black students' reactions to feedback conveyed by white and black teachers

Black Students' Reactions to Feedback Conveyed by White and Black Teachers'

LERITA M. COLEMAN' Universitj, of Colorado

LEE JUSSIM Rurgers University

JERRY L. ISAAC Lincoln Universiri,

The present investigation examined some processes mediating self-fulfilling prophecies among black students. Specifically. we hypothesized that feedback conveyed by black and white teachers would differentially influence black students' perceptions of how the teacher viewed their success :failure. effort. ability, luck and task difficulty. In addition, we hypothesized that negative feedback would affect perceptions of evaluations differently than positive feedback. Ninety black undergraduates participated in an experiment in which a black or white teacher (confederate) expressed one of five evaluative feedback responses to a student's score on an analogies test. The results provided partial support for the first hypothesis: black female students perceived white teachers as assessing their performance less positively: that is. they perceived them to underestimate their ability and the difficulty of the task. Negative feedback also led students to believe the teacher held an unfavorable but inaccurate impression of their abilityand effort, and that the teacher underestimated the difficulty of the task. These findings sugge!.t that black students-black females in particular---may assume that white teachers hold less favorable assessments of them than black teachers and all students may be sensitive to negative evaluations.

Do black students perceive the assessments of black and white teachers differently? Does the type of feedback (e.g., positive, negative, or neutral) differentially affect black students' self-perceptions and perceptions of a teacher's assessment of the effort, ability, and difficulty with the task? These questions are among ones we attempt to answer in this experiment examining a segment of the self-fulfilling prophecy process among black students.

The self-fulfilling prophecy refers to situations in which a teacher's expectations evoke from a student performance levels consistent with those expectations. The occurrence of the phenomenon is well documented, so that current research generally focuses on exploring the psychological and interpersonal

'This research was supported by a Spencer Fellowship to the first and second authors. We wish

'Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Lerita M . Coleman. Department of to acknowledge the helpful comments of James Jackson. Sandra Graham. and Stuart Cook.

Psychology, Campus Box 345, University of Colorado. Boulder. C O 80303-0345.

Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 1 9 9 1 , 2 1 , 6 , pp. 460-481. Copyright 0 1991 by V. H. Winston & Son, Inc. All r ights reserved

BLACK STUDENTS’ REACTIONS 461

mechanisms underlying self-fulfilling prophecies (Brophy, 198 I ; Brophy & Good, 1974; Cooper & Good, 1983; Darley & Fazio, 1980; Harris & Ros- enthal, 1985; Jussim, 1986, 1989; Rosenthal, 1973).

Teachers often provide more favorable treatment to their high-expectancy students. Research using a variety of methodological techniques has found that white students for whom the teacher has high expectations (highs) receive more positive and less negative assessments than students for whom the teacher has low expectations (lows), even when their objective performance is the same(Babad, Inban, & Rosenthal, 1982; Brophy& Good, 1970; Chaiken, Sigler, & Derlega, 1974; Cooper & Baron, 1977; Darley & Gross, 1983; Finn, 1972; Meichenbaum, Bowers, & Ross, 1969; Rosenthal, 1973; S w a m & Snyder, 1980). I n comparison to the extensive research on how teachers act on their expectations, much less is known about how students react to the various types of differential treatment (Jussim, 1986; Miller & Turnbull, 1986). Further, despite the potential contribution of self-fulfilling prophecies to black underachievement (Murray & Jackson, 1982; Rubovitz & Maehr, I973), few studies have investigated how black students react to different types of treatment received from their teachers. One form of differential treatment that teachers utilize as part of the self-fulfilling prophecy process is interpersonal evaluative feedback. Therefore, the present investigation focuses on black students’ reactions to interpersonal evaluative feedback received from black and white teachers.

Interpersonal evaluative feedback can be differentiated from other forms of feedback such as objective feedback, feedback regarding personality or success/ failure information. Essentially, interpersonal feedback is theexpression of a judgment or assessment of another’s performance on a task. Interpersonal evaluative feedback may be positive or negative regardless of whether, by objective standards, the student succeeded or failed. In dissecting the self- fulfilling prophecy process, it is particularly useful to understand the student’s reaction to the interpersonal evaluative feedback provided by the teacher (Jussim, Coleman, & Nassau, 1989).

Contrary to what one might expect, the few studies investigating reactions t o feedback in the classroom note only weak or limited influences of feedback on students’ self-concept, motivation, and performance (Beyer & Oetting, 1970; Cooper & Good, 1983; Parsons, Kaczala, & Meece, 1982; see Harris & Rosenthal, 1985, for a meta-analysis). There are two explanations for these weak feedback effects. First, students may not notice the feedback teachers provide. For example, one study showed “. . . an almost total lack of congru- ence between teacher and student perceptions of teacher use of praise and criticism” (Cooper & Good, 1983). Similarly, students may have difficulty accurately assessing the frequency and nature of teacher responses occurring over a period of several months (as was required in the Cooper and Good

462 COLEMAN, JUSSIM. AND ISAAC

study). Therefore, in order to ascertain more accurately how students perceive feedback we examine students' reactions immediatel,~ after receiving positive or negative feedback.

