Teachers ’ Expectancies: Determinants Of Pupils ’ IQ Gains1

were reported to classroom teachers as showing unusual potential for intellectual gains. Eight months later these “unusual ” children (who had actually been selected at random) showed significantly greater gains in IQ than did the remaining chil-dren in the control group. These effects of teachers ’ expectancies operated prima-rily among the younger children. 1 Experiments have shown that in behavioral research employing human or animal Ss, E’s expect-ancy can be a significant determinant of S’s response (Rosenthal, 1964, in press). In studies employing animals, for example, E’s led to believe that their rat Ss had been bred for superior learning ability obtained performance superior to that obtained by Es led to believe their rats had been bred for inferior learning ability (Rosenthal & Fode, 1963; Rosenthal & Lawson, 1964). The present study was designed to extend the generality of this finding from Es to teachers and from animal Ss to school children. 2 Flanagan (1960) has developed a nonverbal intelligence test (Tests of General Ability or TOGA) which is not explicitly dependent on such school learned skills as reading, writing, and arith-metic. The test is composed of two types of items, “verbal ” and “reasoning. ” The “verbal ” item