Teacher Expectancy or My Fair Lady

Abstract

Widespread publicity given Rosenthal's Pygmalion in the Classroom (1968) has had a far-reaching effect on educators, many of whom have accepted the findings unquestioningly. Recently the generalizability of the self-fulfilling phenomenon has been subjected to critical review (Barber and Silver, 1968a, b; Thorndike, 1968, 1969; Gephart, 1969; Snow, 1969). The critics suggest that the data gathering methods, the techniques of analysis and the data presentation are not sufficiently rigorous to warrant the kind of generalizations Rosenthal has made. Further attempts at replication of Rosenthal's earlier experimental procedures as well as the later educational application have not demonstrated the phenomenon's universality (Barber, et al. 1969; Claiborn, 1969). Barber, et al. (1969) sought in five investigations to crossvalidate an earlier study by Rosenthal which purported to demonstrate the experimenter bias effect. All five attempts at replication failed to support the original experiment of Rosenthal and Fode (1963). In addition, Barber and Silver (1968a) have meticulously re-analyzed 31 studies, designed to examine the experimenter bias effect. Barber and Silver raise serious questions about the conditions under which the effect may be obtained, if at all, and the methodology employed for its demonstration. In a non-laboratory experiment involving 12 first grade classrooms, Claiborn (1969) employed a design similar to Rosenthal's and Jacobson's (1968). The Claiborn study differed in that it extended over a shorter time interval and was conducted at