Second, a single instance of feedback may not have a major impact on self-perception or other motivational factors (e.g., Swann, 1983; Swann & Ely, 1984). Such feedback, however, may have a major impact on students' perceptions of how the teacher evaluates them. Especially among unfamiliar teachers and students (e.g., early in the school year, a new student in a school) or students and teachers from differing cultural and socioeconomic back- grounds, feedback may convey to students that the teacher holds a positive or negative impression of them. Perceptions of others may determine how much we like them and whether we would like to interact with them (for review, see Berscheid, 1985; Berscheid & Walster, 1969). Consequently, students who believe teachers like them and hold high expectations of them may like, seek out, and cooperate with teachers more than will students who believe teachers hold negative or less favorable impressions of them. Overall, students who are warmer and more cooperative with their teachers and seek them out for advice or help, tend to perform better than uncooperative students who are less willing to seek out the teacher (Brophy & Good, 1974: Cooper, 1979). Clearly, therefore, understanding how students react t o feedback received from teachers has important implications for isolating and identifying the processes underlying self-fulfilling prophecies.

Most studies in the attribution area assessing how black students respond to performance feedback have involved only black teachers (Friend & Neale. 1972; Graham, 1984; Graham & Long, 1986). Hence little is known about whether black students respond differently to black and white teachers. A general stereotype blacks hold of whites is that they are racially prejudiced or hostile(Schuman& Hatchett, 1974) and that they believe most blacks are less intelligent than whites (Howard & Hammond. 1985; Murray & Jackson, 1982). Therefore, stereotypes may play an important role in the self-fulfilling prophecy process for black students.

One related study suggests that black students assume white evaluators will evaluate them differently than black evaluators (Banks, Stitt, Curtis, & McQuater, 1977). This study demonstrated that black students perceived black evaluators t o be equally objective when expressing positive or negative feedback, whereas white evaluators were perceived to be less objective when expressing negative feedback than when expressing positive feedback. For black students, black evaluators may appear t o be less biased and more positive in their assessments than white evaluators. Therefore we hypothesized that, due to stereotyping. black students would interpret assessments of their performance received from black teachers more positively than assessments received from white teachers, even when black and white teachers


expressed very similar reactions. Specifically, we expected black students t o perceive black teachers as assessing the quality of their performance more positively, as believing their performance was due more to higher ability and greater effort and less t o luck than d o white teachers.

We also expected race of teacher t o influence black students’ perceptions of how difficult the teacher believed the task was. Succeeding at a difficult task testifies t o the strong capabilities of the student, while failing at a difficult task is not so bad. Thus, a teacher’sjudgment of a task as difficult reflects favorably on the student. Our perspective suggests that black students will assume they are viewed more favorably by black teachers than by white teachers. There- fore, we predict that black students will perceive black teachers, in comparison to white teachers, as judging the task to be more difficult.

Previous research suggests that white students are more sensitive to negative feedback than to positive feedback (Coleman, Jussim, & Abraham, 1987). Therefore, we also wanted to know if black students would respond differently to positive and negative feedback. We expected that feedback would affect black students’ perceptions of the teacher’s overall assessment. Feed- back provides a student with information about success and failure: Positive feedback should communicate that the teacher feels the student succeeded, and negative feedback should communicate that the teacher thinks the student failed.

The augmentation principle of attribution theory suggests, further, that the role of one factor is perceived as stronger in the presence of opposing factors (Kelley, 1972). Because social norms discourage the expression of negative evaluations (Blumberg, 1972; Kanouse & Hanson, 1972; Kellerman, 1984; Shrauger & Schoeneman, 1979) when negative feedback is expressed it may appear to result from a particularly strong negative evaluation. Further, the discounting principle of attribution theory (e.g., Kelley, 1972) suggests that the existence of several purposes for positive feedback (e.g.. to encourage. ingratiate, maintain pleasant social interactions, or as a transition ritual between activities) (Brophy, 198 1 ; Jones, 1965; Kanouse & Hanson, 1973) may attenuate the information that positive feedback provides about the teacher’s actual appraisal.

These principles also provided the rationale for our next set of hypotheses. We reasoned that negative feedback would lead black students t o believe the teacher also assesses their effort and ability unfavorably, whereas positive feedback would not lead black students to believe the teacher evaluates their effort and ability especially favorably. Similarly, the communication of positive and negative feedback should differentially affect black students’ assessments of the teacher’s view of the ease or difficulty of the task. Students may reason that a poor performance on a relatively difficult task may not elicit a strong negative reaction from a teacher. A poor performance on a relatively

464 COLEMAN, JUSSIM, AND ISAAC

easy task, however. may be more likely to evoke a negative response. There- fore, we also hypothesized that negative feedback would lead students to believe the teacher felt the task was not especially difficult; in contrast, positive feedback, which we believe will be perceived as less credible, would not be viewed as indicating the teacher felt the task was especially difficult.

