Getting student information vs FERPA and the Pygmalion Effect
Section 3 suggests that instructors gain access to the results of entrance pretests, such as the wonderlic exams that many colleges give to new students.
That is something I always thought that should be accessable to instructors, but it seems that Privacy Laws can hinder this information from getting shared with instructors. In addition, if we see student scores beforehand, will we, as instructors, form biases against students who performed poorly, or would we show favors for students who performed well?
Hi Pamela,
You make a good point about having prior student information. To assist with instructional planning it is good to have some background information about the incoming students. With this general information you can target your instructional approach as long as you keep an open opinion on how the students will be able to perform in your class.
Gary
Pamela, I remember a story in my instructional methods class where the instructor stated that he remember a case where a teacher did her seating chart based on the IQ scores of her class. Seat one, row one was the lowest IQ and continued through-out the chart with the highest IQ near the teacher's desk. The low IQ student was seating next to the classroom door. Bias is a dangerous weapon for a teacher.
Pamela,
Great Point. I certainly hope that instructors would not have a bias against a student based on a prior grade. For example, if a student were to fail a class and retake it with the same instructor, shouldn’t the student start with a clean slate? From an instructional standpoint we would want the student to be successful the second time around, yet show them no favors. On the other hand if they were to perform poorly again they still need to be graded the same as the other students even though we might believe they should perform better because of the prior classroom experience.
re: the Pygmalion effect, I used to ask students who had a class prior to mine if they had any students who had issues so I could identify people who needed help. What I found was that despite my intention, if another instructor described a student negatively, that I was more likely to treat them as a lost cause and just help them get through the class rather than help them truly absorb the material because it was already in my mind that they could not perform well. We have to be very careful about preconceptions.
Hi Adel,
Humans are validated in many different ways. If they have received negative validation it is really hard to pull them out of that cycle. They really do live up to the perception they have of their abilities so we need to do all we can to support their positive growth.
Gary
