have about the individual qualities in the immediate situation. There are two broad explanations of the impression formation process: theory-driven–top-down processes; and data-driven–bottom-up processes.