Abstract
This investigation was conducted to determine the effects of direction of writing performance, race, sex, and trials on teacher trainees' grading of students' essays. The subjects for this investigation were 59 students, 51 female and 8 male, enrolled in English and Education classes. Subjects were assigned random numbers and subsequently placed into groups, designated Up, Down, and the Same. The essays to be graded by the Up group were progressively better over a period of five trials. The essays distributed to the Down group of subjects were progressively poorer over a five trial period. The essays distributed to the Same group were approximately the same. Rankings of the essays, as to which were better, which were poorer, and which were approximately the same in quality, were determined by ranking the mean scores given the student essays by a panel of experts in the Department of English at Texas A&M University. A 4-way repeated measure analysis of variance revealed a significant ?ú value on only one main effect, trials, ?ú (4,163) = 3.5, ?ú < .05. Other main effects had no significant influence on teacher Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. trainee expectancy of students' academic ability, as evidenced through the grading of essays (direction of writing performance, ?ú (2,47) = .93; race, F (1,47) = .13; sex, F (1,47) = .29). One interaction effect, direction of writing performance X trials, was found to have a significant effect on the expectancy o f a student's academic ability, as evidenced by the teacher trainee's grading of the student's essays (F (8,163) = 12.32, ?ú < .05).
Porter, Patricia Thomas (1979). Teacher expectancy : the effect of race, sex, direction of writing performance and trials on the grading of essays. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -151762.