A study of the relationships among teacher expectancy, students' perceptions of teacher nonverbal behavior, and students' performance in and attitudes toward mathematics

Purpose and Problem of the Study. The study was primarily proposed for two reasons. First, the researcher wanted to investigate the predictive strength of teacher expectancy relative to each of the variables of (a) students' perceptions of a teacher's nonverbal behavior, (b) students' attitudes toward mathematics, and (c) students' performance in mathematics. Secondly, and related to (a), the researcher wanted to identify possible nonverbal behavior patterns that a teacher was exhibiting to the "good" and "bad" students from the viewpoint of these students. Supplementary null hypotheses were also studied to amplify the findings relative to the central problem of the study and for heuristic purposes. [...]