Investigating how the accuracy of teacher expectations of pupil performance relate to socioeconomic and genetic factors

Ciarrah-Jane S Barry; Tim T Morris; Neil M Davies

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-11347-w

Investigating how the accuracy of teacher expectations of pupil performance relate to socioeconomic and genetic factors

Ciarrah-Jane S Barry^*, Tim T Morris, Neil M Davies

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

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Abstract

Teacher expectations of pupil ability can influence pupil’s educational progression, impacting subsequent streaming and exam level entry. Systematic discrepancies between teacher expectations of pupil achievement may therefore have a lasting detrimental effect on a child’s education and life prospects. Associations between socioeconomic and demographic factors with teacher expectation accuracy have been previously investigated, but it is not known how teacher expectations of achievement may relate to genetic factors. We investigated these relationships using data on nationally standardized exam results at ages 11 and 14 from a UK longitudinal cohort study. We found that teacher expectation of achievement was strongly correlated with educational test scores. Furthermore, the accuracy of teacher expectation was patterned by pupil socioeconomic background but not teacher characteristics. Finally, the accuracy of teacher expectation related to pupil’s genetic liability to education as captured by a polygenic score for educational attainment. Despite correlation with the polygenic score, we found no strong evidence for genomewide SNP heritability in teacher reporting accuracy.

Original language	English
Article number	7120
Pages (from-to)	1-10
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	12
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-11347-w
Publication status	Published - 3 May 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The Medical Research Council (MRC) and the University of Bristol support the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit [MC_UU_00011/1]. The Wellcome Trust support CJB via a PhD [218495/Z/19/Z]. The Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC) support NMD via a Future Research Leaders grant [ES/N000757/1], a Norwegian Research Council Grant number 295989, and TTM via a postdoctoral fellowship [ES/S011021/1]. No funding body has influenced data collection, analysis or its interpretation. This publication is the work of the authors, who serve as the guarantors for the contents of this paper.

Funding Information:
The Medical Research Council (MRC) and the University of Bristol support the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit [MC_UU_00011/1]. The Wellcome Trust support CJB via a PhD [218495/Z/19/Z]. The Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC) support NMD via a Future Research Leaders grant [ES/N000757/1], a Norwegian Research Council Grant number 295989, and TTM via a postdoctoral fellowship [ES/S011021/1]. No funding body has influenced data collection, analysis or its interpretation. This publication is the work of the authors, who serve as the guarantors for the contents of this paper.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

Research Groups and Themes

ALSPAC
Education
Assessment
Inequality
Discrimination
Prediction
Genetic

Keywords

Cognitive neuroscience
Genetics
Risk factors

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Using genetic data to investigate the health impacts of residential and neighbourhood environments in childhood
Morris, T. T. (Principal Investigator)
1/01/19 → 31/12/19
Project: Research

Cite this

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Investigating how the accuracy of teacher expectations of pupil performance relate to socioeconomic and genetic factors

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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Keywords

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Using genetic data to investigate the health impacts of residential and neighbourhood environments in childhood

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