Research on the self-fulfilling prophecy and teacher expectations

Reviews the literature on self-fulfilling prophecy and teacher expectations and concludes that a minority of teachers have major expectation effects on their students' achievement. However, such effects are minimal for most teachers because their expectations are generally accurate and open to corrective feedback. It is difficult to predict the effects of teachers' expectations, even with knowledge of their accuracy and the degree of rigidity with which they are held. Expectations interact with beliefs about learning and instruction to determine teacher behavior; similar expectations may lead to different behavior. Students will also differ in their interpretation of and response to teacher behavior; similar behavior may produce different student outcomes. (106 ref)