Ebook: Pygmalion Reconsidered: A Case Study in Statistical Inference: Reconsideration of the Rosenthal-Jacobson Data on Teacher Expectancy

_Pygmalion Reconsidered_ is one of a group of five publications which constitute the first of a series published under the auspices of the National Society for the Study of Education. Other titles are:

- _Farewell to Schools???_ edited by Daniel U. Levine and Robert J. Havighurst
- _Accountability in Education_, edited by Leon M. Lessinger and Ralph W. Tyler
- _Reactions to Silberman's CRISIS IN THE CLASSROOM_, edited by A. Harry Passow
- _Models for Integrated Education_, edited by Daniel U. Levine

For more than seventy years the National Sotiety has published a distinguished series of Yearbooks. under an expanded publication program, beginning with the items referred to above, the Society plans to provide additional services to its members and to the profession generally. The plan is to publish each year a series of volumes in paperback form dealing with current iisues of concern to educators. The volumes will undertake to present not only systematic analyses of the issues in question but also varying viewpoints with regard to them. In this manner the National Society expects regularly to supplement its program of Yearbook publication with timely material relating to crucial issues in education.

In addition to their extensive reanalysis of the data from the original Pygmalion study by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, the authors of _Pygmalion Reconsidered_ offer a critique of that study, comments on design and measurement problems in educational research, and a chapter (by J. Philip Baker and Janet L. Crist) on replications and studies related to the Pygmalion experiment.
In addition, the volume includes a response to the Elashoff and Snow report prepared by Professor Rosenthal in collaboration with Donald B. Rubin, with a final answer.

...Technically competent reviewers, like R. L. Thorndike and R. E. Snow, seriously questioned the validity of the Rosenthal-Jacobson data and conclusions. In his review, Snow promised a reanalysis of the data. This book contains that reanalysis, which he and Elashoff did together. It shows more thoroughly than ever the questionable nature of the Rosenthal-Jacobson data and methods.

_Pygmalion in the Classroom_ got more attention in the mass media than any other product of the behavioral sciences in the 1960's. It struck a responsive chord among millions who were looking for an explanation of the educational problems of children from low-income areas,-problems intimately connected with our most poignant national concerns. Now that the Rosenthal-Jacobson work has been thrown in doubt, one can only hope that the whole business will not-as I feared when reviewing the manuscript-undermine confidence in psychological research.