' ' '1'" w‘f w any" :um-w—mwmm—o AC‘OMPARISON OF STUDENT PERCEIVED . fi‘ L» E AND PARENTS ACTUAL EVALUATIONS- “ ' EXPECTATIONS IN LOW S. E. S SCHOOLS WITH SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT . LEVEL ANO RACIAL COMPOSITION CONTROLLED ~ ' ‘ . DiSsertation IOr thO Degree Of PO D MIC-NI'GAN STATE UNIVERSITY ' BRADLEY E NILES 1974 . 9“- "nan-..“ . IIIIIIIIIIIIII I " IIIIIIIII 3 1293 10640032 ! O 2 9:} x. ‘12.), - This is to certify that the thesis entitled A Comparison of Student Perceived and Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations in Low S.E.S. Schools with School Achievement Level and Racial Composition Controlled presented by Bradley E. Niles has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. Jegree in Education I "/ “ZOE/é c4/’//7)2 arr/7“" “ Major professor Date W >1 QIIIIRDHIY IIBIHEII ' RX": I I“; MARIE. ‘\ "I I ‘ ‘ l I I. .‘ . , ». 'm'mt Eva.- : . .. I . . . . " " 2.. SCIMDLS I. w - -‘ ..:.'. IO N . I . I.‘ w n .- A. > V I v ”h‘te c.-§'\-'-I.‘ ‘ ' . I; x ‘ -: a. v 0 1 £ I "Talented I ‘.wu {kiwi-‘0" : ‘:_I g ' i- ' a j" . _ I in ”MN ' _ s—uyuh: l.“ . . ._ _, , ar'.‘ “.49... ,‘T ”:‘I-gn-wxpecknl‘m. a- ,. in :“ :M m the-a: I"”" * ' ‘ -‘ '~ ' ‘3 “"4““ u ODKICI‘X.’ II; .';< '..' r ' I .i: 'll -' " ‘*= .~V,‘.w‘:::c‘.¢"‘It Jar; - "$1M 8131‘.l-.\"-t.y ." 7.5.1” +- ' :u'aH-ffl'lt.’ mamas: or I ~ ':!«_~’ w «able-s more Q: comma; ~32 . 1r A 2.;10‘9. mat level. sent. 1 Tarza‘. r-zxnprz-sltlrn. rents I. ‘Opmntal .tnvulvmnem tr. (5331*11‘! vitae} metic— ' surveillance of fluid amflmh- “new, Ifiacuon with his mm educatxstsaj imam", A I ' O with his chua's eased and as we f I ABSTRACT A COMPARISON OF STUDENT PERCEIVED AND PARENTS ACTUAL EVALUATIONS-EXPECTATIONS IN LOW S.E.S. SCHOOLS WITH SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL AND RACIAL COMPOSITION CONTROLLED BY Bradley E. Niles One hundred and eleven students from two black and two white elementary schools of low socioeconomic status were selected in a random manner as the sample to inves- tigate the degree of similarity between parents actual evaluations-expectations and students perceived parental evaluations-expectations of their academic performance. Students and their parents responded to similar question- naire items concerning the students. The dependent vari— able was the similarity of parent and students responses or parent-student communication. Independent variables were school achievement level, school racial composition, parents achievement, parental involvement in child's school activ- ities, parental surveillance of child academic input, parental satisfaction with his own educational attainment, parental efficacy with his child's school and the level of students academic performance. Further investigation cen- ters on whether a difference exists in the expectations for \%® Bradley E. Niles (f‘o children, between highly educated parents and those with limited education. Investigation was further expanded to see whether there was a difference between students perceived evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations- expectations as indicators of students academic achievement. Three major hypotheses, one consisting of seven sub- hypotheses were formulated and tested. The first major hypothesis and its sub-hypothesis were tested using the analysis of variance F test (Finn Program) at the .05 level of confidence for determining significance. Regression analysis procedures were employed to determine the rela- tionship between student achievement and student-parent similarity score which was the second major hypothesis. To test whether the relationship between student "perceived" parental evaluations-expectations scores, and student achievement scores is the same as the relationship between parents "actual" evaluations-expectations scores and stu- dents achievement scores, the statistical technique of correlation coefficients was employed. As a result of the significance of race, and parental efficacy on parent- student similarity scores subsequent post hoc tests were conducted to investigate the effect of the interaction of these two variables on student achievement, parent—student similarity scores and the effects of the various levels of efficacy on the student achievement in black and white schools. All tests were conducted in the null form. Bradley E. Niles The general hypothesis that students are generally accurate in their perception of their parents evaluations- expectations was supported. On the total similarity scores the data suggest that there is no mean level difference between parents and students' scores when the total popu- lation is considered. However, the correlation between students' total score and that of parents is .336 which suggests a low linear relationship. This study failed to show any major effects of parental involvement, parental educational level, school achievement level, parental satisfaction with educational level, school achievement level, parental surveillance on student-parent similarity scores. It also failed to show any relationship between student academic scores and simi- larity scores, and any different effects between parental actual and student perceived evaluations-expectations as indicators of student's achievement. The major findings of this study, poor parental communications of expectations-evaluations to students; effects of parental efficacy with the school and racial composition on student achievement, and parent-student communication of evaluations-expectations in low S.E.S. families give much insight and implications to educators: 1. This research expands the social interaction theory and provides educational researchers and policy Bradley E. Niles makers knowledge necessary to help bring about higher educational achievement in the schools. That which is important is not only the actual responses or behavior of significant others but that which the students perceive. It appears that in low S.E.S. homes, communication about school (evaluations-expectations) may not be universal or consistent, as in high S.E.S. families where there may be daily communication about school. Since parents in low S.E.S. families fail in this area of communication, this gives the school a tremendous opportunity to communicate more to low S.E.S. students about education and instill in them positive attitudes or as Coleman (1966) states a "more positive self-conception." This author fully supports Coleman's notion that the school more than any other institution holds the most important keys for the success of the disadvantaged. RACIAL COMPOSITION CONTROLLED BY (>0 Bradley EfLNiles A DISSERTATION Submitted to " Michigan State University ; 1n partial fulfillment of the requirements <» for the degree of DOCTOR or PHILOSOPHY College of Education 1974 DEDICATION To my menu, No/umn and Ina Niles, whoee high value 06 education, undying afifieciion, inimebi and Aupponi, unAwe/wing dedication to Chiliuian pnincipiu and pang/2M have enabled me to heaeh this high point in my 60m education. "Blzudiey E. Niiu ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is, of course, impossible to express my gratitude to all those whose invaluable assistance, advice, and encouragement aided me in my doctoral program. Beyond these trivial attempts to make public my thanks, lies an appreciation far greater than words can communicate. I would wish to express sincerest appreciation to the Chairman of my doctoral committee, Dr. Wilbur Brookover, who played a major role in my coming to Michigan State University. His expertise, friendship, and assistance will always be remembered. I must also express sincere thanks to the other members of my committee, Dr. George Ferree and Dr. Frederick Waisanen, for their encouragement, inspiration, and profes- sional insight; Dr. Robert Green, a sincere friend who showed a genuine concern for my academic pursuits. My thanks are also due to Dr. Jeffrey Schnieder and Dr. Ronald Henderson who have assisted me in the review of literature and data collection. Jeff has been tremendous help and source of encouragement in my writing of this thesis. Thanks, Jeff, for your time, interest, and sincer- ity. Thanks to Robert Carr, who assisted in the statistical analysis; and to a sincere friend and efficient secretary, Betty White, and her assistants, Judy Walters and Yvonne Miller, whose clerical help and typing are deeply appre- ciated. Most sincere thanks must go to my sister Norma Niles who willingly spent many hours in editing this dissertation. I wish also to pay my tribute here to Dr. Edsel Erickson, Sociologist, Western Michigan University, who has played a most significant role in my total experience in the United States of America. sincerest gratitude and appreciation are extended to him. Last, but most important, I must express my heartfelt appreciation to my parents, sisters, brothers and grandmother, who have been most unselfish in giving of their time, encouragement, and financial assistance. To the whole Niles' family, a "million thanks"! iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . Statement of the Problem . . . . Purpose of the Study . . . . . . Inventory of Variables . . . . . Students' Variables . . . . . Parent Variables . . . . . . Questions to Be Explored . . . . Hypotheses for Analysis . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND . . . . . . Symbolic Interaction . . . . . . Expectations Theory . . . . . . . Role Theory . . . . . . . . . Reciprocal Role Relationships Perceived vs Actual . . . . . . . III. REVIEW OF LITERATURE, . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . Literature on the Relationship of Specific Variables to Students' Academic Achievement . . . . . Heredity and 1.0. . . . . . . Early Socialization . . . . . S.E.S. and Achievement . . School Climate Literature . Colleges . . . . . . Secondary Schools . . . . . Elementary Schools . Variables of Interest . . . . . . Evaluations-Expectations . o o O o Page viii OflmONWUléH H H CHAPTER IV. V. Perceived Peer Evaluations and Expectations . . . . . . . . . Perceived Parental Evaluations— Expectations . . . . . . . . Perceived and Actual Teacher Evaluations and Expectations . . . . Expectations and Achievement . . . . . Community and Parental Integration into the School Environment . . . . . Feelings of Efficacy/Futility . