Methods in Context – Experiments
LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS:
Source:
Charkin et al used a sample of 48 University students who each taught a lesson to a 10-year-old boy.
One third (the high expectancy group) were told that the boy was highly motivated and intelligent.
One third (the low expectancy group) were told that he was poorly motivated with low IQ.
One third were given no information.
The lessons were videoed, and it was found that those in the high expectancy group made more eye contact and gave more encouraging body language than the low expectancy group.
Ethical issues:
From using real pupils, Charkin would’ve had the issues of:
The deception of what the study was actually for – lying about the boy.
Informed consent.
Gatekeepers to gain consent.
Theoretical issues:
Lab experiments usually only examine one aspect of teacher expectations, this can be good because:
It can establish a cause-and-effect relationship.
It can be bad because:
There’s other factors that can affect the student – ignoring other important factors.
How the artificiality will have an effect:
May cause a Hawthorne effect due to knowing they’re being observed.
Leads to unnatural behaviour and impression management.
Practical issues:
Structure of the school creates extraneous variables:
Many variables that can’t be controlled.
Gatekeepers/duty of care.
An environment with power imbalance.
Impression management.
Peers (subcultures, etc.).
FIELD EXPERIMENTS:
Source:
Rosenthal and Jacobsen ‘Pygmalion in the classroom’:
Carried out research in a Californian primary school they called ‘Oak School’.
Pupils were given an IQ test and teachers were told that this had enabled the researchers to identify 20% of pupils who were likely to ‘spurt’ in the next year.
In reality, the test did no such thing and the pupils were actually selected at random.
There were two aims to the study:
To plant in the minds of teachers a particular set of expectations about their pupils.
To see if this had any effect on pupil performance, ‘spurters’ were chosen at random so the only thing that could cause a difference is teacher expectations.
All pupils were tested again months later and then again after a further year.
Over the first 8 months, pupils gained on average 8 IQ points, but ‘spurters’ gained 12 points.
When this was broken down by age, the greatest improvement in performance was found in the youngest children, those aged 6-8.
However, after a further year, this ‘expectancy advantage’ only seemed to have an effect on 10-11 year olds.
Ethical issues:
Having some children as ‘spurters’ and others not is an ethical issue because:
Deception for the teachers.
Uninformed, vulnerable children.
Issue of informed consent.
May put other students at a disadvantage.
Self-fulfilling prophecy.
This experiment may not be carried out now because:
There’s a series of gatekeepers researchers must go through to research the children.
Not wanting to disadvantage other students.
Remove ethical harm.
The participants in this study experienced deception because:
They were told a random sample of children were ‘spurters’ when in fact they weren’t.
The test had no real bearing on IQ.
Theoretical issues:
Rosenthal’s study was repeated 242 times in 5 years:
Makes it reliable.
It might’ve not been repeated exactly because:
Different children
Different teachers
Extraneous variables
Different environment
Later studies like Claiborn used classroom observant and found no evidence of teachers’ expectations being passed on through classroom interaction, this suggest Rosenthal’s study was:
An artificially created situation and a more in-depth study of teachers should’ve been done.
Practical issues:
Using a longitudinal study is good because:
It can establish a cause-and-effect relationship.
Using a longitudinal study is bad because:
Participants can withdraw.
Takes a long time to get results.