Effects of (Biased) Teacher Judgments of Students’ Academic Competencies on the Development of Students’ Academic Achievement: A Test of Competing Hypotheses.

Different theories suggest different effects of biases in teacher judgments of students’ competencies on students’ academic achievement. For example, some authors stress the importance of accurate teacher judgments, while others suggests benefits of (moderate) overestimations. In a first empirical comparative hypothesis test, Förster et al. (2021) identified the different hypotheses in the literature and tested them against each other using a sample of 3rd and 4th grade students with reading competencies as the dependent variables. They found that higher teacher judgments predict higher reading comprehension but not reading fluency and the bias in teacher judgments did not predict any achievement measure. In the present study we replicate and generalize the analysis by Förster et al. (2021). Thus, we analyzed two samples (elementary school sample: N = 837 4th grades, N = 56 teachers; secondary school sample: N = 1,092 9th grades, N = 100 teachers). Teachers judged students’ reading comprehension and math competence and these judgments were compared to the results of standardized reading comprehension and math competence tests. Using response surface analysis, we analyzed if and how biases in teacher judgments predict subsequent reading/German and mathematics grades (both samples) and subsequent reading comprehension and math competence test results (secondary school sample) one year later. Our results are largely in line with those by Förster et al. (2021): Higher teacher judgments predict higher student achievement in both samples, both domains and for both achievement measures (grades and test scores). The bias in teacher judgments did not predict any achievement measure. None. notReviewed unknown