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PROCEDURES AND METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . Population Under Study, Samples and Sites of Research . . . . . . . . . . . . S.E.S. Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . Instrumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Collection . . . . . . . . . Perceived Evaluations and Expectations Parents Actual Evaluations- -Expectations Design and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FINDINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Initial Research Hypothesis . . . . . . . . Results . . . . . . . . . Controlling for School Racial Composition . . . . . . Controlling for Parental Efficacy with Child's School . . . . . . Controlling for School Achievement Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Controlling for Parental Academic Achievement . . . . . . . . . . . . . Controlling for Parental Involvement . Controlling for Parental Surveillance . Controlling for Parental Satisfaction with Educational Attainment . . . . . Evaluations-Expectations Controlling for Parental Educational Level . . . Relationship between Student Achievement and Parent-Student Similarity Scores vi Page 109 115 116 118 119 119 120 120 121 122 CHAPTER VI. The Relationship between Student Perceived Scores, Parental Actual Scores and Student Achievement Scores . . . . . The Relationship of the Interaction of Race and Parental Efficacy to Student-Parent Similarity Scores The Relationship of the Interaction of Race and Parental Efficacy to Student Achievement Scores . . . The Relationship between Parental Efficacy and Student Achievement Further Investigation of Student- Parent Similarity Outcomes . . . Summary of Findings . . . . . . . . . . SUMMARY, FINDINGS, LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . APPENDIX A. B. BIBLIOGRAPHY Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Limitations . . . . . . . . Discussion and Recommendations . . . . SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS QUESTIONS USED IN STATE ASSESSMENT TEST 1969-1970 . . . . . Page 123 126 126 127 128 130 134 134 138 146 147 152 154 164 TABLE 1. LIST OF TABLES Comparison of Student-Perceived Parental Evaluations-Expectations and Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations . . . . . . . . . . Contingency Table Showing the Distribution of Parents and Students Total Scores for Overall Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Differences Between Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations and Students Perceived Evaluations—Expectations, Controlling for Schools Racial Composition . Observed Cell Means (Parents Minus Students) Controlling for School Racial Composition . Comparison of Students Perceived Parental Evaluations-Expectations and Their Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations with Parental Efficacy with the Schools Controlled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Observed Cell Means (Parents Minus Students) Controlling for Parental Efficacy with the Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison of Students Perception of Parents Evaluations-Expectations of Them with Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations Controlling for Achievement Level of Students Schools . Observed Cell Means (Parents Minus Students) on Similarity Scores Controlling for School Achievement Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison of Students Perception of Parents Evaluations-Expectations of Their Academic Performance with Their Parents Actual Evaluations—Expectations with Parental Academic Achievement Level Controlled . . . viii Page 154 154 155 155 155 156 156 156 157 TABLE 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. Observed Cell Means for Similarity Scores (Parents Minus Students) Controlling for Parental Education Level . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison of Students Perception of Parents Evaluations-Expectations of Their Academic Performance with the Parents Actual Evaluations—Expectations Controlling for Parental Involvement in the Child's School Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Observed Cell Means for Similarity Scores (Parents Minus Students) Controlling for Parental Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison of Students Perception of Parents Evaluations—Expectations of Their Academic Performance with Their Parents Actual Evaluations—Expectations Controlling for Parental Surveillance of Their Children's Academic Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . Observed Cell Means for Similarity Scores (Parents Minus Students) Controlling Parental Surveillance . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison of Students Perceptions of Parents Evaluations-Expectations of Their Academic Performance with Their Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations Controlling for Parental Attitude to Their Own Educational Attainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Observed Cell Means for Similarity Scores (Parents Minus Students) Controlling for Parental Satisfaction with His Own Educational Attainment . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison of Parents Achievement Level with the Academic Expectations for Their Chi ldren O O O O O O I U I C O O I I O O O O I The Relationship of Student Achievement Scores and Their Similarity Scores with Regard to Student Perceived and Parent Actual Evaluations-Expectations . . . . . . . ix Page 157 157 158 158 158 159 159 159 160 TABLE Page 19. The Results of the Component Variables When Comparing Student Perception of Parents Evaluations-Expectations with Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 20. The Interaction Between School Racial Composition and Parents Efficacy with Their Schools on Student Achievement Score . . . . . . 162 21. The Effects of Parental Futility Levels on Achievement of White Students in Low S. E. S. White .Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 22. The Effects of Parental Futility Levels on Achievement of Black Students in Low S.E.S. Black Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 23. Distribution of Frequencies of Students and Achievement Mean Scores in Black and White Schools with Futility Level of Parents Also Controlled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 24. Summary of Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Statement of the Problem How does the child's perception of his parents evaluations-expectations of his academic performance com- pare with his parents actual evaluations-expectations of his academic performance? In other words, is the child's reported perception of his parents evaluations-expectations of his academic performance relatively accurate? If this is the case, how does it vary when race, parental surveillance, parental satisfaction with his own attainment, parental efficacy with the child's schools, parental involvement in the child's school activities, parents academic level and achievement level of school are controlled. Which of the two variables, student perception or parents actual expectations, is the greater indicator of student academic performance? These questions form the basis for this study. Students differ in their academic performance and this phenomenon has been the focus of much educational and psychological research. Two of the most cited factors affecting this phenomenon are student I.Q. (Thorndike and Hagan, 1960), and student social environment (Clark, 1965; McDill, Meyers and Rigsby, 1967; Coleman, 1966; and Gans, 1962, 1968). Environmental research reveals the influence of variables including social class, race, school normative climate and the evaluations-expectations of "others" (par- ents, teachers, peers) on student academic achievement and self-concept. Most relevant to this study is the hypothesis that the evaluations—expectations of others influence student academic achievement. Brookover and Erickson's (1969) social-psychological theory of human behavior lends credence to this hypothesis. They contend that: 1. The social norms and expectations of others define the appropriate behavior for persons in various social situations. 