Students as Judges of Teachers’ Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior

Abstract

Students differing in ages and teachers differing in experience were exposed to extremely brief samples of teacher behavior when talking about, and talking to, students for which they held high or low expectations. Judgments of teacher characteristics as well as those of the unseen student with whom the teacher was involved were collected. An expectancy detection effect was found such that when teachers were involved with their high-expectancy student, raters judged the unseen student more positively than when teachers were involved with their low-expectancy student. This detection was facilitated differentially by the teachers’ verbal and nonverbal behavior. Ratings of teacher characteristics showed similar expectancy effects but only for older raters. Findings demonstrate the detectability of teachers’ expectancy-related behavior. We discuss the implications of young students’ detecting teacher expectancies from brief samples of behavior and the educational significance of the observed discrepancies between verbal and nonverbal communications.