Achievement and beliefs outcomes of students with high and low expectation teachers

Abstract

Teacher expectation models have theorized that expectations are likely to affect student socio-psychological as well as academic outcomes. Effects on socio-psychological outcomes, however, have been less frequently studied. Further, ways in which teacher class-level over- or underestimation of students can contribute to relations with student beliefs have been seldom investigated. In a longitudinal study, relations between student reading achievement and student beliefs were explored, as were these relations for students with high and low expectation teachers. The participants were 31 teachers whose class-level expectations were more than 0.5 SD above or below their 692 students’ beginning year achievement. Structural equation modeling showed that reading achievement and class-level teacher expectations predicted student self-reported teacher support and academic competence but not student reading self-concept, even though there were no differences in student reading achievement or beliefs at the beginning of the year. By end-of-year, students of high expectation teachers achieved at higher levels and held more positive beliefs than their underestimated counterparts. When multiple student beliefs were explored in one model, many of the paths between teacher class-level expectations, achievement, and student beliefs were indirect rather than direct. This implies a need for researchers to consider a range of student beliefs and relations with academic outcomes rather than a narrow focus on one belief construct as is common in the literature. The study also has practical implications in showing positive benefits for students when teachers have high class-level expectations.