Became Interested
EXPECTATIONS: THE BASICS
The purpose of the cover is to attract a reader – to entice a reader's interest and convince them to indulge further. Just having these expectations does not magically affect student attitude and performance, but the translation of the expectations into behavior has observable consequences (Cotton 1989). This treatment tells students something about how they are expected to behave in the classroom and perform on academic assignments.
Henry Ford is often quoted as saying, “Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right.” This idea of self-fulfilling prophecies is essential to my research. SREB says: “Students will work harder if they understand the big picture and have examples of the end products that they are. This is very similar to the grading culture in the SEEQS charter school that I observed in Hawaii.
They say: “The assessment culture should reflect that every student is capable of – and expected to produce – acceptable work. However, little research has examined the impact that both parents/guardians and teachers have on students' perceptions of themselves.
METHODOLOGY
It is important to note that these are not necessarily the actual expectations of parents (guardians) and teachers, but the perceptions of students. The actual expectations of parents (guardians) and teachers are irrelevant because they have no effect on students unless students believe that these are the expectations that others have of them. Under the second, third, and fourth questions, there were follow-up questions that asked students to explain why they felt the way they did.
These responses were intended to provide insight into how expectations are communicated to students from their individual perspective. This later became a particularly interesting question, as most students could not articulate why they felt that parents/guardians and teachers had certain expectations of them. The last two questions asked students who they specifically thought had high expectations of them and low expectations of them with the answer choices parents/guardians, teachers, friends, self, others, and nobody.
I was interested in seeing the responses of students in a remedial class compared to the responses of students in an honors class. I was able to take these personal interactions and compare them to the results of my student surveys.
GATHERING DATA AND ANYLYZING RESULTS…
The pie chart above represents the highest academic grade of the parents or guardians of my math lab students. The chart above shows a breakdown of math lab students' plans right out of high school. The chart above represents the highest rate of parents/guardians of Honors Algebra II students.
Of the seventeen students whose parents/guardians and teachers had high expectations, fourteen of them responded with high expectations. As mentioned above, the vast majority of parents/guardians and teachers of these students expect them to achieve at a higher level, specifically seventeen out of twenty-one students or 81% of the class. After sorting through all of the Math Lab poll results, I reviewed the Honors Algebra II polls and looked for similar assumptions.
While all but one Math Lab student receives a B and C or lower, only one Honors Algebra II student receives a B and C, while the rest of the class receives higher grades. Specifically, eighteen out of twenty-one students are currently receiving only As or all As and Bs in their classes. Interestingly enough, all eighteen other students feel that their parents expect them to get a straight A.
Actually, the teachers' expectations of the students seem to be very similar to their current grades. Rather, four of the five students feel that their teachers expect them to continue to perform as they currently are, and one student feels that their teachers have low expectations of them. Fifteen of the twenty-one students who took my survey in Honors Algebra II indicated that both their parents/guardians and teachers had high expectations of them.
Of all the students in both Honors Algebra II and Math Lab who indicated that both their parents/guardians and teachers had high expectations of them, only three students did not reciprocate high expectations of themselves in the sense that they did not think they are capable of making higher grades than they are currently making. In addition, this student is one of the only students in the Math Lab who, in their response to the questionnaire question, indicates, “Who has high expectations of you. Of the four, two of them agree with the lowest of their parents/guardians or teachers; that is, they do not believe that they are capable of improving their grades.
Four of the five students agreed with the lowest expectation of their parents/guardians or teachers; they also feel that they are unable to do better. Of the total of nine students in both classes who do not feel that both their parents and teachers have high expectations of them, six of their perceptions of their own abilities remain stagnant.
MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
I know you know the material; I saw you work the problems." He said, "Okay, Ms. However, the students described in these stories are not necessarily typical "honors students." They are representative of the entire class in terms of their grade-dependent motivation and attitude about school; yet both students in the bottom 25% of my class. As long as you're willing to put in the work and do your best, we'll get you there." He thanked me, and we met the next day after school.
I learned that his parents have extremely high expectations of him; they wanted him to go to an Ivy League university. Ultimately, it appears that parent/guardian and teacher expectations have a direct positive correlation with students' self-perceptions. In almost every case, when parents/guardians and teachers have high expectations of a child, i.e. expect them to get higher grades than they currently have or keep straight A's, the student also thinks they are capable of performing . at a higher level.
In fact, 90.6% of my students specifically indicated that their perceptions of their academic ability increased when parent/guardian and teacher expectations of them increased. Of the thirty-two students who indicated that both their parents/guardians and teachers expected higher grades from them, only three did not respond to these expectations for themselves. However, when analyzing the bigger picture regarding these students' academic self-perceptions, two out of three students indicated otherwise high expectations for themselves.
Of the nine students belonging to this category, six of them have lower academic self-perceptions that agree with their parents/guardians and/or teachers. Thus, it appears that students' perceptions of their abilities again agree with that of their parents/guardians and/or parents. Not only my expectations of them academically, but also my advice, encouragement, discipline and frustration are all extremely valued and highly respected by those students.
For example, I cannot draw conclusions regarding the frequency in which students' perceptions of their academic abilities match the lowest of their parents/guardian or teachers because I do not have a large enough sample size to determine whether there is or is an unassailable trend. By complying with IRB restrictions regarding interviews with minors, I could not understand the reasoning behind my students' answers, their feelings towards the matter, etc. do not question. For example, I would be interested in the growth or lack of growth of lower level students who have both teacher and parent/guardian support as well as high academic expectations of themselves.
I would like to see how and when the expectations of others, along with the expectations of oneself, affect the growth process of students. A survey might ask something like, "Over the past month, how have your teachers expressed their expectations for your success?" My hypothesis regarding each of these questions is that realistic expectations will have a greater impact on student achievement, and expectations communicated through meaningful individual interactions will have a significantly greater impact on student perceptions and achievement.
