Positive Bias? Black, Latino Students Get Less Critical Feedback From Teachers, Study Suggests: Black and Latino students may be getting less critical, but helpful, feedback from teachers than their white counterparts, a new educational study indicates.
"The social implications of these results are important; many minority students might not be getting input from instructors that stimulates intellectual growth and fosters achievement," study researcher Kent Harber, a Rutgers-Newark psychology professor, said in a press release.
This positive bias in feedback to minority students may be contributing to the achievement gap between white and minority students, a stubborn national problem, Harber said.
The study "tested" 113 white middle-school and high-school teachers in two public school districts, one middle class and white, and the other working class and racially mixed. Both are located in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut tri-state area.
