The authors investigate whether the attention payed to students’ learning status predicts judgment accuracy of preservice teachers and whether this attention moderates the effect of student characteristics on judgment accuracy.
In a virtual classroom, 168 preservice teachers judged the math-performance of 12 students.
The attention allocation (AA) was operationalized twofold (“mean AA” and “student-specific AA”) both via log-file data.
Mean AA predicted the judgment accuracy (rank component) positively. A higher student-specific AA reduced the “level error”.
A moderating effect only occurs for student-specific AA but not for mean AA. We conclude that judgment accuracy can be improved through increased AA.