Finally, luck has been associated with both success and failure feedback (Graham & Long, 1986; Weiner et al.. 1978; Weiner, 1979). Therefore, black students may believe teachers feel they were very lucky if teachers express positive feedback. or not lucky if teachers express negative feedback.

In addition t o testing these hypotheses regarding the impact of feedback on black students’ perceptions of how the teacher views them and the task, we will assess the relations between teachers’evaluative feedback and black students’ self-perceptions of success failure. effort, ability, and task difficulty. Past research has generally found weak or limited effects of teacher feedback on white students’self-perceptions (Beyer & Oetting. 1970; Coleman et al.. 1987: Cooper & Good. 1983: Parsons et al., 1982: see Harris & Rosenthal, 1985, for meta-analysis). Therefore. we have no specific hypotheses regarding how the effects of evaluative feedback may influence the self-perceptions of black students.

In summary, given the paucity of research on black students. the importance of studying the role of stereotypes and feedback in the self-fulfilling prophecy process cannot be overemphasized. Thus. we manipulated interpersonal evaluative feedback rather than objective success and failure. Although we would expect self-fulfilling prophecies to operate similarly among black and white students, black students may be especially vulnerable to negative expectations (Murray & Jackson, 1982). Moreover, due to stereotyping. black students may interpret similar reactions (of black and white teachers) as more negative if expressed by white teachers. Furthermore, how black students respond to teacher feedback may be linked to performance, motivation. self-concept. and willingness to cooperate with the teacher.

One way to examine the effects of feedback independent of performance is to manipulate teachers’ expressions of feedback and to control the information students receive about their objective performance. This type of control is impossible in naturalisticsituations such as the workplace or the classroom. It is also difficult to interrupt academic environments just to assess black students’ reactions to a single instance of feedback. Consequently, we chose to test these hypotheses using experimental laboratory procedures.

Method

Su hjects

Ninety black undergraduates(66 females and 24 males) at a predominantly white universitl were randomly assigned to one of nine experimental condi-


tions: four types of positive feedback, four types of negative feedback, and no feedback. They were recruited through the minority student affairs office, advertisements, and peer contacts. Each student was paid for his o r her participation.

Materials

Analogies test. The analogies test consisted of seven easy analogies and three extremely difficult analogies. All students received the same test scores (i.e., 7 out of 10) but received different feedback regarding the scores. In this manner we were able to control the objective performance of each student but vary the teacher’s response to it.

Questionnaire. The questionnaire assessed students’ perceptions of success/ failure, effort, ability, task difficulty, and luck. One set of questions assessed black students’ perceptions of how well the teacher thought they performed, how hard the teacher thought they tried, how much ability the teacher thought they had, how difficult the teacher felt the task was, and how lucky the teacher thought they were. Another set of questions assessed how well black students themselves felt they had performed, how hard they felt they had tried, how much ability they felt they had. and how hard they felt the task was. Perceptions of success/failure were indicated by a 2-point scale ( I = well, 2 = not well), and all other perceptions were on a 5-point scale (e.g.. 1 = very easy, 5 = very difficult).

Confederates. One white and two black male confederates in their mid- twenties to mid-thirties were selected from a number of local male actors to act as graduate student teachers. The actors were trained extensively to play the role of a teacher and to convey convincingly each of nine evaluative feedback responses (see below). All actors were blind to the purposes of the experiment. The order in which each confederate ran the nine conditions was random.

Procedure and Design

The experimenter introduced himself o r herself to each student and presented the following cover story:

You are about to participate in an experimental program de- veloped for the training of future teachers. You and a graduate student in education will comprise one of several teacher-student teams involved in performing a series of tasks (you will be the student and he will be the teacher). Your team will be compared to other teacher-student teams on test scores. Also, your teacher will evaluate your results and discuss them with me. After each task you will be asked to complete a questionnaire concerning your


experiences as a student in this program. Do you have any quest ions?

The purpose of this cover story was to highlight the evaluation and the competition between teams and to emphasize to students the importance of performing well. It also provided a context in which the teacher’s reaction to students’ performance would appear appropriate.

Next. each student was introduced to the teacher(c0nfederate). and the two were given a few minutes to get acquainted. To help in establishing at least a minimum relationship. teachers were given standard background about themselves (e.g.. hometown, graduate work. post-graduate plans) which they could mention when appropriate. and were encouraged to ask the student about himself o r herself. Although teachers were monitored throughout the study, this acquaintance session was largely unstructured and spontaneous.

The teacher then gave the student a brief lesson on how to solve analogies. The lesson included describing analogies. providing some strategies for solv- ing them, and providing some illustrative examples. Next. the teacher handed the student a test consisting of 10 analogies and left the room.

While the student worked on theanalogies test, theexperimenter randomly chose one of the five teacher responses (described below). By randomly selecting a response at this time, we prevented the teacher and the experimenter from allowing their knowledge of the response to influence interaction with the student during any part of the experiment. After approximately 7 minutes, the teacher returned to the student. checked the exam. and reacted with one of the five evaluative feedback responses.

