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Students’ Characteristics and Teachers’ Estimates about Their Academic Achievement 1 1 Paper deriving from the data of the master’s dissertation by the second author, under the advice of the first author, defended in the Masters Program in Educational Psychology at the Universidade da Madeira.

Características dos Estudantes e Estimativas dos Professores acerca do seu Desempenho Acadêmico

Características de los Estudiantes y la Estimación de sus Logros Académicos por los Profesores

Abstract

The relation between teachers’ expectations and students’ academic achievement has received considerable interest in the education and psychology domains. In this study, we analyze the extent to which the information about students influences the formulation of teachers’ estimates about their achievement. The sample consisted of 491 Portuguese teachers, aged between 26 and 82 years old (M age = 43 years). To assess the teachers’ estimates, we created excerpts containing information about hypothetical students, in relation to whom an estimate of academic success was required. Each excerpt had two versions (A and B), according to the more or less favorable information regarding students’ intellectual, family, self-regulation, and previous performance variables. The results show moderate differences between the estimates of the participants that received version A and those that received version B. The results are discussed considering the importance of a set of student characteristics for the way teachers develop estimates about student performance.

Keywords:
teacher expectations; academic achievement; student characteristics

Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia Av.Bandeirantes 3900 - Monte Alegre, 14040-901 Ribeirão Preto - São Paulo - Brasil, Tel.: (55 16) 3315-3829 - Ribeirão Preto - SP - Brazil
E-mail: paideia@usp.br