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How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their perceived achievement?

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Guangming Wang
Guangming Wang
Guangming Wang
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Sheng Zhang at Wenzhou University
Sheng Zhang
Jinfa Cai at University of Delaware
Jinfa Cai
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Research has shown that students’ beliefs related to mathematics are connected to their affect and motivation as well as their mathematical thinking and activity. Moreover, high parental expectations have been shown to play a role in students’ positive beliefs and self-efficacy. This paper reports on two studies investigating parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their perceived achievement. These studies highlighted an unusual, but confirmed finding that students who do not perceive that their parents have specific mathematics achievement expectations show more positive mathematics-related beliefs and higher perceived mathematics achievement than students who believe their parents do have specific expectations. This paper explores possible reasons for this finding related to parents’ methods of conveying their expectations.
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This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
How are parental expectations related to students’
beliefs and their perceived achievement?
Guangming Wang
1
&Sheng Zhang
1
&Jinfa Cai
2
Accepted: 23 May 2021 /
#The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021
Abstract
Research has shown that students’beliefs related to mathematics are connected to their
affect and motivation as well as their mathematical thinking and activity. Moreover, high
parental expectations have been shown to play a role in students’positive beliefs and self-
efficacy. This paper reports on two studies investigating parental expectations related to
students’beliefs and their perceived achievement. These studies highlighted an unusual,
but confirmed finding that students who do not perceive that their parents have specific
mathematics achievement expectations show more positive mathematics-related beliefs
and higher perceived mathematics achievement than students who believe their parents
do have specific expectations. This paper explores possible reasons for this finding related
to parents’methods of conveying their expectations.
Keywords Parental expectations .Mathematics achievement .High school .China
Students’beliefs related to mathematics have long been an important topic of study in mathematics
education, both because of their relationship to affect and motivation (McLeod, 1992;Middleton
et al., 2017) and because of their potential influence on students’mathematical thinking and activity
(Schoenfeld, 1989,1992). Indeed, the teaching and learning of mathematics necessarily involve
affective and noncognitive considerations including beliefs, emotions, values, and attitudes (Cai
et al., 2017;Clarksonetal.,2010; Kloosterman, 1988; Leder, 1993; Moyer et al., 2018;Pepin&
Roesken-Winter, 2015). Op’t Eynde, De Corte, and Verschaffel (2002) developed a comprehensive
categorization of mathematics beliefs: beliefs about mathematics education, beliefs about the self,
and beliefs about social context. Each of these categories of mathematics-related beliefs is potentially
related to students’mathematical behavior.
Studies have shown that parental expectations have an effect on educational aspirations,
cognitive ability, mathematics achievement, mathematics learning, motivational beliefs about
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-021-10073-w
*Jinfa Cai
jcai@udel.edu
1
Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
2
University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
Published online: 15 June 2021
Educational Studies in Mathematics (2021) 108:429–450
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
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... Other studies have concluded that parents' high math-related expectancy beliefs are negatively associated with adolescents' math expectancy beliefs [73]. Wang et al. [73] found that students with no specific math-achievement expectations from their parents reported more positive math expectancy beliefs compared to students who perceive math-related expectations from their parents in 10 th , 11 th, and 12 th grade. ...
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