Effects of Teachers' Marital Status and Child's Family's Marital Status on Teachers' Ratings of a Child

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to assess whether knowledge of a child's family's marital status (divorced home/intact home/family status unknown) and/or teachers' marital status (single/divorced) would affect teachers' ratings of that child's personality traits and predicted behaviors. The study also sought to determine whether raters' marital status and knowledge of family background interacted with these teachers' ratings. The subjects were 27 married and 27 divorced teachers of preschool through Grade five. To test the hypotheses, two instruments were employed. The Personality Trait Rating Scale and the Predicted Behavior in School Scale were used by the teachers to rate behaviors of a 5-yr.-old child observed on a videotape. Knowledge of the child's family's marital status had no significant effect on teachers' ratings on either test. Teachers' own marital status had no significant effect on ratings, and no interaction was noted. Contrary to some earlier research, teachers were not biased in their ratings by knowledge of a child's family's marital status. Similarly, married teachers who had not experienced the divorce process themselves were no more positively or negatively biased in their ratings than were the divorced teachers.