Teachers’ Feedback

Teachers can express positive and negative assessments in a variety of ways (e.g., Brophy. 1981; Parsons et al.. 1982). Therefore. in order t o avoid results deriving from the idiosyncratic or unique characteristics of any one type of expression of feedback. we trained teachers to convey two different types of positive and negative assessments. The two types of positive evaluations were labeled “pleasant surprise” and “simple positive feedback.” The two types of negative evaluations were “unpleasant surprise” and “simple negative feedback.” These feedback responses are presented below:

Pleasant surprise (pleasantly surprised tone, smiling): “Have you finished? You have seven out of ten right. that’s a good score. I’m impressed.”

Unpleasant surprise (unpleasantly surprised, disappointed tone): “Have you finished? You only have seven out of ten right. That’s not a good score. I can’t understand how you only got seven right.”


Simple positive feedback (no expression, normal): “Have you finished? You have seven out of ten right-that’s a good score.”

Simple negative feedback (no expression, normal tone): “Have you finished? You have seven out of ten right-that’s not a good score.”

There was also one control group which received no evaluative feedback from the teacher, but which did receive the following response:

N o feedback ( n o emotion, normal tone): “Have you finished? You have seven out of ten right.”

These evaluative responses were not conveyed by words alone. Each response carried the appropriate facial affect and tone of voice. Unpleasant surprise, for example, consisted of some eye aversion, a faster speech rate, and louder tone ofvoice. I n contrast, simple positive feedback was conveyed with a normal rate of speech and tone of voice. It is also important to note that all students were led to believe that they performed exactly the same (“seven out of ten right”). In essence, we manipulated the reacher’s evaluation of’ the performance rather than objective performance. This distinction is an important link to the self-fulfilling prophecy process.

After conveying one of these evaluative responses, the teacher left the room and the experimenter returned with the questionnaires. After completing the questionnaire, students received questions about the teacher feedback (valid- ity check) and a postexperimental questionnaire. Upon completing the postexperimental questionnaire, students were debriefed.

Manipulation Check

As part of the postexperimental questionnaire, we queried students about each of the five types of teacher feedback (pleasant surprise, unpleasant surprise, simple positive feedback, simple negative feedback, no feedback), and asked them to select the one they believed best described the teacher’s response. When the two types of positive feedback were collapsed into a single category, and the two types of negative feedback were collapsed into a single category, students’ perceptions of the teachers’ reactions generally corre- sponded to the intended type of feedback (agreement rates were 78% for positive feedback, 84% for negative feedback, and 86% for no feedback). Although there was some disagreement regarding whether a teacher expressed, for example, pleasant surprise or simple positive feedback. there was virtually no disagreement that the teacher expressed some form of positive feed back.


Veridicalitj. of Teacher Feedback

The manipulation check presented above only indicated that black students accurately perceived the teacher’s feedback. Another question asks whether they interpret positive and negative feedback as indicators that the teacher believes they succeeded or failed. respectively. A x’ contrasting the distribution of perceived failures and perceived successes within the three feedback conditions was significant ( ~ ~ ( 2 ) = 6 5 . 9 0 , ~ < . O O O l ) . Both positive feedback and negative feedback were very effective at conveying to students the teacher’s assessment of their performance-nearly all students (94%) receiving negative feedback believed the teacher felt they failed, and nearly all students (95%) receiving positive feedback believed the teacher felt they succeeded.

In our analyses, we used the no-feedback condition as a control group to compare the effects of positive and negative feedback. Therefore, we needed to demonstrate that no feedback was considered relatively neutral. Seven black students in the no feedback condition believed the teacher felt they failed and 14 believed the teacher felt they succeeded. This difference does not significantly depart from an even distribution of perceived successes and perceived failures ( x2( 1) = 2.45. ns) thereby indicating that no feedback was viewed relatively neutrally.

Results

Initial Ana!,*ses

Initial ANOVAs and contrasts revealed no significant differences in the effects of unpleasant surprise and simple negative feedback on any dependent variable and no differences in the effects of positive surprise and simple positive feedback on any dependent variable. Basically a similar pattern of results occurred whether we grouped students by the teacher’s response we intended or by the response they perceived. Therefore, for all of the analyses both types of positive feedback were collapsed into a single category, both types of negative feedback were collapsed into a single category, and students were grouped by the type of feedback we intended, rather than the type that they perceived.

A 2 X 2 X 3 (Race of Teacher by Gender by Feedback) MANOVA was conducted with race of teacher (black! white), gender of student (maleife- male) and feedback (positive: negative: no feedback) responses as grouping variables. The dependent measures were students’ perceptions of the teacher’s evaluation of them. perceived ability, perceived effort, perceived luck, and perceived difficulty or of the ease of the test plus students’ (self-


perceptions) self-ability, self-effort, self-luck, self-difficulty, or ease of test. A prior MANOVA conducted with confederates as a grouping variable indicated that there were no interactions involving the confederates for perceived teacher or self-variables.