2. Each person learns the definitions of appro— priate behavior through interaction with others who are important and significant to him. 3. The individual learns to behave in ways that he perceives are appropriate or proper for him. 4. The individual also acquires conceptions of his ability to learn various types of behavior through interaction with others, whose evalua- tions are important to him. Kinch (1963) similarly contends that the actual responses of "others" to the individual are important in determining how the individual will perceive himself. This perception will influence his self-conception which in turn guides his behavior. Kinch's model appears schematically as follows: A'--* P --* S --+ B where A = Actual expectations (i.e., behavior of significant others) P = Perceived expectations S = Self-Concept B = Behavior = "leads" (Kinch, 1963: 482). What the student perceives is very important in the theoretical models. Researchers have assumed that student- reported perceived evaluations-expectations are indeed the actual evaluations-expectations of "others" (in this study "parents") and that what the student perceives (and not what his parents actually expect of him or how they evaluate him) is the significant factor which influences student perfor— mance (Brookover, 1967). Precisely stated, researchers assume or propose that actual expectations which are held for a person (X) by an "other" (B) will be perceived with reasonable accuracy by the person (X). It is interesting to note that to my knowledge this basic assumption has not yet been empirically tested, and there have been only a few studies focusing on this issue. Gigliotti (1973) commenting on this fact states: While there are literally scores of studies showing the relationship between differentially perceived expectations and some dependent performance variable, the attempt to show an empirical relationship between actual expectations by an "ego" is conspicuously missing from the literature. Perhaps the relation- ship is such an obvious one, or believed to be so obvious, that researchers have just not wanted to waste time and money in investigating it. On the other hand, it may be of much greater importance than is thought. What if it is not the actual expectations of "others" which affect an indi- vidual's performance, but rather some other factor which happens to coexist with expectations, such as warmth of demeanor (or lack of), and so on (p. 39). The possibility does exist that there are factors, environ- mental or individual, which cause inaccurate communication between parent and child. Other factors are also necessary for the evaluations—expectations of parents to be effective in influencing student academic achievement. This study will not investigate these factors, however, but will investigate whether the student perceived evaluations- expectations correlate with his parents actual evaluations- expectations, and will also attempt to investigate which of the two variables, student perception or parents actual evaluations-expectations, more highly correlated with student achievement. Purpose of the Study The purpose of the study is to investigate whether individual student-reported perceptions of his parents evaluations and present-future expectations of his academic performance correlate with parents actual evaluations and expectations of his performance. This researcher will also investigate the effect on the correlation of parental academic attainment, parental surveillance, parental efficacy with the child's school, achievement level of school and race, and will test which of the two variables, parents actual evaluations-expectations or student perceived evaluations-expectations more highly correlates with student academic achievement. Efforts will also be made to investi- gate whether the student whose parents have considerably high contact with his school will have a higher correlation with his parents actual evaluations-expectations than one whose parents have little contact or involvement with the school. Inventory of Variables The following is an inventory of variables on which data has been collected. It is categorized according to the data obtained from the students and from the parents, and all variables are employed for current analysis. Students' Variables 1. Self-aspiration for education 2. Reported teacher press for competition 3. Reported teacher demand for performance 4. Perceived parental expectations 5. Perceived parental evaluation. Parent Variables study: 1. 1. Educational attainment expectations of child 2. Educational achievement expectations 3. Educational attainment aspirations and plans 4. Reported teacher demand for performance Questions to Be Explored The following questions will be explored in this Do students perceived parental evaluations- expectations of their academic performance differ significantly from their parents actual evaluation-expectations? Are the similarity scores (student perceived vs parents actual) on evaluations-expectations affected by the school's racial composition? Are the similarity scores (student perceived evaluations-expectations vs parents actual) affected by the level of parents' efficacy with the schools? Are the similarity scores (student perceived evaluations-expectations vs parents actual) affected by the achievement level of the school? Are the similarity scores (student perceived evaluations-expectations vs parents actual) affected by the parents level of academic achievement? Are the similarity scores (student perceived evaluations-expectations vs parents actual) affected by the parents involvement in the child's school activities? Are the similarity scores (student perceived evaluations-expectations vs parents actual) affected by the level of parental surveillance of the child's academic activities? 10. Are the similarity scores (student perceived evaluations—expectations vs parents actual) affected by the parents level of satisfaction with their own educational attainment. Is there a relationship between students achievement scores and the similarity scores (students perceived evaluations-expectations vs parents actual)? Is there a difference between students perception of their parents evaluations-expectations and their parents actual evaluations-expectations as an indicator of student academic achievement? Hypotheses for Analysis The hypotheses used as a basis for analysis in this study are the following: Major Hypothesis 1: Students perceived parental evaluations-expectations of their academic performance will not differ signif- icantly from their parents actual evaluations- expectations. Sub-Hypotheses: a. There is no difference in the degree of similarity of student—parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations—expectations and parents actual evaluations—expectations between students in black schools and students in white schools. There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents have high efficacy with their school and students whose parents have low efficacy. There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations, between students in high achieving schools and students in low achieving schools. There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents' actual evaluations—expectations, between students in high achieving schools and students in low achieving schools. There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parents responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents are highly involved in the activities of their child's school and students whose parents are not highly involved in the activities of their child's school. There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations—expectations between students whose parents have high surveillance over their child's academic performance and students whose parents have low surveillance over their child's performance. There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents are satisfied with their own educational attainment and those whose parents are dissatisfied with their own educational attainment. There is no difference in the expectations- evaluations scores for their child's academic performance between parents with limited edu- cational attainment and parents with high educational attainment. 10 Major Hypothesis 2: There is a linear relationship between student achievement scores and the similarity scores (student perceived vs parents actual responses with regard to evaluations-expectations of student academic performance). Major Hypothesis 3: There is no difference between student perception of his parents evaluations—expectations and his parents actual evaluations-expectations as an indicator of the student's academic achievement. Overview The primary aim of this study is to investigate the similarity of students perceived parental evaluations- expectations of their acacemic performance and their parents actual evaluations-expectations, while controlling for stu- dents school racial composition, parental surveillance, parental involvementiJischool activities, parental efficacy with the schools, parental educational level attained, achievement level of school and parental satisfaction with his educational attainment. Efforts will also be made to investigate whether there is a difference between student perceived and parents actual evaluations-expectations as an 11 indicator of student academic achievement and whether there is a relationship between student achievement scores and parent-student similarity scores. The data and instruments for this study form part of a larger study of environmental influences on education, conducted by Brookover and associates (1973). The study was designed to control for school racial composition and achievement levels. Standard achievement, racial composi- tion and S.E.S. of schools were made available to us through the generosity of the Michigan State Department of Education. It was then possible to stratify as needed in the analysis of data. A sample of four schools was selected from a listing of Michigan elementary schools according to racial composi- tion and achievement level. Questionnaires were adminis- tered to all students in the fourth and fifth grades of these schools. The names of the parents of 120 students in these classes were then gathered randomly from the office of the principal. The parents were then interviewed in their homes by the research team and in the absence of their chil- dren within three weeks after their children were questioned. Parental interviews centered on parental evaluations- expectations of their children's academic performance. The study will follow the following format. Chapter I includes the introduction, statement of the 12 problems, questions to be investigated and the specific hypotheses to be tested. Chapter II of this thesis includes the theoretical basis for this research. In Chapter III the review of literature is presented followed by the methodology for the study in Chapter IV. The analysis of data and the findings of the study are presented in Chapter V. Chap- ter VI includes the summary and major conclusions, limi- tations of the study and implications for further research. CHAPTER II THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Theoretical perspectives most pertinent to this study appear in the literature under the rubrics of symbolic interactionism (Mead, 1934), role theory and expectation theory. These works stress the influence