Heterogenous student characteristics as a challenge in professional noticing of teachers in diagnostic judgment situations

Assessing and judging student products are central tasks of teachers in their daily work. A question closely related to these tasks is how teachers notice student products and potentials. Over the first two decades of the 21st century, research on teachers’ perceiving, interpreting, and responding to student thinking and student products received increasing attention. Against the backdrop of a heterogeneous student body, many studies have examined how assessments and judgments of student products and potentials can differ according to individual student characteristics. Previous evidence indicates that teacher noticing of student products and potentials can vary between students with different individual characteristics, which can result in biased judgments. This chapter provides a synthesis of previous findings on teacher noticing and judgment with a focus on ethnicity and immigrant background in addition to further characteristics such as gender and socioeconomic background, taking into account their intersectionalities. Because the impact that biased judgments can have on students is profound, practical implications and suggestions for future research preventing and reducing biased judgments are discussed.