Effects of Race of Teacher upon Students’ Perception of Teacher Evalutions

The overall multivariate analysis produced a significant Gender by Race of Teacher interaction, and a marginally significant main effect for Gender F(8,69) = 1 . 8 3 , ~ < .08. The means are presented in Table I . These analyses confirmed in part our first hypothesis that black students, more specifically black females, assume white teachers view them less favorably than black teachers, even when they receive similar feedback from black and white teachers. The univariate ANOVAs and means reveal that main effects for Race of Teacher and the Race of Teacher by Gender interaction were significant or marginally significant for a number of the perceived variables. To summarize these effects, black students believed white teachers held less favorable assessments of their ability (F( 1,78)= 4 . 3 0 , ~ < .04) estimated the task to be less difficult (F( 1,77) = 3.22, p < .07) and believed their performances were due more to luck (F(1,78)= 3 . 7 3 , ~ < .05) than black teachers. There were, in addition, two significant Race of Teacher by Student Gender interactions. Black females believed that white teachers held less favorable perceptions of their ability (F(1,78)= 4 . 0 1 , ~ < .05) and estimated the task to be less difficult than did black teachers (F(1,77) = 8 . 8 5 , ~ < .004). In contrast, the means indicate black maies believed white teachers held more favorable perceptions of their ability and estimated the task to be more difficult than did black teachers. Moreover, a three way (Student Gender by Race of Teacher by Type of Feedback) interaction suggests that black males receiving negative feedback believed white teachers thought they were particularly unlucky (F(2,78) = 4 . 5 3 , ~ < .01). Overall, black male and female students felt black teachers held favorable perceptions of them. However, the two groups differed considerably in their beliefs about the perceptions of white teachers.

Effects of Teacher Feedback upon Students’ Perceptions of Teacher Evaluations

The MANOVA reported above also produced a marginally significant effect for type of feedback but not a race of teacher by feedback interaction ( F < I ) . Univariate ANOVAs demonstrated that feedback significantly affected students’ perceptions of teachers’ evaluations of their ability ( F ( 2 ,


Table 1

Means.for Perceived Teacher Evaluarions of Abilirj<, Eflort, Task Disficulty, and Luck

Black White teacher teacher (n = 29) in = 36)

Perceived evaluation

Black females

Ability 3.97 3.44

Effort 3.45 3.14

Task difficulty 2.36 1.72

Luck 3.45 3.06

Black White Black males teacher teacher

(n = 12)

Perceived evaluation (n = 12)

Ability 3.77 4.08

Effort 3.23 3.67

Task difficulty 2.23 2.83

Luck 3.46 3.17 - ~~

Note. Higher scores indicate higher perceived levels of effort and ability, and lower levels of luck.

78) = 1 4 . 7 5 , ~ < .001), and of the degree of task difficulty (F(2,77) = 4.72, p < .012). Perceptions of teacher evaluations of effort and luck were not significantly influenced by feedback.

Next, we examined the hypothesis that negative feedback, more than positive feedback, affects black students’ perceptions of their teachers’ assessments. We computed a set of contrasts with each feedback condition being compared to the no-feedback control condition. Contrasts between positive feedback and no feedback were not significant for perceived teachers’ evaluations of ability, effort, task difficulty, or luck ( t < I for all contrasts). Negative feedback, however, produced different results. Contrasts between means showed that when compared to positive feedback, negative feedback produced perceptions of lower teacher assessments of ability (r(78)= 5 . 4 9 , ~ < .003) and task difficulty ( r ( 7 8 ) = 3 . 3 5 , ~ < .03) (see Table 2). When comparing negative feedback with no feedback, negative feedback led to perceptions of lower teacher assessment of ability ( r ( 7 8 ) = 3.85,~ < .003) and task difficulty (r(78) = 2.66, p < .03). The impact of negative feedback on perceptions of teachers’ evaluations of effort and luck was not significantly different from

BLACK STUDENTS' REACTIONS 471

positive feedback o r no feedback. These results support our hypotheses that negative feedback leads students t o believe the teacher evaluates their ability especially unfavorably and that the teacher believes the task was not especially difficult.

Effects of Teacher Feedback upon Srudenrs ' Sew- Perceptions

We conducted several analyses to investigate the impact of teachers'evaluative feedback on students' self-perceptions. A x2 analysis assessing whether feedback led to differences in self-perceptions of success/ failure was not significant (x2( I ) = I .28, ns). We also performed three analyses of variance examining the effects of type of feedback on self-perceptions of effort, ability and task difficulty. The original MANOVA produced a significant Student Gender by Race of Teacher interaction and marginally significant main effects for Gender and Feedback. However, with the exception of perceived self- effort univariate ANOVAs were all nonsignificant (Fs < I ) . In addition, the means for self-perceptions of effort were 3.60, 3.96, and 3.38 for negative, positive, and neutral feedback, respectively, resulting in a marginally significant effect for feedback (F(2,78) = 2.73, p < .07). The gender main effect (F( 1,78) = 5 . 8 6 , ~ < .01) indicates that males (x = 4.00) evaluated their effort more favorably than females did (x = 3.52).