of significant others in role decisions or on one's self—concept and hence his behavior. From this point of view, students are in- fluenced in their behavior by the evaluations-expectations having been received with relative accuracy. The similarity of student perceived parental expectations-evaluations and parents actual evaluations-expectations is investigated in this study. This writer will attempt to summarize and clarify how the constructs of role expectation and symbolic inter- action theories have been and are presently being employed in questions concerning actual and perceived expectations- evaluations of students' significant others. Symbolic Interaction The symbolic interaction theory of George Herbert Mead (1934) and Charles Cooley (1962) is quite pertinent to this study of student perceived and parents actual l3 14 evaluations-expectations. The basic unit of observation for symbolic interactionists is the social act. Mead and Cooley contend that learning is a social activity involving at least initial interaction with "others": having been socialized the individual may engage in "self" interaction by making indications to himself. The social act takes place because men share meanings. Elaborating on this basic assumption of social interaction one could support Schneider's definition of symbolic interation as "the individual using his perceptions of the evaluations- expectations and behavior of others as a basis upon which he forms beliefs, attitudes and values about himself and any particular situation or set of situations with which he may come in contact. To the extent that the individual re- gards the "other" in question as "significant" he will tend to conform to his perception accordingly" (p. 29). Initially formulated by Mead, this concept of self and others propounds that the self is developmental: it is not initially there at birth, but arises in the process of social experience and activity, that is, it develops in the given individual as a result of his relationship with that process as a whole and to other individuals within that process. The individual experiences himself as such, not directly but only indirectly from the particular standpoint of "other" individual members of the same social group or from the generalized standpoint of the entire social group 15 which he belongs. He enters his own experience as a self or individual only insofar as he first becomes an object to himself, just as other individuals are objects to him or in his experience; he becomes an object to himself only by taking the attitudes of "others" towards himself within a social environment or context of experience and behavior in which both he and they are involved. Communication is important in this process in that it provides a form of behavior in which the organism or the individual may become an object to himself. The self then, arises in conduct when the individual becomes a social object in experience to himself, and is developed only when the individual assumes that attitude or uses the gesture which another individual would use and responds to it himself. The individual then acts to himself as he would to others. Cooley (1902) by his notion of the looking glass self accounts for the dynamics of this effect on the self or self-concept: As we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass, and are interested in them because they are ours, and pleased or otherwise with them, according as they do or do not answer to what we would like them to be, so in imagination we perceive in another's mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so on and are vari- ously affected by it. A self idea of this sort has three principal elements: the imagination of our appearances to the "other," the imagination of his judgment of that appearance, and some sort of self feeling, such as pride or mortification. 16 Kinch (1963) presented a model based on symbolic interactionist thought utilizing self as a variable inter- vening between the actual and perceived behavior of others and the behavior of the individual. Kinch's theoretical statement of self—concept is that the individual's concep- tion of himself emerges from social interaction and in turn guides or influences the behavior of that individual. The actual responses of others to the individual will be impor- tant in determining how the individual will perceive himself. This perception will influence his self conception which in turn will guide his behavior. Kinch's model appears schematically as follows: A'--* P -—-# S -—-+ B where A = Actual expectations (i.e., behavior of others) P = Perceived expectations S = Self-conceptions B = Behavior = "leads to" Kinch's basic propositions of symbolic interaction are: 1. The individual's self-concept is based on his perception of the way others are responding to him. 2. The individual's self—concept functions to direct his behavior. 3. The individual's perception of the response of others towards him reflects the actual responses of others towards him. 17 4. The way the individual perceives the responses of others towards him will influence his behavior. 5. The actual responses of others to the individual will determine the way he sees himself (his self-concept). 6. The actual response of others towards the individual will affect the behavior of the individual (pp. 481-486). Johnson (1970) summarizes the entire theory in stating: The actual responses of others (expectations- evaluations) to the individual will be important in determining how the individual will perceive. himself. This perception will influence his self-conception (p. 85). Examination of Kinch's six basic concepts reveals that he contends that the individual's perception of the response of others towards him reflects the actual responses of others towards him. This basic assumption is investigated in this study which also seeks to investigate whether "others" actual responses to students' perceptions of "others" (par- ents) responses do influence students' academic achievement. Other social interactionists have contended that self-concept is not a unitary phenomenon, but consists of the symbolic representations a person possesses of himself (physical, mental, social) as well as his concepts of "self" as measured by his actions, memberships and possessions. Deutsch and Krauss (1965) also pointed out that various "self-concepts" should be internally consistent. Commenting on this consistency, Schneider (1973) cites Heider (1958) and Brown (1965): 18 In those situations when an inconsistent element is introduced the overall attitude would be altered only if the new information could not be either denied or ignored and then only altered to the smallest degree possible under the partic- ular circumstances. A constant struggle then exists in order to maintain a balanced relation- ship. As Brown contends, an individual's change of attitude toward a balanced relationship will emerge only when inbalance is a clearly recog- nizable phenomenon. Thus again the question of perceived vs actual relationship continues to be an important theoretical issue, for if a student perceives the possibility of imbalance between what he perceives and what others (e.g., parents) actually expect of him then there is the possi- bility of attitude change or exchange of self- concepts; self—concept being the product of evaluations-expectations of significant others (p. 30). Expectations Theory Clearly under the heading of symbolic interaction and of great importance to the present research, is expec- tation theory, and the relationship between academic behavior and the student perceived academic expectations held by "others" who may be significant to his beliefs. Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) call this phenomenon a "self‘ fulfilling prophecy" as coined by Merton (1957), and re- ferred to by Myrdal (1944), as the "theory of vicious cycle." When such significant others as parents, school officials, teachers, and peers, are perceived by the indi— vidual as viewing his failure as an imminent reality, and he accepts those views, the chances that failure will follow 19 are greatly enhanced. If any "significant other" is perceived by that individual, as having varying beliefs about the chances of academic success, the prospects of failure become diminishable. While the Rosenthal and Jacobson study (to be reviewed later) is itself of great research and theoretical value, it appears obvious to this reviewer, that we are merely dealing with symbolic interaction theory under another name. This theoretical perspective better explains their findings. Earlier researchers described the same general phenomenon. Roethlisberger and Dickson coined the term "Hawthorne Effect" to explain why people who perceive that they have been singled out for some special trait, soon exhibit the characteristics which they perceive are being sought. Once again, this reviewer would classify the "Hawthorne Effect" as an important contribution to socio— logical literature. It is, in actuality, another example of the significance of perceived expectations, and theoret- ically based upon symbolic interaction. Expectation theory becomes extremely informative when we discuss the complementary construct of "aspirations." Individuals who experience consistent negative reinforcement within a particular area will also develop limited aspira- tions concerning their future plans within the area of 20 endeavor. For example, a student who is expected by "others" to be a failure, and experiences some difficulty early in his education, will rarely attain a significant "self-concept of academic ability." His level of future educational aspiration will remain quite low. Certain societal positions can follow the same pattern. Herriott (1963) points out that academic aspira- tions of boys are different from those of girls, and aspira- tions of children from high income families are different from those of children who come from low income homes. As Gigliotti (1972) summarized, ". . . certain aspirations may be out of the frame of legitimate reference for certain types of people . . ." (p. 46). Gross, Mason and McEachern (1958) have studied, from the prospective of role theory, the question of how certain aspirations are developed among groups of people. Their basic thesis is that individuals who hold certain social positions (for example, a low S.E.S. student) will develop complementary identities, behaviors, and aspirations on the basis of the perceived expectations of "others." We will, therefore, next concentrate on a discussion of role theory. Role Theory Continuing on the note of symbolic interaction, we find the construct of role theory. Linton (1945) defines 21 role as "the sum total of the cultural patterns associated with a particular status. It thus includes the attitude, value and behaviors ascribed by the society to any and all persons occupying this status. Roles are learned on the basis of status either current or anticipated. . . . They are normative in the sense that they reside in shared expectancies within a culture" (p. 113). Deutsch and Krauss Contend that role theorists, far more than those of other theoretical persuasions have used the concept of the self as a cognitive structure which develops from the interaction of the human organism and its social environment. With this contention in mind, they define role as being comprised of three operational definitions: 1. Prescribed role consists of the system of expectations which surround the occupant of a position and his behavior toward occupants of a complementary position. 2. Subjective role consists of those particular expectations the occupant of a position per- ceives as applicable to his behavior when he interacts with the occupants of some other position. 3. Enacted role consists of a particular overt behavior of the occupant of a position when he interacts with the occupant of some other position. Empirically, these three concepts are closely related and all bear on the phenomena of the interplay between the subjective prescribed and enacted roles. 22 Reciprocal Role Relationships Intertwined with the preceding role concepts is the interplay of reciprocal role relationships. Edsel Erickson (1965) lucidly presents the importance of this phenomenon in stating: A student may learn that he is obliged by others either to engage or not to engage in certain tasks at a particular level in order to maintain his re- lationship. A relationship such as this is termed a reciprocal-role relationship in that it is based on a reciprocity of actions. A reciprocal-role relationship exists when an individual enacts a social role which is defined with reference to another role as in the relationship between patient and doctor, student and history teacher, or parent and child. . . . If an individual finds a particu— lar relationship satisfying, he will tend to behave in such a way as to meet the expectations of the other. He behaves in terms of his perception of the demands of that relationship (p. 21). When a student values a role relationship as very important to him and also views the other in that relation— ship as being concerned about how he (the student) when in school, a reciprocal relationship exists. When the recip— rocal role relationship of a student involves a reciprocal who is a "significant other" the perceived expectations are assumed to be even more binding. Under such conditions, it is believed the significant other has his greatest influence over the academic behavior of the student. It is quite evident that role theory has its roots embedded within a symbolic interactionist frameworkxand is vital to the theoretical base of this study. This sheds 23 light on the functioning of social organization (e.g., the home and school system), where the parents, teachers, and students play roles defined or expected by one another and in turn affect the learning environment and thus the aca- demic achievement of students. From symbolic interaction, expectations and role theory, Brookover and Erickson (1969) derive a social-psychological conception of learning which supports the importance of the expectations and evaluations of significant others. The conception is stated as follows: In this context, the self is the intervening variable between the normative patterns of the social group or the role expectations held by the significant others, on the one hand, and the learning of the individual, on the other. We hypothesize that, for the expectations of others to be functional in a particular indi- vidual's behavior, they must be internalized and become part of the person's conception of himself. Although we recognize the relevance of self in all aspects of human behavior, our interest at this point is in a particular aspect of self as it functions in the school learning situation. We postulate that the child acquires, by taking the role of the other, a perception of his ability as a learner of the various types of skills and subjects which constitute the school curriculum. If the child perceives that he is unable to learn mathematics or some other area of behavior, this self—concept of his ability becomes the functionally limiting factor of his school achievement. Functional limit is the term used to emphasize that we are speaking not of genetic organic limits on learning but rather of those perceptions of what is appropriate, desirable, and possible for the individual to learn. We postulate the latter as the limits, in determining the nature or extent of the particular behavior learned (p. 469). 24 Perceived vs Actual From the symbolic interactionist theory of Mead (1934) and Cooley (1902), three basic assumptions have been made with reference to expectations or evaluations, the second 1. 2. 3. in the can do of which is under investigation in this study: The evaluation which P has of Y's ability in a dimension of behavior is positively associated with the performance expectations which P holds for Y in that dimension of behavior. The performance expectations which P holds for Y in a dimension of behavior are positively associated with the perception which Y has of these expectations or evaluations. The perception which Y has of the expectations which are held for him is positively associated with his level of performance in that dimension of behavior. The first basic assumption postulates a consistency mind of the "other" between what he believes someone and what he expects that person to do. In other words, if P believes that Y has a great ability as a pianist, then it would be consistent in P's mind if he also expects Y to give a great piano performance. Brown (1965) as pre- viously stated, following the tradition of balance theory, contends that the two cognitive elements of evaluation of 25 ability on some task and expectations for performance on that task must be linked associatively or consistently with each other or the relationship will be unbalanced. The force to balance these two cognitive elements will not emerge until the individual is aware or thinks about the relations. When he has thought about the relationship between the two elements, and has found they are unbalanced, there will be a force generated to bring them into balance. In the case of the present context, if P evaluates Y's ability as being high but expects Y to do poorly, then his evaluation of Y's ability must be lowered to a point which is in balance with the low expectation he gives Y. Following from this idea, then, is the second basic assumption, which asserts that the actual expectations which are held for a person (Y) by an "other" (P) will be per- ceived with reasonable accuracy by the person (Y). An interesting point about this basic proposition, says Gigliotti (1973), is that "there are few studies which have attempted to demonstrate this empirically." While there are literally scores of studies showing the relation- ship between differentially perceived expectations and some dependent performance variable, the attempt to show an empirical relationship between actual expectations by an "ego," is conspicuously missing from the literature. Per- haps the relationship is such an obvious one, or believed to 26 be of so little importance, that researchers have just not wanted to waste time and money in investigating it. On the other hand, it may be of much greater importance than is thought. What if it is not the actual expectations of "others" which affect an individual's performance, but rather some other factors which happen to coexist with expectations, such as warmth of demeanor (or lack of), and so on (p. 39)? Although evaluations are not quite the same as expectations, we may assume in many instances that evalua- tions of a person on some dimension will generalize into an expectation of performance in that dimension. Miyamoto and Dornbusch in their classic study (1965) demonstrate a posi- tive relationship between the actual evaluations of "others" and an individual's self-evaluation. They also show a posi- tive relationship between the perceived evaluations of "others" and self-evaluations. In this study it is pointed out that the relationship between perceived evaluations and self-evaluations is stronger than the relationship between actual evaluations and self-evaluations. This still, how- ever, leaves open the question of the primary relationship between actual and perceived, a question which is the con- cern of our study. Videbeck (Sociometry, 1960) attempted to experimentally vary the reactions of others to see how it affects the self—evaluations of subjects. Prior to and 27 after the experimental treatment, he received self-evaluation scores from subjects. His findings support the view that self-evaluations are learned as a result of interaction with others. Nevertheless, this is still indirect evidence of the relationship of which we are concerned. Brookover and Erickson (1969) contend that it is not the actual behavior of others that determines an individual's