Teacher judgments of student reading interests: how accurate are they?

This study investigated the factors used by teachers of the hearing impaired in identifying the reading interests of their students. It also examined the accuracy of their judgments in comparison to students' responses on a reading interest inventory. Twenty teachers of the hearing impaired were asked to judge the top two reading interest areas for each of the 82 students. They also described the factors they used in making their judgments. The 82 hearing-impaired students completed a reading interest inventory. Their results were compared then with their teachers' judgments. Results indicated that teachers were only moderately accurate in judging their students' reading interests.