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Do preservice teachers’ judgments and judgment accuracy depend on students’ characteristics? The effect of gender and immigration background

DOI:10.1007/s11218-019-09533-2
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Meike Bonefeld at University of Freiburg
Meike Bonefeld
Oliver Dickhäuser
Oliver Dickhäuser
Oliver Dickhäuser
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Karina Karst at Universität Mannheim
Karina Karst
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Abstract and Figures

It is important for teachers to be able to accurately assess students’ performance. Such judgments can be influenced by characteristics of the student Südkamp et al. (J Educ Psychol 104:743–762, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027627). Besides students’ actual performance, students’ group characteristics (e.g., gender or immigration background) may effect teachers’ judgments. In addition, judgment accuracy might be different for various student groups. We conducted an online study of 168 preservice teachers. We presented within a virtual classroom mathematics test results of 12 fictitious second-grade students who differed in their actual performance in a mathematical test, immigration background, and gender. Preservice teachers made a judgment about the students’ current performance. Students’ actual performance, immigration background, and gender showed statistically significant main effects on the judgment. Students with (vs. without) an immigration background and female (vs. male) students were evaluated less favorably. These effects were qualified by a statistically significant three-way interaction between actual performance, immigration background, and gender. The joint examination of student characteristics in terms of judgment accuracy shows that it is precisely the interaction of student characteristics that makes a difference: female students with and without an immigration background as well as students without an immigration background are assessed more accurately, while male students with an immigration background are assessed significantly more inaccurately. In sum, the judgment made by preservice teachers about students’ performance differed in terms of student characteristics that were unrelated to performance such as immigration background and gender in addition to differing on performance-related variables.
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Social Psychology of Education (2020) 23:189–216
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-019-09533-2
1 3
Do preservice teachers’ judgments andjudgment accuracy
depend onstudents’ characteristics? The eect ofgender
andimmigration background
MeikeBonefeld1 · OliverDickhäuser1 · KarinaKarst1
Received: 8 March 2019 / Accepted: 22 October 2019 / Published online: 7 November 2019
© Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract
It is important for teachers to be able to accurately assess students’ performance.
Such judgments can be influenced by characteristics of the student Südkamp etal.
(J Educ Psychol 104:743–762, 2012. https ://doi.org/10.1037/a0027 627). Besides
students’ actual performance, students’ group characteristics (e.g., gender or immi-
gration background) may effect teachers’ judgments. In addition, judgment accu-
racy might be different for various student groups. We conducted an online study
of 168 preservice teachers. We presented within a virtual classroom mathematics
test results of 12 fictitious second-grade students who differed in their actual per-
formance in a mathematical test, immigration background, and gender. Preservice
teachers made a judgment about the students’ current performance. Students’ actual
performance, immigration background, and gender showed statistically significant
main effects on the judgment. Students with (vs. without) an immigration back-
ground and female (vs. male) students were evaluated less favorably. These effects
were qualified by a statistically significant three-way interaction between actual per-
formance, immigration background, and gender. The joint examination of student
characteristics in terms of judgment accuracy shows that it is precisely the inter-
action of student characteristics that makes a difference: female students with and
without an immigration background as well as students without an immigration
background are assessed more accurately, while male students with an immigration
background are assessed significantly more inaccurately. In sum, the judgment made
by preservice teachers about students’ performance differed in terms of student char-
acteristics that were unrelated to performance such as immigration background and
gender in addition to differing on performance-related variables.
Keywords Judgment accuracy· Gender· Immigration background· Bias· Teacher
expectation· Performance assessment
* Meike Bonefeld
bonefeld@uni-mannheim.de
1 School ofSocial Sciences, Department ofPsychology, University ofMannheim, A5,6,
68131Mannheim, Germany
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... In regard to intersectionality, studies involving pre-service teachers (Bonefeld et al., 2020(Bonefeld et al., , 2022 revealed gender × ethnicity interaction effects, whereby teachers provided higher ratings for academic proficiency for ethnic-majority boys compared to the three other groups. ...
... The other two experimental studies involving in-service teachers did not find gender × ethnicity interaction effects (Bonefeld et al., 2022;Shepherd, 2020). It should be noted that only the study using the virtual classroom paradigm (Bonefeld et al., 2020) controlled for the effect of actual student performance when considering the effect of student characteristics, whereas the other studies did not. ...
