Exploring the mediating role of teacher expectation on whole class participation

Teacher expectation mediates the interaction between teacher and students, and teachers tend to differentiate their interaction with their students based on their expectation. In this study, I explore the mediator role of teacher expectation to the participation of ongoing mathematical discussion. Academic interaction between an 8th grade mathematics teacher, and her students ( n = 20) academic interactions were recorded ( n = 20) and analyzed by using EQUIP during two grading periods. Results of this study reveal that the majority of academic interaction happens between a teacher and a small subset (high expected) of students. High expected students had much more opportunities than all the other students to participate to the ongoing mathematical discussion.