field experiments
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Rosenthal & Jacobsen
* field experiment that illustrates difficulties of using field experiments to study teacher expectations
* carried out research in California primary school, gave pupils an IQ test and told teachers that this enabled the researchers to identify the 20% of pupils likely to ‘spurt’ in next year (test actually did nothing and pupils were selected at random)
* had 2 aims - plant set of expectations in teacher’s minds, see if this had an influence on pupil performance
* teacher expectations the independent variable (thing they were testing)
* all pupils re-tested 8 months later and then after a further year, spurters gained more points than other students
* carried out research in California primary school, gave pupils an IQ test and told teachers that this enabled the researchers to identify the 20% of pupils likely to ‘spurt’ in next year (test actually did nothing and pupils were selected at random)
* had 2 aims - plant set of expectations in teacher’s minds, see if this had an influence on pupil performance
* teacher expectations the independent variable (thing they were testing)
* all pupils re-tested 8 months later and then after a further year, spurters gained more points than other students
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ethical problems
* remaining 80% of the students not labelled as ‘spurters’ did not make substantial educational progress, some may have even been held back educationally as they were receiving less help and encouragement from teachers. HOWEVER: children have more legal rights now than in 1960s and teachers have duty of care so experiment like this unlikely to be carried out now.
* deception - field experiments work best when participants are unaware they are part of experiment but this requires deception e.g. Rosenthal and Jacobsen had to deceive teachers - if teachers had known true purpose of experiment it would have been impossible to plant expectations in their minds and the experiment would have failed
* deception - field experiments work best when participants are unaware they are part of experiment but this requires deception e.g. Rosenthal and Jacobsen had to deceive teachers - if teachers had known true purpose of experiment it would have been impossible to plant expectations in their minds and the experiment would have failed
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reliability
* Rosenthal & Jacobsen’s research design relatively simple and therefore standardised and accurately repeatable - withing 5 years of original study it had been repeated 242 times
* HOWEVER: given difference in school classes e.g. age, teaching styles etc. it is impossible to recreate it with complete accuracy
* HOWEVER: given difference in school classes e.g. age, teaching styles etc. it is impossible to recreate it with complete accuracy
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validity
* Rosenthal & Jacobsen claimed teachers’ expectations were passed on through differences in ways they interacted with pupils HOWEVER: researchers didn’t carry out any observation of classroom interaction and so had no data to support this claim. furthermore, later studies that observed classrooms found no evidence of teacher expectations being passed on through classroom interactions
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advantage - broader focus
* did focus on whole labelling process from teacher expectations to effect on pupils rather than just examining single elements
* longitudinal study - allowed them to identify trends over time
* longitudinal study - allowed them to identify trends over time