Experimenter Expectancy Effect On Children In A Classroom Setting :: essays research papers

Experimenter Expectancy Effect On Children in a Classroom SettingRosenthal and Jacobson (1966) sought to test the experimenter presentimenteffect by examining how much of an outcome teachers expectancies could have ona conclave of children. Earlier investigations in this area were also conducted byRosenthal (1963). He worked with children in a research lab, giving each one arat and telling them it was either bred for intelligence or for dullness. Thechildren were put in charge of doctrine the rats how to learn mazes.Rosenthals results showed that the rats that were believed by the students tobe smart, were able to learn the mazes much quicker. What the children did notknow, i.e., what Rosenthal had kept hidden, was that the rats were chosen atrandom. There were no rats that were especially bright or dull. Another caseof the experimenter expectancy effect was that of the horse known as CleverHans. It seemed to be able to read, spell, and solve math problems by kickinghis limb a n umber of times. The horse was tested and passed, but what theexperts did not realize was that their own hopes for the horse to answer thequestions, were giving the horse signs on which he ground his answers. That is,if someone on the committee raised his/her eyebrows in anticipation of theoncoming correct answer, the horse would stop stomping. Once again, theexperimenters cues decided the outcome of the tests. Acting on these results,Rosenthal and Jacobson hypothesized that teachers expectancies would cause themunintentionally to treat the students they thought to be bright in a differentmanner than those they thought to be average or charge less bright.Rosenthal and Jacobson used some materials that were important in thecompleting their investigation. The experimenters used students and theirteachers as the subjects of their study. As part of their experiment, they evenchose which grades the students would be in. They also used Flanagans Tests of cosmopolitan Ability as a disguis e to predict academic expectancies. Theexperimenters did not use anything else in their experiment but instead lettheir subjects do the rest. Rosenthal and Jacobsons object was to see howteachers would treat students whom they thought were of above averageintelligence in comparison to how they treated students whom they believed wereof below average intelligence.As with all experiments, there needful to be variables. In trying totest teachers expectancies, Rosenthal and Jacobson used labels for children astheir independent variable. The labels used were bloomers for children whowere expected to be above average, while the other group of children were