TY - JOUR
T1 - Teachers' impressions of children varying in pragmatic skills
AU - Becker, Judith A.
AU - Place, Karen S.
AU - Tenzer, Susan A.
AU - Frueh, B. Christopher
N1 - Funding Information:
Many factors contribute to teachers' impressions of their students. Often, because of the tremendous amount of complex information they receive, teachers rely on a small number of what they see as prototypical examples of behavior or characteristics in interpreting and evaluating their students' performance (Jackson, 1968; Mehan, Hertweck, Combs, & Flynn, 1982). Children's physical attractiveness, names, and various types of behavior affect teachers' judgments of such qualities as competence and likeability. Unfortunately, only the behavioral characteristics are open to remediation. Among these potentially remediable characteristics are children's pragmatic behaviors (Arwood, 1984; Gallagher & Prutting, 1983). Pragmatics, the appropriate use of language in social contexts, involves knowing how to use phrases such as "please" and "thank you" or "hello" and "goodbye" appropriately, to take turns and stay on topic in a This research was supported in part by a College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Faculty Research Enhancement grant to the first author. Portions of this study were presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Kansas City, MO, April 1989.
PY - 1991
Y1 - 1991
N2 - Many behaviors and characteristics contribute to teachers' impressions of their students and affect teachers' judgments of such qualities as competence and likeability. Among these behaviors are pragmatic skills, the appropriate use of language in social contexts. One hundred fifty-three experienced school teachers listened to one of five audiotaped conversations between a girl and a school librarian, then rated the girl on several scales. In one tape the girl requested, took turns, responded when spoken to, and maintained the logic of the conversation appropriately. In the others she used pragmatic skills inappropriately. Tape condition had a significant effect on ratings of the girl's likeability. Teachers formed positive impressions of the girl when she used all pragmatic skills appropriately and when she failed to respond promptly when spoken to, and negative impressions of the girl in the other conditions. Implications of these results for teacher training and children's pragmatic and social skills training are discussed.
AB - Many behaviors and characteristics contribute to teachers' impressions of their students and affect teachers' judgments of such qualities as competence and likeability. Among these behaviors are pragmatic skills, the appropriate use of language in social contexts. One hundred fifty-three experienced school teachers listened to one of five audiotaped conversations between a girl and a school librarian, then rated the girl on several scales. In one tape the girl requested, took turns, responded when spoken to, and maintained the logic of the conversation appropriately. In the others she used pragmatic skills inappropriately. Tape condition had a significant effect on ratings of the girl's likeability. Teachers formed positive impressions of the girl when she used all pragmatic skills appropriately and when she failed to respond promptly when spoken to, and negative impressions of the girl in the other conditions. Implications of these results for teacher training and children's pragmatic and social skills training are discussed.
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U2 - 10.1016/0193-3973(91)90017-X
DO - 10.1016/0193-3973(91)90017-X
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:9744277336
VL - 12
SP - 397
EP - 412
JO - Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
JF - Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
SN - 0193-3973
IS - 4
ER -