The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Achievement 213

noted whether the feedback was positive or

negative and whether it pertained to the chil-

dren’s intellectual performance or to nonin-

tellectual aspects of performance. Feedback

about nonintellectual aspects often pertained

to conduct, as in “Johnny, please settle down

and sit in your chair,” or appearance: “Mary,

you have a lovely outfit on today.” The inves-

tigators found no difference in the amount

of positive or negative feedback given to

boys and girls, but an important difference

in whether the feedback pertained to intel-

lectual or nonintellectual aspects of the chil-

dren’s performance. For girls, only 30% of

the negative feedback pertained to nonintel-

lectual aspects of performance, whereas 70%

pertained to intellectual aspects of perfor-

mance. For boys, 67% of the negative feed-

back pertained to nonintellectual aspects of

performance, whereas only 33% pertained

to intellectual aspects of performance. The

authors suggested these differences make

negative feedback a very salient indicator of

poor performance for girls but an unclear in-

dicator of poor performance for boys. When

girls receive negative feedback, it is more

likely to be related to their schoolwork than

work-irrelevant domains, such as conduct

or appearance; thus girls take negative feed-

back seriously. Boys, by contrast, are able to

discount negative feedback because it usually

has nothing to do with the intellectual as-

pects of their performance. Thus, when boys

receive negative feedback about their work,

they can reason, “The teacher doesn’t like

me. She is always criticizing me. She tells me

to dress neater and to be quieter. What does

she know about whether or not I can read?”

In the same study, positive feedback typi-

cally pertained to intellectual aspects of per-

formance for both boys and girls. However,

when compared to the positive feedback boys

received, proportionally more of girls’ positive

feedback concerned nonintellectual aspects of

end up affecting how girls and boys respond

to the feedback they receive from teachers

about their academics. This was shown in

an early observational study that has now

become a classic in the field (Dweck et al.,

1978). Two raters observed instances of

evaluative feedback given to children and

DO GENDER 6.4

Classroom Behavior

Conduct your own observational study of

classroom behavior. Record some or all of

the following, noting whether the inter-

action involved a female or male student.

Are there other features of teacher-student

interactions worth observing?

1. Teacher calling on a student.


2. Teacher giving praise to a student.


3. Teacher criticizing a student.


4. Length of time the teacher waits for
   a response after calling on a student.


5. Nature of the teacher’s response to a
   student’s response (praises, criticizes,
   expands on, ignores the response).


6. Number of times the teacher
   interrupts a student.


7. Number of times the student
   interrupts the teacher or another
   student.


8. Student raising a hand.


9. Student shouting out an answer.
   After conducting your observational
   study, you might also administer a ques-
   tionnaire to the teacher and the students
   asking whether they observed different
   frequencies of behavior with male and
   female students. You can then compare
   your observational data to the student and
   teacher self-report data.

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