The Effect of Promoting High Expectations on Teachers’ Feedback to Students

Abstract

Experimental studies show that teachers’ feedback expressing high expectations benefits students, but it is unclear whether instructing teachers to emphasize high standards alters their feedback content. We randomly assigned 963 teachers to provide feedback either “as you normally would” (control) or to emphasize “your high standards and that the student has the potential to meet them” (treatment). Treatment teachers gave more detailed feedback on students’ strengths, weaknesses, strategies, effort, and math ability, with less positive ability-related feedback offered to girls and lower effort demanded from White male students. This study is the first to demonstrate that prompting high expectation feedback changes the substance of teacher comments. We discuss implications of promoting high expectations on STEM instruction and promoting equity in STEM.