Change in Students’ Educational Expectations – A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Data from the U.S. and Canada indicate that students’ educational expectations are often unrealistically high. Thus, the present meta-analysis tested whether students tend to decrease, on average, their educational expectations from childhood to emerging adulthood. A systematic search in the electronic databases ERIC, PsycInfo, PSYNDEX, and Web of Science identified 91 longitudinal studies the results of which were integrated with multi-level meta-analysis. While expectations about the highest future educational degree showed very small declines per year (of g = -.02 standard deviation units), the mean yearly decline of expectations about future grades was estimated to be g = -.73. Moderator analysis found a decline in expectations about the final degree only in studies from the U.S. and Canada—countries with the highest gap between expectation and future educational attainment. In addition, change in expectations about the final degree varied by age, with the strongest decline being observed around the age of 20 years. We conclude that positive expectations about the final educational attainment often tend to persist over longer intervals probably due to lacking strong counter-evidence and because of indicating a desirable outcome.

Expectations do not need to be accurate to be maintained: Valence and need for cognitive closure predict expectation update vs. persistence

“…Coping with violations of educational expectations differs from other expectations, as educational expectations tend to be overly optimistic and particularly resistant to change (Carolan, 2017;Pinquart and Ebeling, 2020;Pinquart and Pietzsch, 2022). Being overly optimistic about one's abilities and future educational outcomes carries some adaptive consequences that outweigh the inaccuracy of these expectations.…”

Coping with expectation violations in education: the role of optimism bias and need for cognitive closure

“…But past research has shown that the situational outcomes will not always match with initial expectations, as individuals tend to hold overly optimistic educational expectations (Carolan, 2017;Hacker et al, 2000;Pinquart & Pietzsch, 2022;Reynolds & Baird, 2010). Over the course of an educational career, individuals will repeatedly face stressors such as unexpected feedback or unexpected grades in exams or assignments, and these expectation violations can result in lower first-year GPA scores (Smith & Wertlieb, 2005), higher stress (Krieg, 2013), and higher drop-out intentions (Gerdes & Mallinckrodt, 1994).…”

“…This is probably because the valence of unexpected feedback results in different affective states (Green et al, 2005;Hepper et al, 2013;Zingoni & Byron, 2017): unexpected negative feedback can be perceived as aversive and threatening, whereas unexpected positive feedback can be perceived as satisfying and pleasant (Shanahan et al, 2020). Regarding the educational context, individuals are also confronted with unexpected positive vs. negative feedback, and optimistically biased coping could support positive educational expectations and lead to adaptive outcomes (such as continued effort or positive affect, even after setbacks) associated with positive expectations (Pinquart & Pietzsch, 2022;Shanahan et al, 2020). But recent research has failed to confirm that unexpected positive feedback results in stronger accommodation , and this study aims to include additional predictors that may interact with the optimism bias and help to understand the (lack of) effects.…”

“…Thus, individuals may need to process and internalize positive feedback to actually update their expectations. The tendency to hold overly optimistic educational expectations (Carolan, 2017;Hacker et al, 2000;Pinquart & Pietzsch, 2022;Reynolds & Baird, 2010) may limit the potential for upward adjustments and therefore require selfenhancement as a promoting condition, or individuals might simply not have a stronger tendency for upward adjustments.…”

“…Educational expectations refer to anticipated future achievement (Pinquart & Ebeling, 2020) and are important predictors of a whole range of short-and long-term outcomes such as effort (Schoon & Ng-Knight, 2017) and academic attainment (Carolan, 2017). But educational expectations tend to be overly optimistic (Carolan, 2017;Hacker et al, 2000;Pinquart & Pietzsch, 2022;Reynolds & Baird, 2010) and individuals cannot fully influence actual situational outcomes -as they for example do not exactly know what will be asked in exams. Therefore, individuals can experience situations in which their educational expectations are violated, leading to cognitive dissonance and heightened physiological arousal (Mendes et al, 2007).…”