Measuring and Changing Teachers' Differential Behavior As Perceived by Students and Teachers

Student's perceptions of their teachers' differential behavior were compared with the perceptions of the teachers themselves. Students and teachers agreed that the low achiever receives more learning support and less pressure than the high achiever. However, students reported that the high achiever receives more emotional support, whereas teachers reported giving more emotional support to the low achiever. A 2nd experiment consisted of an experimental intervention in which teachers were given feedback about the gaps between their own perceptions and those of their students in the emotional support domain. The teachers were divided into effective- and noneffective-feedback groups, according to the openness and receptiveness they were observed to express. Slight changes in differential emotional support were found 3 months later for the teachers in the effective-feedback group. However, students and teachers framed the improvement in their pre-existing cognitive schemes. Thus, gaps between students' and teachers' perceptions were somewhat decreased, but they still presented contrasting perceptions of emotional support.