... The results were mixed, however, and varied in relation to sample, methodology, and school subject. Some studies showed a positive bias toward ethnic-majority boys, especially for maths (Bonefeld et al., 2020(Bonefeld et al., , 2022, whereas, for reading and social sciences, a positive bias toward ethnic-majority girls was reported (Campbell, 2015;Shepherd, 2020). Only two studies (Glock, 2016;Kollerová & Killen, 2021) concerned gender and ethnicity effects on teacher response to student behaviour, and whereas one study (Glock, 2016) clearly showed main and interaction effects, with a negative bias toward ethnic-minority boys, this was not replicated in the other. ...
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Educational inequalities for different groups of students have been consistently reported, whereby (dis)advantages have been associated with students’ gender and ethnicity. Such inequalities may be partly due to teachers’ stereotypical beliefs and expectations, as they affect their judgements and behaviour. This chapter presents a systematic review of research on the combined effects of student characteristics on teacher expectations, with a specific focus on the intersectionality of student gender and ethnicity. Following a systematic search of various databases, 1,363 records were identified; but after the removal of duplicates and different screening phases, only eight articles, describing 11 studies, were retained. Results of these studies show that teacher expectations vary as a function of experience (pre-service vs. in-service teachers) and outcome (e.g., school subject). These results provide support for an interplay of gender and ethnicity, rather than a cumulative or dominance effect, on teacher expectations of student academic proficiency and behaviour. That is, certain combinations of gender and ethnicity create (dis)advantages for subgroups of students. These results are discussed in terms of theory and future research as well as their implications.
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... Most studies indicate a negative bias, that is, a bias to the disadvantage of ethnic minority students. Teachers tend to judge these students' abilities lower and often have lower expectations for ethnic minority students than for ethnic majority students (e.g., Bonefeld et al., 2020;Glock & Böhmer, 2018;Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007). Surprisingly, when it comes to feedback, several studies have found a bias in the other direction: Ethnic minority students received more positive and less critical feedback than ethnic majority students (e.g., Harber 1998;Harber et al., 2012). ...
... However, despite the small level of statistical significance, we see our findings as having practical significance because even occasional dysfunctional feedback can have detrimental effects on students' learning (e.g., Brummelman et al., 2014;Meyer, 1992;Mueller & Dweck, 1998). Overall, the findings are in line with previous studies, in which student names were sufficient to activate group-specific stereotypes (e.g., Bonefeld et al., 2020;Bonefeld & Dickhäuser, 2018;Holder & Kessels, 2017;Sprietsma, 2013). Our results add to these studies by indicating that foreign-sounding names can distort not only teachers' judgments but also their tendencies to provide dysfunctional feedback. ...
... Research on gender stereotypes has a long tradition, and there is no doubt that gender stereotypes affect teachers' thoughts and actions as well as ethnic stereotypes. For example, teachers judge boys from immigrant backgrounds less accurately than girls of all backgrounds and boys from non-immigrant backgrounds (Bonefeld et al., 2020). In our study, we included both male and female students, and kept gender constant within each situation type. ...
View
... Most studies indicate a negative bias, that is, a bias to the disadvantage of ethnic minority students. Teachers tend to judge these students' abilities lower and often have lower expectations for ethnic minority students than for ethnic majority students (e.g., Bonefeld et al., 2020;Glock & Böhmer, 2018;Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007). Surprisingly, when it comes to feedback, several studies have found a bias in the other direction: Ethnic minority students received more positive and less critical feedback than ethnic majority students (e.g., Harber 1998;Harber et al., 2012). ...
... However, despite the small level of statistical significance, we see our findings as having practical significance because even occasional dysfunctional feedback can have detrimental effects on students' learning (e.g., Brummelman et al., 2014;Meyer, 1992;Mueller & Dweck, 1998). Overall, the findings are in line with previous studies, in which student names were sufficient to activate group-specific stereotypes (e.g., Bonefeld et al., 2020;Bonefeld & Dickhäuser, 2018;Holder & Kessels, 2017;Sprietsma, 2013). Our results add to these studies by indicating that foreign-sounding names can distort not only teachers' judgments but also their tendencies to provide dysfunctional feedback. ...
... Research on gender stereotypes has a long tradition, and there is no doubt that gender stereotypes affect teachers' thoughts and actions as well as ethnic stereotypes. For example, teachers judge boys from immigrant backgrounds less accurately than girls of all backgrounds and boys from non-immigrant backgrounds (Bonefeld et al., 2020). In our study, we included both male and female students, and kept gender constant within each situation type. ...
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... For instance, children with a migration background often have inferior conditions to develop their reading skills [98,99]. But, besides this objective disadvantage, their teachers may judge their reading skills less favorably due to their migration status [100]. Thus, the objective disadvantages may be amplified by subjective biases in teachers' social judgments. ...
