TY - JOUR A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Becker, Michael A1 - Vock, Miriam A1 - Maaz, Kai A1 - Neumann, Marko A1 - McElvany, Nele T1 - The link between teacher-assigned grades and classroom socioeconomic composition: The role of classroom behavior, motivation, and teacher characteristics JF - Contemporary educational psychology N2 - Teacher judgments in terms of grades, proficiency assessments, and recommending placement in ability groups can have important consequences for a child’s future educational path. Whether or not students’ sociodemographic background characteristics are systematically related to teacher judgments has been a controversial topic of discussion. Using data from the TIMSS-Transition Study (N = 3285 fourth graders) administered across 13 German federal states in the 2006–2007 school year and survey data from parents and teachers, we investigated whether or not the average classroom socioeconomic status is reflected in teacher judgments and also examined possible underlying processes. We also probed the role of teachers’ own socioeconomic backgrounds (at the age of 16) in their later susceptibility to differentially judge students from different socioeconomic backgrounds and in differentially composed classrooms. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that, after controlling for differences in achievement (as indicated by standardized tests), teachers’ judgments were associated with the classrooms’ socioeconomic composition, and this finding could not be attributed to the average levels of motivation or behavior in the classroom. Teachers were similarly likely to exhibit such differential judgments regardless of their own socioeconomic background. These findings are discussed in the context of their implications for educational policy. KW - Teacher judgments KW - Grading KW - Classroom composition KW - Teacher background KW - Multilevel modeling Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2016.06.004 SN - 0361-476X SN - 1090-2384 VL - 46 SP - 218 EP - 227 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kretschmann, Julia A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Vock, Miriam T1 - Does it pay to be one of the oldest in class? BT - Relative age effects on academic self-concept, peer relations, and teacher judgments in German primary schools JF - Learning and instruction : the journal of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction N2 - Several studies have revealed that older students in a year group reach higher achievement scores than younger students in that group. But less is known about how students' relative age in class relates to their self-perception of academic achievement, their social acceptance in class and to how teachers judge their abilities. Therefore, we examined relative age effects within class on students' academic self-concept, peer relations, grades, and teachers' secondary school recommendation. Analyses were based on a sample of N = 18,956 German fourth graders, who had never been retained or accelerated. We applied multilevel regression to control for covariates at the individual and classroom level. There were no substantial relative age effects within class across any of the outcomes, except for a small advantage for the youngest in their reading self-concept. Our findings therefore contradict the common assumption that younger students in class are disadvantaged compared to their older classmates. KW - Relative age effects KW - Month of birth KW - Academic self-concept KW - Peer KW - relations KW - Teacher judgments Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2021.101463 SN - 0959-4752 SN - 1873-3263 VL - 74 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -