Studious by association? Effects of teacher’s attunement to students’ peer relations

Abstract

We would like to express our gratitude to Chris Baerveldt and Tom Snijders for laying the foundation of this research by obtaining funds from NWO (grants 401-01-554 and 401-01-550, respectively). Data and R-scripts for replicating the reported analyses can be obtained on request from the authors. C. Steglich ()Abstract We study the role of teacher-perceived friendship on teachers' assessments of their students' learning efforts. Based on earlier studies, we expect that teacher-perceived friendship differs from students' actual, self-reported friendship, and can account for teachers' judgement of students' learning efforts, above and beyond effects of students' self-reported study effort and friendship. Data were collected as part of the Networks and Actor Attributes in Early Adolescence study, which traces the development of individual behaviour, norms, and classroom social structure in 126 school classes (3332 students, 14 schools) during the first year at secondary school in the Netherlands. Students' individual study effort was assessed based on students' self-reports of four effort-related behaviours and as an overall judgement by the class teacher. Students' networks were assessed with the classroom as boundary, on the one hand as students' self-reported friendships, on the other hand as friendships perceived by the class teachers. Results were obtained with multivariate stochastic actor-based modelling of the feedback processes between study effort, study norms, and friendship networks. 154 C. Steglich, A. Knecht 3Keywords Study effort · Friendship network · Perceived relationships · Teacherstudent relationship · Judgement bias Über Beurteilungsfehler aufgrund verzerrt wahrgenommener SchülerfreundschaftenZusammenfassung Gegenstand unserer Untersuchung ist die Rolle von durch Lehrkräfte wahrgenomme Schülerfreundschaften auf die Einstufung der Lernbemü-hungen der Schüler durch die Lehrkräfte. Basierend auf früheren Resultaten erwarten wir einen kognitiven Anpassungseffekt, nach dem Lehrkräfte die Bemühungen von in ihren Augen befreundeten Schülern ähnlicher einschätzen als dies aufgrund individueller Leistungen oder tatsächlicher Freundschaften zu erwarten wäre. Unsere Daten stammen aus der Networks and Actor Attributes in Early Adolescence Studie, die die Entwicklung von individuellem Verhalten, Normen und sozialen Strukturen in 126 Schulklassen (3332 Schüler an 14 Schulen) während des ersten Schuljahres an weiterführenden Schulen in den Niederlanden nachzeichnet. Lernbemühungen der Schüler wurden als Einschätzungen durch die Klassenlehrkraft gemessen und von Schülern mittels vier schulbezogener Verhaltensweisen erfragt. Freundschaftsnetzwerke wurden zum einen direkt von den Schülern erfragt und zum anderen als Einschätzung der Lehrkräfte. Die Daten wurden mit verschiedenen Verfahren der Netzwerkanalyse ausgewertet.

Halo and association effects: Cognitive biases in teacher attunement to peer‐nominated bullies, victims, and prosocial students

“…Consistent with previous findings (Dawes et al., 2017), teachers’ perceptions of students’ academic, social, and behavioral characteristics were associated with their attunement. Based on the association effect (Steglich & Knecht, 2014), we examined whether the academic, social, and behavioral characteristics of teacher‐perceived friends of the target student were related to teacher attunement.…”

“…Research has shown that teacher‐perceived friendships lead to an overestimation of similarity among the students perceived as friends. This bias in teacher judgment has been reported for students’ externalizing behavior problems and academic orientation (Gest, 2006), academic expectations (Pittinsky, 2008), and study efforts (Steglich & Knecht, 2014). We expected a similar effect in teacher perceptions of bullying, victimization, and prosocial behavior.…”

“…For instance, if the teacher reported that students i , j , and k belonged to the same group, this implied that the teacher perceived that student i befriended students j and k ; student j befriended students i and k ; and student k befriended students i and j . Following the procedure outlined by Steglich and Knecht (2014), teacher‐perceived friend characteristics were then determined by averaging teachers’ ratings of bullying, victimization, and prosociality over a student's teacher‐perceived friends.…”

“…Secondly, we examined whether perceived similarity in the behavior of those students who, according to the teacher, were friends of the target was related to teachers’ perceptions of the target students’ bullying, victimization, and prosociality. Based on the association effect (Steglich & Knecht, 2014), we hypothesized that the behavioral characteristics that a teacher attributes to a target student's perceived friends (i.e., bullying, victimization, and prosociality) would influence the teacher's ability to recognize the same characteristics in the target student.…”

“…For instance, when a teacher thinks that a student is part of a group of friends without behavioral problems, this teacher may form a positive judgment of the student's behavior, irrespective of whether the student is actually part of such a group. This bias has been referred to as assimilation‐by‐association (Steglich & Knecht, 2014). Research has shown that teacher‐perceived friendships lead to an overestimation of similarity among the students perceived as friends.…”