Bleg

I'm looking for a particular study--one in which students were given a piece of (false) negative information about a teacher, and then told this had been a mistake, that the bad information was about someone else. Nonetheless, when the students who had gotten the bad information were asked to evaluate the teacher, they systematically ranked him/her lower than the students who had never heard it--even though they now knew this to be false. Can anyone help? I had the study, but I can't find it, nor remember the name.

Comments

Person February 8, 2008 10:18 AM

Don't know about that study, but I wanted to let everyone here know that I have just received reliable information that Megan_McArdle gets off on crushing live puppies' heads with her feet. Just a "heads up".

Person February 8, 2008 10:20 AM

Wait, scratch that. It was a mistake: the evidence was actually about someone with a similar name. So, Megan_McArdle doesn't actually crush puppy skulls. I regret the error.

Hey, what do you guys think about Megan_McArdle?

stoneyforest February 8, 2008 10:53 AM

Person -

I don't have a high opinion of her for some reason.

Yancey Ward February 8, 2008 11:29 AM

Megan,

I doubt this is what you are looking for since it doesn't seem quite what you described, but it is the closest I could find using various search terms:

Effects of grades and disconfirmed grade expectancies on students’ evaluation of their instructor. Holmes, D. S., Journal of Educational Psychology, 1972, 63, 130-133.

A significant amount of research has been directed toward examining the effect of extra-teaching variables on students’ evaluations of their instructor. One such variable is the grade received by students. The present study investigated the effect on teacher evaluations of actual differences in grades as well as disconfirmed grade expectancies. Prior to the fourth and last test in an introductory psychology course, students were asked to indicate what letter grade they expected in the course. Students were aware of their standing because number correct and letter-grade equivalents were posted after three previous tests. Subjects were students who expected either an A or a B in the course and who actually earned an A or a B (as determined by their performance on all four class examinations). Approximately half the students expecting (and deserving) an A or a B were randomly selected to receive one grade lower than their expected grade for the course. The remaining half received their actual grades. When feedback was given, scores were changed on the last test so that students receiving false information were led to believe that their lower-than-expected final grade was due to their performance on the fourth test. Immediately after receiving feedback, all students completed teacher evaluations. Students whose grades were altered did not know that they were subjects in a n experiment. Following completion and return of the evaluation forms, the instructor informed students of the deception and gave real grades to those students whose grades had been changed. Overall A and B students did not appear to evaluate the teacher differently. However, five of the nineteen items on the teacher evaluation form were significantly lowered as a function of disconfirmed expectancies. Students expecting a higher grade than they received rated the teacher lower on such items as how well the teacher was prepared, how coherent was his presentation, and whether the teacher had enough information to evaluate their achievement. While offering no support for the hypothesis that differences in grade received are related to differences in teacher evaluation (at least between A and B students), the results do indicate that teacher evaluations will be lowered when actual grades do not correspond to students’ expectations. The author suggests that this is due to students’ attempts to justify their lower-than-expected final grades.

michael farris February 8, 2008 12:41 PM

IIRC there was a similar study (no details to hand unfortunately) where teachers were given labels for particular students (I think mostly "gifted" or "slow", on a more or less random basis) and afterward anything one of the students did was interpreted as supporting the label often with elaborate rationalizations (no, I don't know how this cleared any ethics commission unless it pre-dated them).

And now that you menion it, I think my rating of Ms. McArdle has decreased. Hard to say why, exactly ...

Mike Antonucci February 8, 2008 12:43 PM

I don't know of such a study, but I do know of the so-called Pygmalion study, in which teachers were told certain students were gifted when, in fact, they had been chosen at random.

At the end of the experiment, the random "gifted" students actually scored higher on IQ tests.

http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/4/cu7.html

There's also this forensic psychology study (translated from Italian) about the susceptibility of children to believe in and elaborate on false information provided by adults.

http://www.forensicpsychology.it/numero%20009/art_Ercolin_eng.PDF

If you need to dig further, drop me an e-mail. I'm in the education research business.

Parker February 8, 2008 2:00 PM

Mike -

I'm not sure you should be so helpful - there's something a bit 'off' about this McArdle chick. I heard something unsavory about her just a little bit ago...

And for some reason it made me think of Glenn Reynolds and powerful blenders.

philosopher February 8, 2008 3:02 PM

I don't know anything like the particular study you described, but I think you're looking at a piece of the phenomenon frequently labeled "belief perseverance". Ross, Lepper, and Hubbard (1975) is a canonical reference here; it's also a great demonstration of why human subjects committees were instituted.

Michael Cobb February 8, 2008 3:05 PM

Megan,

Please drop me a line. Along with some colleagues, I do research on exactly this topic, but with some slightly different methodological designs (evaluations of politicians). I study belief perseverance, which is what you are asking about.

MC

MEH February 8, 2008 3:24 PM

"I do research on exactly this topic, but with some slightly different methodological designs (evaluations of politicians)"

Bingo.

see: Efficacy of Hatchet Jobs

also: 'Inflation is contained'

AO February 8, 2008 9:49 PM

Megan,

Is the study you're referring to discussed in the book "Infuence: The Science of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini"? I don't have my copy with me to check, but I remember something similar to that being in that book.

AO February 8, 2008 9:50 PM

Megan,

Is the study you're referring to discussed in the book "Infuence: The Science of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini"? I don't have my copy with me to check, but I remember something similar to that being in that book.

RedSky February 9, 2008 4:24 AM

There is the famous Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) study which is related -- deceiving teachers into thinking certain students were identified by the administration as late bloomers. Quick review here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838752,00.html

David Tufte February 9, 2008 2:15 PM

That doesn't sound familiar, but take a look here. This is a site our task force put together of academic literature on this.

http://www.suu.edu/faculty/robertsw/Evaluation%20Task%20Force/Evaluation%20Task%20Force.htm