behavior but the interpretations of the evaluations or expec- tations (otherwise called perceived evaluations-expectations) and actions of significant others. In addition, learning occurs in a social situation. It appears as though we must (at least temporarily) accept the assumption of researchers regarding the relation- ship between actual and perceived expectations. Subjects do indicate a perception of evaluations or expectations from "others." While it is entirely possible that one's percep- tion of others' evaluations and expectations can be totally incorrect, a more likely situation is one where there is a high but not perfect relationship because of such factors as competing evaluators, differential credibility of eval- uations, defensive reactions to low evaluations and expec- tations, and so on. The final basic assumption asserts a positive relationship between perceived expectations and performance of the subject in the dimension for which the expectations 28 are held. The study reported by Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939) coined the term "Hawthorne Effect" to label the finding that people who feel (perceive) that they have been especially selected (expected) to show an effect will tend to show it. Another classic case of this is reported by Guthrie (1938) of a shy and socially withdrawn college girl who was selected by some college men to be the object of a systematic attempt to change her behavior by relating to her in a way which indicated an expectation to be socially out- going and adept. The girl's behavior changed in the direc— tion anticipated by the expectations presented. Brookover and his associates (1967) report high positive correlations between grade point averages of high school students and the students' perceived evaluations-expectations. They also report a significantly positive relationship between per- ceived teacher's and perceived friend's evaluations and grade point average. There is little question that the effect of differ- ential expectations on a person's behavior depends upon a number of factors. The most important factor is the rela- tionship of the "other," or individual whose expectations are perceived. Not all "others" are important or "signif- icant others." It appears that the greatest effect of perceived expectations upon behavior occurs when the "other" is significant or important to the actor. A major question 29 is the characteristics of an "other" which make him "significant" in influencing behavior. Unfortunately, there is no conclusive evidence on this (Webster, 1969). In the past, the most conventional way of assessing these "significant others" was asking the subjects questions which would determine them. In the academic area, Brookover gE_al, (1967) have found that "parents," "teachers," and "best friends" seem to be high choices, particularly in the lower grade levels. It is for this reason that we concentrate primarily on parental expectations in this study. These three basic and abstract assumptions which have been employed by researchers using the symbolic inter- actionist theory have been presented. In this study, how- ever, we are mainly concerned with testing the second assumption that the evaluations-expectations which a "significant other" holds for an actor in a dimension of behavior are positively associated with the perception which the actor has of their perceived evaluations-expectations. In other words, based on the symbolic interactionist theory, one would assume that students correctly perceive their parents evaluations-expectations of academic performance. CHAPTER III REVIEW OF LITERATURE Introduction This study investigates the similarity of students perceptions of their parents evaluations-expectations of their academic achievement and their parents actual evaluations-expectations. It is also the aim of this study to determine which of the two variables, students perceived parental evaluations-expectations or parents actual evaluations-expectations is the more valid indicator of students academic performance. The following format will be employed in presenting the review of literature and supporting theoretical con- structs. Section I reviews literature dealing with the previously discussed relationship between students' academic achievement and the following variables: heredity, early socialization, and socioeconomic status. Section II reviews the existing literature on school environment dealing par- ticularly with perceived and actual evaluations-expectations of significant others and other variables of interest to this study. 30 31 It is necessary at this time to point out that most of the following literature is part of an up-to-date extensive review of literature compiled by my co-researchers Jeffrey Schneider and Ronald Henderson, and this author, all of whom have recently been engaged in related studies on the effect of school social environment and school achievement, under the direction of Dr. W. B. B. Brookover. Literature on the Relationship of Spedific Variables to Students' Academic Achievement Heredity and I.Q. Among the many forces affecting learning are the false beliefs about the nature of learning ability prevail- ing in our society, i.e., how people define intelligence. Theories of intelligence in our society contend that the ability to learn is relatively fixed or unchangeable and predetermined by heredity. These beliefs assume that each individual has a limited ability to learn and that this ability is unaffected by external social forces. Another assumption is that the fixed ability of individuals can be measured with reasonable accuracy by intelligence tests. In commenting on this assumption and its effects on American education, Brookover and Erickson (1969) state: The emphasis on the identification of people with various learning "abilities" or "talents" and through this the selection of people for various types of education and training, have overshadowed any efforts in American schools to cultivate the appropriate social climates or environments which would develop the academic abilities of children 32 in appropriate fields. The emphasis is therefore on identifying and selecting so that the round pegs are appropriately placed in the round holes, rather than on creating the appropriate environ- ment and providing the experience that would produce the kind of citizens needed in a highly technical and literate society (p. 8). It is unfortunate that genetic mental deficiency has long been (and still is) applied to groups as well as to individuals as an explanation of poor educational attain- ment of certain racial, religious groups. Richard Light (1972) cites the conclusion of Karl Pearson who in 1925 contended that on the average, Jewish immigrants were genetically inferior both physically and mentally to the English native population. Light further states that prior to 1960, Catholics in the United States were classified as genetically and intellectually inferior to non-Catholics. Bodner and Cavalli (1970) cite Jensen's recent exposition of the long held thesis of white society that black people are innately inferior to whites in terms of intellect. Jensen argues that the average American black scores 15 points lower onZIJQ.tests than does the average white. Since, according to Jensen's "findings," heredity accounts for 80 percent of intelligence and environment for only 20 percent, this LQ.gap must stem from the fact that black people drew their genes from a pool that is inferior-- at least where the ability to reason and to solve problems is concerned. Jensen strongly contends that average I.Q. 33 differences between.blacks and whites are entirely genetic and states that because the gene pools of whites and blacks are known to differ and . . . these genetic differences were manifested in virtually every anatomical, physiological and biochemical comparison one can make between representative samples of identifiable racial groups--there is no reason to suppose that the brain should be exempt from this generation (1970, p. 28). Geneticists, Bodner and Cavelli do not exclude the possibility that there could be a genetic component in the main difference in LQ-between races but maintain that cur- rently available data is inadequate to solve this question. The only approach applicable to the study of LQ.differences between the races is that of working with black children adopted in white homes and vice versa. Bodner and Cavalli emphasizing the major role of the environment, present five environmental effects related to I.Q.: 1. There is a difference of as much as five I.Q. points between twins and non-twins, irrespec- tive of socio-economic and other variables. It has been reported that the LQ.of blacks tested by blacks was two or three points higher than those tested by whites. Studies of the effects of protein-deficient diets administered to female rats before and during pregnancy . . . showed a substantial reduction in total brain D.N.A. content of the offspring. . . . There can be no doubt that in many areas the poor socio-economic conditions of blacks are correlated with dietary deficiency. . . . 34 4. The very early home environment has long been thought to be of substantial importance for intellectual development. . . . There can be little doubt that both the lower socio-economic status of U.S. blacks and a deficient cultural inheritance dating back to slavery must on the average result in a less satisfactory home environment. 