Methods in context- Experiments

Question 1

What did Harvey Slatin say ?

Answer 1

Harvey Slatin (1997) examined whether teachers have preconceived ideas about pupils of different social classes.
Harvey and slatin used samples of 96 teachers. Each teachers shown 18 photographs of children from different social class backgrounds. To control other variables, the photographs were equally divided in terms of gender on their performance, parental attitudes to education and aspirations

Question 2

What else did Harvey Slatin say

Answer 2

He found that lower class children were rated less favourably, especially by more experienced teachers. Teachers based their rating on the similarities they perceived between the children in the photographs and pupils they had taught.
- Study shows that teachers label pupils from different social class and use these to pre judge pupil potential.

Question 3

Charkin et al (1975)

Answer 3

Used a sample of 48 university students and each taught a lesson to 10 year old boy
- one third told the boy was highly motivated and intelligent
-one third were told that he was poorly motivated with low IQ
- one third were given no information
- Charkin videoed the lesson and found that those in high exoerntanct group made more eye contact and gave out more encouraging body language than the low expectancy group.

Question 4

Mason (1973)

Answer 4

Looks at negative & positive expectation had greater effect. Teachers observed video recordings of the pupil taking a test, watching to see if any errors were made.
- Mason found that the negative reports had a much greater impact than the positive ones on the teacher expectation.

Question 5

Practical issues

Answer 5

• schools are large institutions that have many variables that many affect teacher expectations
• Expectation may be influenced by other variables such as class size, streaming, type of schools.
• Large scale social factors cannot be studied in small scale laboratory settings.
• Its impossible to identify and control all the possible variable influencing a child educational achievement.
• Disadvantage: Lab experiments cant be used to study the past
• They aren’t as representative as other methods because they’re best carried out with small samples.

Question 6

Artificiality - Education context- teacher expectation

Answer 6

Lab experiments artificiality tells us little about the real world. Charkin used uni students instead of teachers and other researcher Harvey Slatin use of photos of pupil instead of real pupils.

Question 7

Ethical issues- disadvantages

Answer 7

• Those that do not involve real pupis have fewer ethical issues
• Mason/ harvey & Slatin - no use of real pupils
• Charkin et al - used real pupil, this lack informed consent and psychologically damaged
• Lack of informed consent- this is difficult to get from groups like children or those with learning difficulties who wont understand the nature /purpose of the experiment
  -Deception- Its wrong to mislead people as to the nature of the experiment . Milgram (1974) did this in his study of obedience by not telling participants the real purpose of his research was to test people willingness to obey orders to inflict pain.

Question 8

Narrow focus

Answer 8

• Only examine one aspect of teacher expectation such as body language for teacher expectation
• Useful- allows researchers to examine this specific variable more thoroughly, but it also means they fail to see the wider process of labelling and the self fulfilling prophecy.
• Charkin looked as positive/negative teacher body language but did not examine how this would affect the pupil achievement.

Question 9

Field experiments

Answer 9

• Field experiments - they take place in subject natural surroundings instead or artificial environment.
• Those involved aren’t aware that they’re subject of an experiment therefore removing the Hawthorn effect.
  Evaluation: Study shows field experiments to be more natural, vald and realist because they dont use an artificial lab.
• However, the more realistic the situation, the less control we have over variable meaning we cant be sure the ones identified are the right ones.
• Can be seen as unethical because the subjects don’t know they’re involved.
  Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) - pupils given IQ test teachers then told that these identify 20% of pupils who were likely to spurt. Pupils were actually chosen at random.
• teacher expectations were the independent variable
• Using the rosenthal and Jacobson experiments we can see that spurters benefited from the study . More 80% did not
• Could they have been held back academically due to teacher expectation down to lack of attention and encouragement
• Such an experiment is unlikely to be carried out today where children have more rights and schools duty of care

Question 10

reliability

Answer 10

The study is relatively simple and therefore easy to repeat and was done over 200 times. However, study wasn’t replicable due to so many possible variables it could not be repeated exactly.

Question 11

Validity

Answer 11

Claimed teachers expectations were passed on through difference in the way they interacted with pupils. However, they didn’t carry out any research observation to back up these claims, causing issue of validity.

• Later studies that did use observations, found no evidence of teachers expectations being passed on through classroom interactions.

Question 12

Broader focus

Answer 12

Rosenthal and Jacobson looked at the whole labelling process rather than examining single elements in isolation
- Study was longitudinal, identify trends over time