This experiment investigated the causal interplay of teachers' expectations and children's academic performance. In a 4-year longitudinal study of 4,300 British beginning elementary school children, a series of cross-lagged panel correlational analyses indicated that the preponderant cause in the achievement-expectancy relationship was that of teachers' expectations causing children's achievements to an extent appreciably exceeding that to which children's performance impinged on teachers' attitudes. Teachers' evaluations of children's social performance affected later achievement to an extent exceeding that attributable to academic expectations. The methodological and substantive implications of these findings are discussed.

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This research employed the data of a 3-year longitudinal study of 4,700 British elementary school children to inspect the pattern of relationships among three academic traits, as assessed by standardized objective tests and teacher ratings, within the framework of a multitrait-multimethod matrix analysis. An extension of the standard approach, which capitalized on the longitudinal character of the data, was outlined. The results of this extension provided a more precise picture of the validity and methods bias characteristics of the data set than that available from currently employed analysis of variance decomposition approaches.