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Students may be members of multiple disadvantaged groups whose negative effects may reinforce each other (intersectionality). In two studies dealing with elementary students' literacy skills, we examine one negative reinforcing effect and one dampening effect of intersectionality. In Study 1, we tested the negative social resonance effect of intersectional disadvantage, which means that disadvantages in achievement of intersecting disadvantaged groups would be stronger in social judgments of achievement than in objective measurement. This assumption was confirmed with a sample of 1926 German fourth-grade students. A MANOVA showed that the disadvantages in SES, migration background, and gender were cumulative. A path analysis revealed that the negative effects were larger in teachers' performance assessments than in objective test performance in literacy. In Study 2, the negative social resonance effect of intersectional disadvantage was replicated with a sample of 777 students from Grades 4 and 5 in the United Arab Emirates. In addition, a dampening effect of learning capital was found. This effect was comparatively larger than the negative social resonance effect of intersectional disadvantage.
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... Investigating the shared and non-shared variances of different methods may lead to a better understanding of the often narrowly defined EF (McCoy et al., 2022). While teachers' ratings of learningrelated behaviour in the classroom have provided valuable yet retrospective and possibly biased information (Bonefeld et al., 2020), observational data during normal school lessons offer a unique perspective on naturally occurring classroom behaviour and have very recently proven to provide objective, reliable and valid information McCoy, 2019;McCoy et al., 2022;Heemskerk et al., 2022a,b). Moreover, for very young children, Nesbitt et al. (2015) were able to show that the effect of EF on achievement gains in math and literacy were indirect, that is, mediated through different aspects of learning-related behaviour observed in regular school lessons. ...
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... As such, teachers' stereotypes about ethnic minority students supposedly provide teachers with knowledge about how these students will behave in class and how they will perform. Thus, this process makes it clear how teachers' (Holder & Kessels, 2017) and preservice teachers' (Bonefeld et al., 2020) expectations can stem from stereotypes that are based on their students' ethnicity. ...
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... So zeigen Lehrkräfte niedrigere Leistungserwartungen für Mädchen in Mathematik (Mizala et al., 2015;Steffens & Jelenec, 2011;Tiedemann, 2000). Damit werden Mädchen selbst bei einer Leistungskontrolle schlechter bewertet (Bonefeld et al., 2020;Holder & Kessels, 2017;Muntoni et al., 2019). In ähnlicher Weise offenbaren Grundschullehrkräfte in Deutschland die Überzeugung, dass Jungen höhere mathematische Fähigkeiten aufweisen als Mädchen (Tiedemann, 2000). ...
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Der heutige Forschungsstand spricht insgesamt dafür, dass die Zusammenhänge zwischen Lehrkrafterwartungen und Leistungen der Schüler*innen selektiv bei Schüler*innen in der Form von Erwartungseffekten wirken können. Als relevante askriptive Merkmale zeigen sich sowohl in der originalen Pygmalion-Studie wie in den Nachfolgestudien das Geschlecht, die ethnische Herkunft, der sozioökonomische Status, die Attraktivität bzw. das äußere Erscheinungsbild, das Verhalten im Klassenzimmer sowie die Bildungsbeteiligung der Eltern der Schüler*innen. Geschlechtsunterschiede spiegeln sich in negativen Erwartungen für Mädchen in Mathematik oder für Jungen im Lesen und anderen verbalen Kompetenzen wider. Im Hinblick auf den Einfluss ethnischer Zugehörigkeit von Schüler*innen zeigt sich die Befundlage gemischt. Eine Benachteiligung in der Überzeugung, Erwartung, Notenvergabe und Gymnasialempfehlung erfahren insbesondere türkischstämmige Kinder an deutschen Schulen. Weiterhin werden Schüler*innen aus höheren sozialen Schichten im Vergleich zu Kindern aus erwerbsschwächeren Familien begünstigt beurteilt. Es zeigt sich nachweislich nachteilig für die schulischen Leistungen, wenn die Erwartungen unter dem Potenzial der Schüler*innen liegen und vorteilhaft, wenn die Leistungen überschätzt werden. Es ist aber durchaus möglich, Lehrkrafterwartungen und nachfolgend die Leistungen der Schüler*innen zu verändern.
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... The abovementioned unfavorable judgments were found to hold only for male ethnic minority students, whereas female ethnic minority students were treated less harshly than female ethnic majority students (Glock, 2016b). To this extent, the same results have been shown for judgment accuracy, such that male ethnic minority students were judged less accurately when compared with all other students (Bonefeld et al., 2020). This also mirrors differences that were reported by Auwarter and Aruguete (2008), who found that female students with low SES were rated more favorably than female students with high SES, whereas, for boys, the disadvantages were found for those with low SES. ...
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