Perceived Sev- Teacher Discrepancies

The importance of our results for explicating teacher-student relationships is further illustrated by the discrepancies between students' self-perceptions

Table 2

Means f o r Perceived Teacher Evaluations of Ability, Eflori, Luck, and Difficulty Within Each Feedback Condition

Negative feedback No feedback Positive feedback (n = 32) (n = 21) (n = 36)

Ability 3.04a 3.81b 4.09b

Effort 3.08 3.43 3.40

Difficulty I .67a 2.29b 2.34b

Luck 3.46 3.29 3.13

Note. Higher scores indicate higher perceived levels of effort, ability, and task difficulty, and lower levels of luck. Means with different superscripts (a, b) are significantly different a t p < .05.


and their perceptions of how the teacher views them. These discrepancies are noteworthy because when self-perceptions are more favorable than the perceived teacher assessments, students mayperceive teacher assessments as false and unjust. For black students, these discrepancies may be greater if the teacher is white than if the teacher is black.

T o compute self-teacher discrepancy scores, we subtracted scores for black students’ self-perceptions of ability from their scores for perceived teacher assessment of ability, their scores for self-effort from their scores for perceived teacher assessment of effort, etc. For example, a positive self-teacher discrepancy score on effort indicates that students believed the teacher thought they had exerted more effort than they themselves believed they had; a negative self-teacher discrepancy score on effort indicates that students believed the teacher thought they had exerted less effort than they themselves thought they had.

Table 3 presents the means of discrepancy scores by race of teacher and within each feedback condition. Note the consistently large negative self- teacher discrepancy scores for white teachers. In order t o determine whether black students believed the impressions of white teachers were inaccurate and unfavorable (as indicated by a negative self-teacher discrepancy score) we conducted a 2 X 3 MANOVA.

The MANOVA on the discrepancy scores produced a significant Student Gender by Race of Teacher interaction (F(4,73) = 2.44, p < .05) and a marginally significant main effect for feedback (F(8,146) = 1.89, p < .06). Univariate ANOVAs revealed that the self-teacher discrepancy scores for white teachers for task difficulty (F( 1,77)= 5.7 1 ,p < .02) and luck (F( 1,77)= 6 . 9 9 , ~ < . O l ) were larger and more negative than the scores for black teachers. However, in the case of task difficulty, the univariate ANOVA also produced a Gender by Race of Teacher interaction (F( 1,77) = 3.99, p < .05). Black females believed white teachers underestimated the difficulty of the task much more than did black teachers. In addition, a gender main effect in the self- teacher discrepancies for effort (F( 1,78)= 4 . 4 8 , ~ < .001) indicated that black male students perceived teachers as underestimating their effort much more than black females did. Overall, the findings suggest black students, black female students in particular, may believe white teachers, in comparison to black teachers, are more likely to hold inaccurate and unfavorable impressions of them.

T o further examine the effect for type of feedback, a set of ANOVAs were computed on the discrepancy scores to see if they differed significantly across feedback conditions. ANOVAs were significant for ability (F(2,78) = 3.97, p < .02) and effort (F(2,78) = 7 . 2 5 , ~ < .001) and marginally significant for task difficulty (F(2,77) = 2.94, p < .06). Feedback did not affect the self- teacher discrepancy scores for luck (F(2,83)= I .85, ns). The means in Table 3


Table 3

Race of Teacher and Feedback Differences in Self- Teacher Discrepancy Scores

Black teacher White teacher (n = 42) (n = 48)

Ability -.05 - . I 3

Effort -.31 -.33*

Difficulty .12a -.35b* - 40b*** Luck . I oa

~

Negative feedback No feedback Positive feedback (n = 21) (n = 21) (n = 44)

Ability -.50a** -.05ab . I I b

Effort -.88a** -.OSb - .20b Difficulty -. 54a* * -.05ab .05b

Luck -.04 .05 -.34*

Starred numbers are significantly different from zero at: *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .OOl. Means with different superscripts (a, b) are significantly different a t p < .05.

reveal that students receiving negative feedback felt teachers underestimated their ability and effort and may have underestimated the difficulty of the task more than students receiving positive or neutral feedback. In addition we computed a set of contrasts to examine the differences in discrepancy scores for students receiving negative feedback versus those receiving positive and neutral feedback. When comparing positive feedback to negative feedback, negative feedback produced significantly greater self-teacher discrepancy scores for ability (t(78)= 2 . 6 9 , ~ < .03) and effort ( t (78)= 4.5541 < .003). Also when comparing negative feedback to no feedback, negative feedback produced significantly greater self-teacher discrepancy scores for effort ( t (78) = 3 . 3 0 , ~ < .03).

