The Correlation among Teachers’ Expectations and Students’ Motivation, Academic Self Concept and Academic Achievement

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships that exist among teachers’ expectations and other student related variables and it also intended to inspect whether there are significant differences between male and female students in the way they perceive their teachers’ expectations, and in their motivation, academic self-concept and academic achievement. Perceptions of teachers’ expectations scale with reliability of 0.792, motivation scale with reliability of 0.879, and academic self concept scale with reliability of 0.833 were administered and Pearson product moment correlation coefficient and independent sample t-test were employed to analyze the data. The correlation results showed statistically significant relationships among the variables at the 0.05 alpha levels, with the exception of the relationship of sex with academic self concept and motivation; and the relationships of motivation and perceptions of teachers’ expectations with academic achievement of students. The results of independent sample t-test also showed that there were significant mean differences in academic achievement and perceptions of teachers’ expectations between male and female students. Boys achieved higher mean achievement scores while girls claimed higher level of teachers’ expectations (i.e. favorable expectation) than boys. But, no significance mean differences in motivation and academic self concept were observed between male and female students. Lastly, based on the results of the study implications were discussed and recommendations to solve the problem were forwarded.

Keywords: Students’ perceptions, Teachers’ expectations, Motivation, Academic Self- concept, Academic achievement.