Teacher Behavior and Pupil Performance Reconsideration of the Mediation of Pygmalion Effects

Abstract

"Good" teacher behaviors are defined as those teacher behaviors experts judged likely to increase pupil reading performance. The effect of an increase in the "good" teacher behaviors on the performance of pupils in the bottom reading group was considered by means of a pretest-posttest control group design in which the duration of the intervention was 50 school days. Subjects were 17 second grade teachers in Catholic schools and their 138 bottom reading group pupils. The results indicate that an increase in "good" behaviors does not alter bottom reading group pupil performance. Also, the results suggest that investigators of the mediation of Pygmalion effect are considering behaviors which may have little effect on pupil performance.