Discussion

To summarize, we have found that a) black female students had less positive perceptions about the assessments of white teachers than about the assessments of black teachers; b) negative feedback had a strong impact on perceptions of the teacher’s assessments; c) race of teacher and feedback appeared to have little influence on self-perceptions; d) race of teacher affected the discre-


pancies of self-teacher perceptions of black female students; and e) negative feedback was linked to greater discrepancies in self-teacher perceptions.

Black Srudents’ Reaction to Feedback ,from Whire and Black Teuchers

As anticipated, the race of the teacher providing feedback is an important consideration in forming the students’ perceptions of their assessments by teachers. In particular. black female students have less positive perceptions about the assessment of white than of black teachers.

In addition. in the self-teacher discrepancy score analysis, students receiving feedback from white teachers had significantly large negative, luck, and task difficulty scores. These scores also differed significantly from the discrepancy scores of students receiving feedback from black teachers. It appears, therefore. that black students, black female students in particular, may assume white teachers are less objective and more biased, particularly in underestimating their ability and in underestimating the difficulty of the task.

The differences in the perceptions of white and black teachers’ assessments suggest that black female students may feel white teachers hold lower opinions of their achievement than black teachers. Specifically, the results indicate that, regardless of the type of feedback. black female students believe white teachers viewed the task as less difficult than did black teachers and viewed the students as having less ability.

It is not clear why race of teacher did not influence black female students’ perceptions of teachers’evalutions of effort and luck. The self-teacher discrepancy scores, however, indicate that black female students felt they had exerted more effort than they perceived white teachers thought they had. It could be that black female students believe white teachers feel they try hard but may lack the ability to be successful (as illustrated by the significant Gender by Race of Teacher effects for ability).

Why d o black female students differentially perceive the evaluations of black and white teachers? Either of two interpretations seem plausible. The first is related to the fact that, for females, the student-teacher interaction in the experiment is cross-gender (female student and male teacher). whereas for males it is within gender (male student and male teacher). One would expect a college-age female to be especially alert to the nuances of cross-gender encounters with male strangers (see Hall, 1984, for review) and particularly so when the stranger is of opposite race. When. as was the case in this experiment, a n encounter begins with a reassuring, get-acquainted session, only to be followed later in the experiment by a formal statement of negative feedback. it is not difficult t o imagine the female student experiencing a strong sense of disapproval. And if the friendly preexperimental encounter had set up


a higher-than-normal level of expectation of support from a white teacher, it would not be surprising for the postfeedback “letdown” to be greater than when the teacher was black. Of course, the male student goes through the same sequence of support followed by negative feedback from a male teacher; the argument is that for him the “build-up” versus “let-down’’ contrast is less extreme.

The second interpretation is related to the fact that this experiment occurred in a predominantly white university. Perhaps in this context black females, t o a greater extent than black males, expect white teachers t o be less supportive than black teachers, that is, they may feel that black teachers are more likely to believe that they have the requisite skills, ability, effort, etc., to succeed in the experimental task. If they feel that white teachers lack this confidence, then negative feedback serves as a particularly convincing confirmation of white teachers’ assessments of their inadequacy.

Our results confirm in part a n earlier study (Banks et a]., 1977) in which blacks perceived white evaluators as being less objective when conveying negative feedback. However, our results suggest, in addition, that black females may perceive white teachers as not only less objective but also as providing unfavorable and inaccurate feedback information.

Student Reactions to Positive and Negative Feedback from Teachers

As anticipated, the type of feedback received from teachers is a significant factor in students’ perceptions of teachers’ assessments of their performance. The one exception to the overall pattern was perceptions about luck (for which there were no feedback effects). These findings are consistent with other studies that note that luck is often associated with both positive and negative feedback (Graham & Long, 1986; Weiner et al., 1978). Moreover, the self- teacher discrepancy scores indicate that when receiving positive feedback, black students overall felt the teacher believed that they were more lucky than they themselves believed. In summary, when students receive negative feedback, they believe the teacher has unfavorable assessments of and under- estimates their ability, effort, and the difficulty of the task.

One apparent explanation for these findings might be that our negative feedback manipulation was simply stronger than our positive feedback manipulation. However, this explanation does not likely account for our results for two reasons. First, both forms of feedback were perceived accurately at nearly equal and very high levels. Second, our simple positive feedback and simple negative feedback were different only in the insertion o r exclusion of the word “not” in the sentence “That’s (not) a good score.” Similarly, it would be difficult to argue that positive and negative surprise

476 COLEMAN, JUSSIM. AND ISAAC

were differentially powerful. Thus, it seems improbable that our negative feedback manipulations were expressed more strongly than our positive feedback manipulations.

Many students, however. perceived the no-feedback condition as an indica- tion that they had succeeded. Therefore, the null effects for positive feedback and significant effects for negative feedback may be due to the no-feedback condition being biased toward the positive end. Nonetheless, these findings are consistent with research conducted under similar conditions with white students (who tended to perceive no feedback more as a sign of failure than success) (Coleman et al., 1987). They are also consistent with past research showing that negative information has a stronger impact than positive information because most people expect relatively positive outcomes (Fiske, 1980; Kanouse & Hanson, 1972; Kellerman, 1984). In addition. perhaps, perceptions of the teacher’s unfavorableness were enhanced by the discrepancy or contrast created by the positive interaction with teachers in the getting- acquainted session and the negative feedback condition.