5. Expectancy of failure usually leads to failure. Jensen's theory was not truly genetic in that he contended that intelligence could be divided into three separate components: heredity, environment and the inter- action of these two variables. Environment to Jensen acts as a "threshold variable" which under circumstances of extreme deprivation can hold a child back, but to change the environment can do no more than to bring academic ability up to the individual's genetic potential which is the most important predictor of intelligence. Jensen fur- ther contended that environmental factors, as measured by differences in S.E.S., are not a major independent source of variance in intelligence. Silberman (1970) like Bodner and Carvelli, refutes Jensen. He contends that although Jensen's hypothesis of genetic intelligence appears to be the clearest statement of his theory published to date, Jensen has conceded that environment has a role in intelligence development and that genetic factors take effect only through interaction with the environment. It has been difficult for his critics to 35 refute this section of his thesis. Jensen's error is that he attempted to measure the amount of variation in intelli- gence accounted for by heredity and environment (environment 20 percent, heredity 80 percent), and further attempted to assess social group differences in genetic terms. This author strongly rejects Jensen's thesis and conclusions as unsubstantially supported. Sandra Scarr-Salapatek (1971) studied 315 sets of blacks and 194 sets of white twins. She concluded that heredity is a function of the population measured and that the large proportion of relatively disadvantaged blacks living within highly isolated conditions in America has resulted less within group variation on intelligence mea— surements and less meaningful between group comparisons. Gage (1972) reanalyzed data of studies on identical twins. He found that the high correlation (.85) between 1.08. of identical twins reared apart was due to the sim- ilarity of environment. As the similarity of environment decreased, so did the correlation with differences of 15 I.Q. points and greater not uncommon. Evidently, environ- mental differences effect such results. The struggle between heredity and environmental theorists continues. Researchers Shockley (1972) and Suey (1966) support Jensen, indicating the intelligence superior- ity of whites as measured by I.Q. tests. Other researchers, 36 Rose (1928), Deutsch and Brown (1964), Gage (1972) and Green (1958), all argue for the strong effect that environ- ment can have on measured intelligence. Further research involving learning patterns by Stodolsky and Lesser (1967), Richmond (1971), Semler and Iacoe (1935), and Musgrove and Lawson (1971) support the strong environmental effect on learning patterns. It is the contention of this writer that since, to his knowledge, no test has been designed to adequately test or measure the "fixed" ability of individ- uals as held by hereditary theorists, their contentions are unfounded. Early Socialization A good deal of research has been devoted to the area of preschool relationships between a child and his family. Many of these studies have been concerned with similarities and differences to be found in the socialization patterns of those persons who make up various socioeconomic strata. Bronfenbrenner (1958) conducted a comprehensive review of the literature concerning child rearing practices in the United States from 1930 to the mid-19503 concluding that the most persistent difference which was discernible between the social classes during the period studied was that a middle class child was expected to learn to take care of himself earlier, to accept more responsibility at home, and above all to progress further in school. Many other studies have 37 also concluded that parental values and achievement motivation vary between social classes (see Boocock, 1966; Rosen, 1956; and Kohn, 1959). Gans (1962) and Roberts (1971) both attempted to study the possibility of dissonance in the perceptions of educational goals between school personnel and parents of various socioeconomic status. Both researchers found large differences in educational values to exist between low S.E.S. parents and school administration. Another body of literature attempts to explain the high S.E.S.-achievement correlation by concentrating on the effects of social class upon the verbal ability of children (see Nesbit, 1961; and Bernstein, 1961, 1965). While the theory is not inconsistent with the avail- able evidence, the effects of language upon the cognitive structure of individuals is to date unproven by empirical data (Morrison and McIntyre, 1971). Thus, the effect of language patterns on values, behavior, or academic achieve- ment remains a subject for research. In attempting to explain the S.E.S.-achievement cor- relation, many researchers have undertaken to determine the relationship between malnutrition and learning. Much of the work has used animals as subjects and has concluded that a strong negative relationship exists between malnu- trition and ability to learn (Winick, 1969; and Crowley, 38 1968). Additional studies using human subjects reinforce the experimental findings in animals concurring that malnu- trition, especially among young children, does seem to‘ impair their ability to learn (see Winick, 1969; Stoch and Smythe, 1968; Moncheberg, 1969; Klein and Gilbert, 1967; Cravito, 1966; and Cravito and Robles, 1965). On the basis of the evidence thus far presented, this writer would conclude that many social factors that a child brings with him to school bear great importance in the prediction of academic success and it may thus be cor- rect to attribute varying practices of family socialization and home environment as reason, in some part, for the achievement differential between lower and higher socio- economic children. This, however, does not explain the failure of schools to eliminate, or at least reduce, the achievement gap between groups of students. It also fails to explain why the gap actually becomes wider during the time spent in school. S.E.S. and Achievement The socioeconomic status of the student's family has been explored in an effort to gain insight into the influ- encing factors of academic achievement. Underlying this contention is the proposition that S.E.S. reflects the family's value system which is influenced by the type of recreation and entertainment participated in, the calibre of their 39 associates, their occupation and so on. Researchers have gone beyond this and have studied the S.E.S. composition of the school and even the neighborhood. This author shall at this point present the most cited research in the areas of S.E.S. and achievement. Patricia Mayo Sexton (1961) researched the effects of S.E.S. and achievement in the Detroit schools. Her study used a sample of 285,000 students and 10,000 teachers in 300 schools and employed the elementary schools achievement scores based upon fourth, sixth and eighth grade Iowa test results. This study revealed that all schools above the $7,000 income achieved above grade level (with only one exception in the eighth grade). All schools below $7,000 income were achieving below grade level. Secondly, in general, achievement scores tended to go up as income levels did and thirdly in the fourth grade, group I (schools having a mean income of $3,500) achieved at almost one whole year below grade level. On the other hand, group 26 (schools having a mean income of $11,055) achieved at more than a year above grade level. Thus the highest income group was achieving at a level two years above the lowest income group. A comprehensive review of literature concerning the association between differential types of education offered to students and the S.E.S. of student's family of origin was compiled by Herriott and St. John (1966). The authors 40 emphasize that a consistent correlation existed between social class and academic achievement, with lower SES students having both significantly lower levels of achieve- ment and significantly higher probabilities of becoming school dropouts. Sewell and Shah's (1967) longitudinal study of a group of high school seniors found a strong relationship between the S.E.S. of the student and his plans to attend and graduate from college. Recent research, most notably the work of James Coleman (l966),has explored this question in depth. Cole- man's research indicates that academic performance is gen- erally low in the poor sections of the United States and that the least resources for education are provided in these areas. Using the student's scores on a verbal ability test as a measure of achievement, Coleman concluded that much of the differences in performance of pupils result from family to family differences. These factors further indicated that parental education and economic level of the family showed the greatest relationship in achievement for both whites and blacks at the elementary level, with parental education being of significantly greater importance. These two fac- tors along with occupation comprise S.E.S. Coleman further compared the average verbal achievement score of students within schools and between schools and concluded that for the total study, differences between schools accounted for 41 only 10 to 30 percent of the variance in achievement of sixth graders and 5 to 31 percent of variance in individual achievement for twelfth graders (with all racial and domi~ nant ethnic groups taken into consideration). The low level of between-school variance, accounted for by school facilities, teachers, materials and curriculum have led some educators to propose the cessation of expenditures in these areas and changes in the social composition of the entire schools, which Coleman found to be highly related to achievement, independent of the S.E.S. of the individual student's family. Coleman in commenting on the effects of school achievement states: Taking all these results together one implica- tion stands out above all: That schools bring little influence to bear on a child's achieve- ment that is independent of his background and general social context; and that this lack of an independent effect means that the inequal- ities imposed on children, neighborhood and peer environment are carried along to become inequalities with which they confront adult life at the end of school. For equality of educa- tional opportunity through the schools must imply a strong effect of