Once again the study showed that the results weren't significantly different from the original test results. Throughout the study it had been proven that the teacher's behaviour towards the experimental students had a greater impact on the lower grade levels. However, throughout the study, the impact of teacher's behaviour and its effects on the experimental students was in question. Rosenthal and Jacobson state that there are a number of explanations of how teacher's effects had bigger impacts on the lower grades. Firstly, Rosenthal and Jacobson stated that younger children's expectations about his or her's own performance is more believable; secondly, younger children are easier influenced, especially by authoritative figures. Thirdly, younger children differ in characteristics form their older peers. And finally, lower grade teachers differ from higher-grade teachers, especially in the way they communicate to their students. The final question that arose from Rosenthal's and Jacobson's study is how much of an effect teacher's expectancies had over the student's intellect and how much of it is contributed by the educational content and methods.
The two perspectives that Rosenthal's and Jacobson's study touch on are the learning or behavioural perspectives and the sociocultural perspectives. The first perspective, learning or behavioural, is pretty obvious considering the environment of the experiment. First, let's define the learning perspective; it is the study of how the environment influences a person's actions. In classrooms the teacher educates the children on social, linguistic, academic, and daily-living skills; and we know that teachers have a greater impact on younger versus older children. The second perspective, the sociocultural, emphasizes the social and cultural forces that shape our behaviours and attitudes. In the case of the Rosenthal's and Jacobson's experiment we looked at the effects of the teacher behaviour, or authoritative figure, towards the experimental children.
