Determinants of Pupils' IQ Gains - Book Report/Review Example

?Rosenthal and Jacobson (1966) was a study of young children in a room context that aimed explicitly at achieving external validity for experiments conducted on the expectations of rats by human beings. In these earlier experiments, subjects were told either that an animal was high in learning ability or low in learning ability, which the authors then correlated with consequently high performance in the high-expectation animals and low performance in the low-expectation animals. The thought behind Rosenthal and Jacobson (1966), published in the 19th volume of Psychological Reports, was that this determinacy of expectations would occur for young children in the classroom. Robert Rosenthal, who experimented at Harvard University along with noted behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner, demonstrates his behaviorist tendencies in this article. Lenore Jacobson, who is listed in the article as the second author, worked for the South San Francisco School District and was undoubtedly instrumental in allowing Rosenthal to collect his data and in analyzing that data. The authors of the study, in attempting to discover a possible link between the rat study and the early education classroom, selected 18 classrooms. Approximately 20% of the children in these classrooms were randomly assigned to the category of students who showed exceptional promise. These names were shared with the teacher, who was not aware that their actual results on the “test for intellectual blooming” had been omitted. The purpose of doing so was to isolate the teacher expectancy independent variable in order to measure the effects of the teacher’s supposed knowledge of which children would be more apt to succeed. Just as in the study of the rats, the experimenters told the subjects (the teachers) what was the truth, disregarding what was actually the truth, in order to obtain a valid measurement. The test was administered as part of the overall deception; that is, by administering a test for early childhood potential, the authors were able to successfully convince the teachers that the children randomly assigned were gifted. After eight months, the children were re-tested with the same test for childhood intellectual capability. The results of this post-condition test were compared with the results of the pre-condition test taken at the beginning of the study. The authors discovered that after eight months, children who were randomly assigned to the experimental condition (that is, were part of the “gifted” category in the teacher’s mind) demonstrated significantly higher progress in their academic achievement as compared to the control condition. In the earliest grade categories (first and second), the positive effect was the highest, which is suggestive of a link to the early developing mind in the classroom. In addition, the highest gainer in the first grade classroom and the highest gainer in the second grade classroom demonstrate the drastic changes the children went through. For the first grader, it was a gain of 24.8 IQ points in excess of the gain (+16.2) shown by the controls. For the second grader, it was a gain of 18.2 IQ points in excess of the gain (+4.3) shown by the controls. Most of the experimental subjects gained modestly in IQ points relative to their peers in the control group, but 30 as compared to five respectively tested gains of 30 IQ points or more. Although neither of these extreme cases would be evidence by itself, they are part of a statistically significant trend and therefore illustrate the dramatic effect that the authors are trying to communicate in this paper. Children in the control condition made gains in IQ points as well; however, these gains were modest relative to the individuals in the experimental condition. An interesting point to make about that correlation is that in classrooms in which the experimental subjects made the highest IQ gains, the control subjects also made the highest IQ gains. Taken together, these facts seem to indicate that experimental children were not making their gains at the expense of control children, but instead were eliciting more active, effective attention from the teacher in every case, regardless of foreknowledge about intellectual potential. One limitation of the Rosenthal and Jacobson (1966) study is that it does not identify why the effect exists, limiting itself only to the fact that the effect exists. It is an important contribution to the research literature in that it expands previous results from the study of rats and lower-level mammal species to human children in order to get a practical result that can be tied to public policy. However, without understanding why it is that the teacher’s expectations lead to differential outcomes, it leaves little room for changing the way things are. The ambiguity of the solution to the problem means that absurd solutions, such as doing away with testing and grading altogether (so that they do not color the opinion of the teacher), are on the table. In addition, the authors, despite having a concise and to-the-point paper, do not spell out why exactly teacher expectancies are a social problem. In a more modern psychology paper, the application of the study’s results would be spelled out in the introduction for its readers to consider and keep in their mind. But there is no indication that the experimenters are addressing any sort of problem in society, other than an academic problem of the external validity of previous experiments involving expectancies on rat performance. A psychology major would benefit from reading this study for a number of reasons; the first among them is that it shows respectable methodology insofar as it isolates the independent variable of teacher expectancies. The study specified how the children were randomly assigned to the experimental and control conditions, although it did so vaguely. Undergraduate students in psychology who are planning their own crude psychological experiments could benefit from analyzing how the authors planned and executed their classic study, then do so themselves for a more interactive experience. The field experiment aspect of this paper is also informative: it demonstrates to a student how important it is to elicit support from partners in a field experiment. Rosenthal, for instance, gave recognition to Jacobson as a second author. The second reason why a psychology major would benefit from reading this paper is that it is informative for conceptualizing and contextualizing some thinking and theories in the history of psychological thinking. For instance, the line of thinking being applied in this paper applies to self-fulfilling prophecies in teacher expectations toward their students. At present, the work in this field is relatively well developed, but for those interested in it, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1966) would provide a necessary context for understanding how our present-day view of the way that teacher expectancies influence student outcomes. In addition, for a psychology student, the historical aspect of this study is interesting in another way. Robert Rosenthal carried out his experiments at Harvard University at the same that B.F. Skinner, a famed behaviorist psychologist, worked there. In that manner, the timing of this article, especially in how it is tied to developmental psychology (which was an interest of Skinner’s), shows the definite influence that thinkers within the same school (literally and figuratively) have on each other. Lastly, a psychology student would be well-served by reading Rosenthal and Jacobson (1966) as a means to seeing how psychology (and specifically developmental psychology) are relevant and important for solving real problems. As was mentioned previously, it seems like the study was intended to provide an actual basis for understanding why there are different outcomes for children in educational studies. Although the study itself does not go into framing the problem or offering much in terms of solutions, it is formative insofar as it demonstrates clearly that there is a problem to be dealt with. As with psychology research in other fields, this line of thinking is directly applicable to making educational institutions more effective in providing an intelligent generation of people. This should provide some motivation to psychology students to actively pursue research in the field that, like Rosenthal and Jacobson (1966), aims toward making society better. Reference Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1966). Teachers' Expectancies: Determinants Of Pupils' IQ Gains. Psychological Reports, 19 , 115-118. Read More