Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1996

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

Robert L. Williams

Committee Members

Steve McCallum, Dianne Whitaker, Rich Saudargas

Abstract

Prior research on students' educational expectations has generated an extensive list of factors that influence these expectations. Strong support exists for the parental involvement component as a major factor in shaping students' expectations. One major aspect of parent involvement is parent expectation. Prior research indicates that both parent expectation and parent expectation as perceived by the student are highly correlated with student expectations. However, some students report expectations that are either higher or lower than their parents' expectations for them (real and perceived). Little is known as to what variables might account for these discrepancies between student and parent expectations.

This study explored the strengths of the relationships between various social, cognitive and economic variables and students' educational expectations when students' expectations deviated from their perceptions of parental expectation. Multivariate analyses of variance, analyses of variance and mean difference tests were used to assess these relationships. The relationships were differentially assessed at different levels of student expectation.

Dependent variables included five factors identified from a factor analysis of student questionnaire items (friends values, friends' plans, school behaviors, class preparation, and homework time) and five variables (socioeconomic status, grade point average, a standardized test score composite on reading and math, locus of control, and self concept). Two independent variables were used: student expectation level and expectation discrepancy (the difference between student and perceived parent expectations nested within student expectation). Participants in this study were 10,321 students from schools across the nation who completed the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) Second Follow-up Student Questionnaire.

It was hypothesized that reported locus of control and friends' values and plans would be significantly different at different levels of student expectation and expectation discrepancy nested within student expectation. In fact, only four variables were identified as being significantly related to this two-factor nested model. Variables with significant strengths of association, as measured by an R² of. 10 or greater, were socioeconomic quartile, time spent on homework out of school, friends' with plans for a full-time job after high school, and friends' with plans to attend a four year college.

The findings indicate that socioeconomic quartile is positively related to student expectation. That is, as expectation level went up so did reported socioeconomic status. SES was related to expectation discrepancy within student expectation only for those students with four year college or post-graduate expectations. Students with high educational expectations whose parents had lower expectations reported lower SES than did students with high expectations whose parents had high expectations.

Students with expectations of a four year college degree or post-graduate degree reported more time spent on homework out of school than did students with expectations of less than a four-year degree. There were no significant differences among any expectation groups below four-year college degree. That is, students who did not expect to graduate from high school reported similar time spent on homework out of school as students who expected to obtain a two-year college degree.

The number of friends' with plans for a full-time job after high school was inversely related to student educational expectation. Typically, students with higher educational expectation reported fewer friends with plans for full-time work after high school than did students with lower expectations. Likewise, students with plans to attend a four-year college reported more friends' with plans to attend a four year college than did students with lower expectations. Educational discrepancy was related to friends' work and educational plans only at the higher expectation levels. Students with high expectations that were discrepant from their parents' expectations reported more friends with plans to work full time and fewer friends with high educational expectations than did those students who had high expectations and whose parents had similarly high expectations for them.

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