Caroline Verena Bhowmik

• Despite the relevance of accurate teacher judgments for successful learning processes and outcomes, previous research has revealed large differences between teachers in their ability to perceive students’ characteristics accurately. Factors that could contribute to those differences in accuracy between teachers are to date not well understood. Spanned over three individual research projects, this dissertation aims to provide a deeper insight into teacher judgment formation by approaching judgment accuracy from different theoretical and methodological angles. An integration of theoretical and methodological approaches that are regularly employed in social and personality psychology, i.e., interpersonal perception research, and that have not or rarely been employed in teacher judgment research, is proposed to generate a novel and more comprehensive picture of teacher judgment processes and outcomes. In the first part of the present research (manuscript 1), the gender bias as possible factor to affect teacher judgments in the physics classroom was investigated. Findings showed that female students were underestimated in their academic self-concept in physics and perceived less accurately than their male classmates. In the second investigation (manuscript 2), judgments of students’ intrinsic motivation, intelligence and academic self-concept were investigated based on brief videos (i.e., thin-slices of behavior) of unacquainted students (i.e., zero-acquaintance approach). Analyses based on the Social Accuracy Model (SAM; Biesanz, 2010, 2019) revealed the relevance of liking and attractiveness as moderators for (normative) teacher judgment accuracy. The final investigation (manuscript 3) demonstrates an application of Brunswik’s lens model (BLM; Brunswik, 1956) to study the information (i.e., cues) that teachers use for their judgments, based on brief student videos, such as expressive behavior and physical appearance, and the validity of individual cues for the actual student characteristic (i.e., intrinsic motivation, intelligence and academic self-concept). Lens model parameter analyses revealed differences in cue validity across students’ characteristics. Perceivers moreover relied on certain cues more often than on others, for instance students’ sex and an attentive facial expression. In addition, a gender bias was detected as the boys in the sample overall received more favorable ratings than the girls. All investigations were carried out in the context of physics. Taken together, leaning on and integrating theoretical and methodological perspectives from social and personality psychology has shown to bear a large potential for our understanding of teacher judgments and their accuracy. The outcomes of this dissertation may moreover serve as orientational framework for the implementation of specific teacher training programs that support teachers’ awareness for their perceptual processes.