Is being smart everything? The influence of student achievement on teachers' perceptions

The purpose of this project was to explore the accuracy and predictors of teachers' perceptions of their students' metacognition, self-concept, and attributional beliefs. Nineteen third grade teachers each nominated six children from their classrooms based on the children's maths abilities (high, medium, low). The children were tested on metacognitive knowledge, self-concept, and attributional beliefs. Teachers completed questionnaires estimating each child's metacognitive abilities, academic self-concept, and attributional beliefs about the reasons underlying academic success and failure. Analyses indicated that teachers' perceptions were biased by children's abilities, as higher ability children were portrayed more favourably on all variables. Regressions of teachers' perceptions on children's scores revealed that teachers were moderately accurate in their ratings of children's metacognitive abilities, but not of their attributional beliefs or self-concepts. Implications for metacognitive and motivational models of the learner are discussed.