A Longitudinal Study Of The Relationship Between Parents’ High Expectations And Junior High School Students’ Mathematics Academic Achievement

For a long time,we have been exploring the positive influences of expectations.However,as we all know,everything has its limitations,and things will develop to the opposite direction when they become extreme.So can parents’ higher expectations be always helpful to children?According to the Yerks-Dodson Law,Vroom’s Expectancy Theory and Higgins’ Self-Difference Theory,excessive expectations must show some flaws.To explore the relationship and its mechanism between parents’ recently unrealistic expectations and middle school students’ math academic achievements,we used Aspiration-expectation Gap Scale(AEGS),Adolescent Academic Emotions Questionnaire(AAEQ),Academic Self-efficacy Scale(ASES)and students’ math academic scores of three times to conduct a six-month follow-up study on 450 middle school students in Yongcheng of Henan province.The results were as follows:(1)In each survey,parents who had over expectations each time accounted for more than50% of the total.In three follow-up surveys,there were 103 students whose parents had over expectations from beginning to end,accounting for 31.02 % of the total.(2)There were no significant differences on sexes and only child or not,however,there were significant differences on children’s grades,the summational parents’ over expectations of ninth graders were significantly lower than that those of seventh parents’.(3)First,there were significantly positive correlations on parents’ over expectations,aspirations,expectations and middle school students’ math academic scores of three times between any two times;Second,there were significantly negative correlations between parents’ over expectations and middle school students’ math academic scores of three times;Third,except that,there was no significantly correlation between parents’ aspirations of T1 and middle school students’ math academic scores of T2,there were significantly correlations between parents’ aspirations,expectations and middle school students’ math academic scores of three times;Fourth,there were significantly negative correlations between parents’ over expectations and parents’ expectations of three times.(4)In cross-lagged regression analyses,we found,the parents’ previous over expectations could significantly negatively predict middle school students’ math academic scores at a later time,but reversely,the middle school students’ previous math academic scores couldn’t significantly negatively predict the parents’ over expectations at a later time,that was,parents’ over expectations could significantly negatively predict middle school students’ math academic scores.(5)First,there were significantly negative correlations between parents’ over expectations and middle school students’ academic emotions positive high awaking emotions,positive low awaking emotions,academic self-efficacy scores and math academic scores;Second,there were significantly positive correlations between middle school students’ math academic scores and academic emotions high awaking emotions,positive low awaking emotions,and academic self-efficacy scores;Third,there were significantly negative correlations between middle school students’ math academic scores and academic emotions high awaking emotions,and positive low awaking emotions.(6)Academic emotions positive high awakening and academic self-efficacy had a multiple mediating effect between parents’ over expectations and middle school students’ math academic scores.