Achievement and engagement: How student characteristics influence teacher judgments

University teacher judgments in problem-based learning: Their accuracy and reasoning

“…In addition, we investigated whether university teachers' chance predictions were influenced by teachers' perceptions of student characteristics. Indeed, Kaiser et al (2013) call for more research on accuracy of teacher judgments as they suggested that teacher judgments of performance may be influenced by students' actual performance, but also by student characteristics such as engagement in class (Kaiser et al, 2013). By asking university teachers to indicate their ACCURACY AND REASONING OF TEACHER JUDGMENTS 22 reasoning behind their judgments, we addressed the research call from Kaiser et al (2013) to further unearth which perceptions of student characteristics might moderate or bias teacher judgment accuracy.…”

“…Teachers may judge students' achievements on the basis of student characteristics other than ability, which may affect the overall accuracy of their judgments. For example, previous research revealed that 6 th grade teachers' and university teachers' judgments of achievement were influenced by students' behavioral engagement in class (e.g., the number of questions a student asks in class, absenteeism in class; Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2003;Kaiser, Retelsdorf, Südkamp, & Möller, 2013). This was even the case in two experimental studies by Kaiser et al (2013).…”

“…For example, previous research revealed that 6 th grade teachers' and university teachers' judgments of achievement were influenced by students' behavioral engagement in class (e.g., the number of questions a student asks in class, absenteeism in class; Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2003;Kaiser, Retelsdorf, Südkamp, & Möller, 2013). This was even the case in two experimental studies by Kaiser et al (2013). In these experiments, teachers candidates participated in a computer simulation of a classroom situation in which they interacted with virtual elementary and secondary school students.…”

“…Kaiser et al (2013) suggested that teachers might have taken the collinearity of engagement and actual achievement into account when making their judgments. That is, teachers might assume that high engagement and high achievement go hand in hand.…”

“…Until today it is unclear which information teachers actually use to base their judgments on. By specifically investigating the type of information that teacher judgments are based on, we address the recent call from Kaiser et al (2013) to identify student characteristics other than engagement that might moderate or even bias judgment accuracy. We expect that, in addition to variables related to students' cognitive ability (such as intelligence or prior educational attainments), characteristics related to demographic variables and nonintellectual constructs such as personality and motivation will also be mentioned (Hypothesis 4).…”