Expectancy of classroon performance : the effects of students' dialect, students' ethnicity and an introduction to sociolinguistics on teacher candidates' perceptions

Abstract

This investigation was conducted to determine two things. First, do teacher candidates expect different performance from students on the basis of students' language and/or ethnicity; and second, whether an introduction to sociolinguistics has an effect on teacher candidate expectancy of students' social and academic classroom behavior. Teacher candidates predicted the social and academic classroom behavior of six male students viewed on videotape. The subjects for this investigation were 81 secondary education majors, randomly assigned to experimental (n = 40) or control (n = 41) groups. The experimental group received an introduction to sociolinguistics as the treatment, the control group received no such treatment. Collection of the posttest data involved the experimental and the control group subjects viewing six students on videotape (one Black, one Anglo and one Mexican-American standard English speaking student; one Black, one Anglo and one Mexican-American non-standard English speaking student) and ranking each student on a series of items relating to the candidate's expectancy of each student's social behavior and academic behavior..