Conceptual development and achievement are embedded in social relationships. Research on self-fulfilling prophecies in the classroom has shown teachers' inaccurate perceptions about a child's ability shape schoolchildren's intellectual development in the direction of the misperception (Jussim & Harber, 2005; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968; Sorhagen, 2013). This contrasts with prior research on the influences of parents' misperceptions, which has shown that parents with accurate perceptions of their child's abilities, compared to those with misperceptions, have children with advanced conceptual development and higher achievement (Hunt & Paraskevopoulos, 1980; S. A. Miller, Manhal, & Mee, 1991; Sorhagen, 2014a, 2014b). Taken together, the literature on adult misperceptions of child abilities paints discrepant pictures of how adults' inaccurate beliefs may influence children's achievement trajectories. There is evidence for conditional direct and indirect effects of misperceptions within both literatures. Perhaps if moderating conditions were the same at school and at home, the effects of teacher and parent misperceptions would be the same. The present dissertation used prospective data to address the conflicting evidence on the effects of teachers' and mothers' misperceptions of abilities, focusing on differences in the magnitude and direction of adult misperceptions by the levels of environmental control (i.e. rigidly structured and intrusive versus autonomy-supporting). The results confirmed and extended the prior literature by showing that children's reading and math achievement in high school were differentially affected by the accuracy of adults' perceptions of the children's abilities depending on whether the adult is a teacher or mother. Children's high school performance benefited most when their teachers overestimated their abilities and when their mothers' accurately estimated their abilities in in third-grade. Furthermore, there was evidence for mediation through adults' differential treatment in the reading models. Evidence for moderation was also seen in the reading models, but only for the influence of teachers' misperceptions on teacher attention, which indirectly led to differences in child achievement (i.e. conditional indirect effects). The effects of teachers' misperceptions were more profound at low levels of environmental control compared to highly controlled classrooms. Thus environmental control did not lead to similar influences of teacher and mother misperceptions. This supports the notion that there are different consequences of teacher and mother misperceptions on child achievement. The results of additional analyses found child characteristics (i.e. child birth order, gender, ethnicity, family SES, child social competencies, and prior abilities), as well as teacher's self-efficacy predicted the degree of accuracy of the adults' perceptions of children's reading and math abilities. Furthermore, the results showed that teachers' and mothers' perceptions were often accurate, but when one adult was inaccurate, it was likely that the other adult's perception was similar. As we become increasingly aware of the importance of social influences on cognition, the results of the present dissertation suggest that it is important to consider differences between socializing agents. / Psychology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TEMPLE/oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/3595 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Sorhagen, Nicole |
| Contributors | Weinraub, Marsha, Steinberg, Laurence D., 1952-, Taylor, Ronald D., 1958-, Gunderson, Elizabeth, Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy, Schmitz, Mark F. |
| Publisher | Temple University. Libraries |
| Source Sets | Temple University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 128 pages |
| Rights | IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/3577, Theses and Dissertations |
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