Other explanations, however, may account for the lack of differences between our no-feedback and positive-feedback condition. Positive feedback may be expressed for many reasons other than to convey a n extremely favorable reactton(e.g., Brophy. 198 1; Jones, 1965). Therefore, positive feedback may be less informative of the teacher’s impression due to the discounting principle of attribution theory (Kelley, 1972).

Although discounting would render positive feedback Iess informative than negative feedback. it would not necessarily eliminate its impact altogether. This process, therefore, cannot completely explain the consistent lack of difference between positive feedback and no feedback on our major dependent variables. However, recent studies have revealed that when people receive ambiguous feedback from others they usually use their self-evaluations to estimate other’s evaluations (Bohrnstedt & Felson, 1983; Felson, 1981a, 1981 b: Jussim. Coleman, & Nassau. 1987). In our study, black students’ self-evaluations were generally favorable (i.e.. above the scale mid- point). Therefore, when students in our study received no feedback. they probably used their own relatively favorable self-evaluations to estimate the teacher’s assessments of them. Thus. positive feedback and no feedback would produce similar patterns of perceptions of the teacher’s assessments.

These processes may also explain the pattern of results regarding self- teacher discrepancy scores. Overall. negative feedback did not alter students’ self-perceptions, yet was perceived as a n especially salient and informative indicator of a genuinely unfavorable reaction by the teacher. Consequently, students receiving negative feedback, far more than other students. believed the teacher’s assessments of them were extremely discrepant from their self- evaluations, especially with respect to ability. effort and task difficulty. These


results are consistent with findings from comparable investigations of white students (Coleman et al., 1987), and with research demonstrating much similarity in perceptions and attributions of black and white students (Graham & Long, 1986).

It should be noted that positive and negative feedback characteristically include a judgment of the quality of a student’s performance. In this study, for example, the teacher giving positive feedback included the statement “that is a good score,” and negative feedback included “that is not a good score” (although all scores were, in fact, equivalent). O n the other hand, teachers may give “positive” feedback to encourage less able students who have given poor performance and “negative” feedback to motivate even better performance from talented students. Studies of the effect of feedback under such conditions are needed to explicate this phenomenon.

Conclusions

Our findings and previous research suggest the following processes may contribute to self-fulfilling prophecies involving white teachers and black students: (a) racial stereotypes lead some teachers t o develop erroneously low expectations for black students (Cooper, Baron, & Lowe, 1975; Dusek & Joseph, 1985); (b) these teachers will then often convey more negative and less positive feedback to black (i.e., low expectancy) students (Brophy & Good, 1970, I 974; Cooper, 1977,1979; Harris & Rosenthal, 1985; Jussim, 1986); and (c) black students may develop the belief that teachers hold a generally unfavorable impression of their skills and motivation. Furthermore, our study indicates that black students may feel the teacher’s unfavorable impression is inaccurate. Even if their self-perceptions d o not change, such students are likely to show decreased willingness to work diligently in a particular class and little desire to cooperate with and seek out the teacher. The more differential treatment black students perceive, the more unfairly will some black students view that treatment, and the less motivated and cooperative they may become in class. As a result, these students may ultimately confirm the teacher’s original negative expectations.

Of great interest was an unanticipated finding that black female students are more likely than black male students t o react t o negative feedback by perceiving white teachers to hold inaccurate and generally unfavorable impressions of their skills and motivation. Because, in the present study, all teachers were male (and hence female students had cross-gender interactions with male teachers) this finding must be confirmed in subsequent research.

Thus, the present investigation extends previous research by: (a) demonstrating how blacks respond to feedback; (b) illustrating the differences and similarities in blacks’ reactions to black and white teachers; (c) increasing our

478 COLEMAN. JUSSIM, AND ISAAC

understanding of the role of feedback in the self-fulfilling prophecy process for black students and (d) identifying a potential source of difficulty in interracial teacher-student interactions. Research addressing the relationship between teachers’ evaluations and behavioral outcomes, such as students’ willingness to cooperate with and seek out the teacher and their scholastic achievement. could provide valuable insights into the processes underlying self-fulfilling prophecies.

Due to the unfamiliarity of our students t o the teacher and the task, the generalizability of our results is limited to interactions between teachers and students who are relatively unfamiliar with one another. However, the results of one recent meta-analysis (Raudenbush. 1984) suggest that the less familiar teachers are with students, the more susceptible they are to biasing information, and the more likely they are to produce self-fulfilling prophecies. Un- familiarity with cultural differences and stereotypes on the part of black students and white teachers may strengthen the power of self-fulfilling prophecies. Specifically, differential responses to evaluative feedback from own-race and other-race teachers may occur more frequently in interracial student- teacher interactions than in intraracial student-teacher interactions because students and teachers are even more unfamiliar with each other than when teacher and student are of the same race.

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