Perceptual Set, Expectations, and Attributes it Has

Perceptual Set, Expectations, And Attributes It has often been argued that misconceptions are a negative aspect of one's reaction to external factors and situations. However, these misconceptions are often based on perceptual sets, expectations, and attributes one envisages in relation to outside elements and the reactions may be positive or negative, yet based on sets of observations that determine biased reactions. In the educational environment, the teacher plays a crucial role in leading the educational process and providing guidance and assistance to students.

From this point-of-view, the role of perception sets, expectations and attributions is very important because it can influence the teaching process and thus the interaction between students and the teacher. In theory, perception sets "are the tendency or bias to perceive one thing and not another. Many factors can trigger a perceptual set, such as feelings, needs, prior experience, and expectations." (Ducham, n.d.) This description of a perception set is important in relation to the role a teacher has.

For instance, perception sets can manifest at the level of the teacher by transforming the way a teacher behaves in relation to a student that he perceives as being hostile. An example in this sense would be the refusal of a teacher to assist a student that appears to be part of a gang or from a group that would otherwise not attend regular classes. The first instinct of the teacher is to associate that student with a negative general behavior, although that student may not have manifested negative behavior.

The role of perception sets is important in the teaching exercise because it can set the mental background that nurtures the willingness of the teacher to assist its students and therefore its motivation. At the same time though, if the teacher does not show a motivation, students may set their own perception sets and automatically expect to have a lack of interest from the teacher and therefore would have no additional incentive to pay attention to the teacher.

Thus, it can be said that if perception sets are present, a vicious circle is set in place and it is rather difficult to interrupt it and allows the student to have a negative perception on the teaching process (Delaney, 2010). Another important aspect of the reactions teachers may have as a result of perception sets is the eventual attributed causes and effects of the parties behavior.

More precisely, perception sets offer the material for lacking visibility on all the details in a picture simply because of prior experiences and immediate unconscious comparisons of situations. In the case of a teacher, he may consider the student responsible for failing at an exam and his lack of knowledge rather than other outside factors such as a more difficult subject matter, limited time to answer the exam questions, possible health issues that may have prevented in an objective manner the student from performing.

With these aspects in mind, it is essential for the improvement of the teaching and also learning process for teachers to become more aware of the role played by perception sets, expectations, and attributions in the teaching environment as well as the teaching and learning process. If teachers were more aware of perception sets, this would need to materialize by a more acute attention to details but also to the overall image of a situation.

For instance, when analyzing a student, before labeling him as good or bad, a teacher should be able to differentiate him from the crowd or the student's environment and pay more attention to the individual and his individual reactions, rather than making an assessment of the student by the group or environment that students is part of. Also, in terms of expectations, teachers should focus more on setting viable and objective expectations because in turn these are projected on the audience of the teacher, which is always the student.

It is possible that too high expectations may reduce the incentive of students to study, whereas.