The Self-Fulfillment of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Few ideas have influenced educational research and practice as much as the notion of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet despite the impact of the "educational self-fulfilling prophecy," the empirical status of the construct, as applied to the effect of teacher expectations on student IQ, remains equivocal. Lack of evidence was apparent even in the now-classic "Pygmalion Study" (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968), which claimed to show that teachers" expectations affect student intelligence. Despite criticism of the study and failure to replicate the effect in different settings, Pygmalion became one of the most cited studies in education. What made the educational self-fulfilling prophecy so durable when many other ideas in education have a fleeting half-life? How was research that was much contested in scholarly circles used by the courts and portrayed in the media? This paper examines these questions.

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