Teachers' first impressions of students: characteristics, expectations, and effects

The intent of the present study was to examine the teacher-student relationship as a systematic process, which was investigated in four parts; (a) teacher-held beliefs and efficacy, (b) initial impressions, (c) formed and maintained expectations, and (d) effects on student outcomes. The foundations for this research were provided by attribution theory, teacher self-efficacy, and self-fulfilling prophecies, which all represent starting points for investigating the impression-expectancy relationship. A mixed methods research design was used to investigate the relationships between and within the four components described above. A pre- and post-rating survey was administered to 23 teachers from the researcher’s school district. The teacher participants returned 281 completed surveys regarding their initial (pre-) and follow up (post-) impressions of individual students. Teachers also provided basic demographic information about themselves and completed a teacher efficacy survey. The communication of classroom expectations was recorded through observations of teacher-student interactions. Last, measures of actual student performance in the areas of reading and math were obtained and used as a comparison to predicted performance.