This study was designed to test the effects of positive teacher expectancy instructions, positive student expectancy instructions, and positive performance feedback on the academic performance of second, third, and fourth grade students. 13 teachers (5 fourth grade, 4 third grade, and 4 second grade) from a rural Texas elementary school nominated approximately half of the students (163 students in all) from each of their classes, who were not considered to be "good" students, to participate in a special "motivation program." In addition to "good" students, students in the school's special education program were also excluded from the study. The students were assigned at random to groups in a 2 x 2 x 2 randomized factorial design. The factors were presence vs. absence of positive teacher expectancy instructions concerning students' academic potential; positive student expectancy instructions concerning each student's academic potential; and positive feedback concerning each student's academic performance. Pre- and post-treatment measures of academic performance were administered. Treatments were carried out in seven half-hour sessions in which subjects watched neutral films. Analysis of variance revealed teacher effects which suggest that teachers differentially changed their subjective ratings of student academic potential, differentially change the grades given to their students, and differentially affected their students' post-treatment test scores all independently of any of the controlled variables in this study. (Author/JM)