schools that is independent of the child's immediate environment and that strong independent effect is not present in the American schools (p. 325). The Coleman data was reanalyzed by George W. Mayeske who used the school, rather than the student, as the unit of analysis. His findings were in the most part in agreement with Coleman's, and Mayeske concluded that in school achievement, 42 l. the influence of the school upon the student could not be separated from the student's social class background 2. the common influence of the school together with student S.E.S. was more important than either factor when taken alone 3. schools were able to exercise greater in- fluence upon students who were higher S.E.S., white or oriental, and those living with both parents 4. racial isolation of personnel is a major factor 5. the S.E.S. of students tells more overtime 6. schools achieving well on one educational factor tend to achieve well on others. Alan B. Wilson (1969) researched the effects of social class segregation upon achievement. His sample consisted of 5,545 students in 11 junior and senior high schools in Richmond, California. He found that academic achievement in both integrated and segregated schools was significantly affected by the social class composition of its students. Furthermore, the S.E.S. of schoolmates appeared to be even more important than the S.E.S. of the student's neighborhood peer group not attending the same school. The conclusion that there is a high positive rela- tionship between S.E.S. and achievement, regardless of schools physical or curricular differences, brings us to investigate new channels in our search for understanding what are the factors which influence student academic performance. Commenting on this point, Richard Gigliotti (1972) states: 43 Given this relationship, one possible assumption is that differential qualitative socialization occurs at different S.E.S. levels. In a deeper consideration it might be assumed that certain behavioral and cognitive factors are developed in the higher S.E.S. levels, which provide a better basis for meeting the demands or require- ments of the formal school situation. Coleman's findings would suggest that certain processes and conditions exist in the higher S.E.S. families which do not exist in the lower S.E.S. families and that it is these processes and conditions which influence or possibly determine the child's performance level in school. If this assumption is valid, then the immediate task is one of ascertaining what these processes and conditions are and whether or not they exist independent of S.E.S. (p. 6). The human family does not live to itself, operate in a vacuum nor is it unaffected by its environment. Factors emerging from the child's family interaction are mediated and modified by the social circumstances or situations in which the child operates. Given this fact, one must ascertain what are those factors (environmental and otherwise) which support or hinder high academic performance for the students in the school. A new body of literature is presently floating in the sea of educational research focusing not only on S.E.S. and Achievement but also on the environment of the child, i.e., school climate. The following is a brief review of such literature on school climates as compiled by Schneider (1973, pp. 37-50). 44 School Climate Literature One is faced with a lack of systematic, scientific analysis in the literature, when attempting to review the topic of normative academic school climate. There exists a large body of literature whose main thrust, while not a specific analysis of school normative climate, does cer— tainly deal with the subject in an effective and revealing manner. Examples of this type of literature range from the analysis of the importance of certain prep school climates for the maintenance of a "societal" elite (see Mills' (1956) i examination of The Power Elite) to the more recent popular works, designed to cast light on the poor learning condi- tions present in those schools whose student bodies are predominantly black and poor (Kozol, 1967; Kahl, 1967; and Stein, 1971). Academic interest in school social systems is by no means a new phenomenon, with even so renowned a scholar as Talcott Parsons (1959) theorizing on the classroom social system and discussing the roles of parents, peers, and teachers and the relative importance of value concensus among these groups for an increase in academic achievement. On the other hand, Boocock (1966) commented that the one area where we find surprisingly little sociological research is in the study of those social factors leading to learning, or the kind of teacher and type of teaching which produce 45 the best learning results. Within the same article, Boocock stressed her belief that it is extremely difficult to measure the learning climate within any given classroom, because of the confounded nature of the classroom in the school. She concluded, however, that although the research evidence was very sparse and generally limited to high school and college situations, certain interesting findings were evident: On the level of the whole school . . . the research evidence indicates that certain types of environments, namely those in which intellectualism and academic achievement are postiviely valued, are productive of learning. The trick here is to understand just what combination of individual and system char- acteristics produce various intellectual climates. . . . Boocock's criticism of school climate research appears to be an accurate assessment of much of the lit- erature on the tOpic. We can find numerous examples of education journal articles (Wendel, 1970; Holland, 1969; Wallin, 1969) in which the authors freely advocate various types of learning climates (democratic, free, open, etc.) with no empirical evidence presented that higher achievement or any other outcome will result. It has also become clear, however, that during the past decade ever increasing amounts of research time and energy have been devoted to determining the effects of various school climates on learning. 46 For the purposes of the present review, we will concentrate on that literature which directly purports to examine the connection between school normative climates and various educational outcomes. In this section we pay particular attention to that literature which characterizes the historic development of the general topic of school climate. To do this, we look at three related, but separate areas of research interest: (1) colleges and universities, (2) secondary schools, and (3) elementary school environ- ments. Research dealing with the operationalization of our specific variables of interest will be reviewed and discussed. Colleges A number of studies have concentrated upon normative educational climates of colleges and universities. Davis (1963) looked at differences in the values held concerning intellectualism between different types of colleges. He found that of 135 colleges and universities with a total of 33,982 students, high quality, private, small institu- tions have high proportions of their senior students endorsing intellectualism. At the same time, in lower quality, public, and larger institutions this value is endorsed by lower proportions of seniors. In addition, he found technical schools to score lower in student expressed 47 intellectual values. While the Davis study is interesting, it does not attack the question of whether students chose the particular college for the intellectual climates which were present or if existing intellectual climates developed the value patterns in those students present within the environment. Basing their research upon a theory advocated by Murray (1938) in which he explains the outcomes of the relationship between an individual's internalized personal- ity traits and environmental pressure in terms of "needs" and "wants," Pace (1964) and Stern (1964) developed three instruments used to measure these constructs within college environments. The first instrument, the Activity Index (AI), contains a group of 30, 10 item scales used to measure such student characteristics as dominance, nurturance, and achievement. The second instrument, the College Charac- teristics Index (CCI) is a measure of environmental press, and contains parallel scales to those found in the AI. The third instrument developed by Pace and Stern to measure the "need-want" relationship is the College Characteristics Analysis (CCA) used to analyze particular academic and student sub-cultures, in terms of both program objectives and environmental factors. Through use of these instruments, Pace and Stern (1958) concluded that colleges tended to follow several basic patterns: 48 l. Intellectual-Humanism 2. Intellectual-Scientific 3. Practical and applied Humanities and Scientific emphasis (practical-status) 4. Individual responsibility to fellow students and society (group welfare) 5. Rebellion against conservatism (rebellion). Stern (1964) concludes his review of studies employing the "need-press" scales, by stating that colleges do differ systematically in both the type of student attracted and the experiences which were allowed those students who actually attended the colleges. It was further concluded that entering freshmen, in general, did not have a knowledge of the true academic climate, but rather possessed a stereo- typic view of colleges, combining the academic characteris- tics of elite liberal arts schools with the community spirit and orderliness found in church run schools. Along the same general line of inquiry, but with somewhat different results, Chickering (1966 and 1967) conducted a four year study of 13 small colleges (population of students under 1,500) in an attempt to find any pattern of influence by college variables (curriculum, religious orientation and emphasis, supervision of students, as well as institutional objectives), over such student value systems as atheism-agnosticism, developmental status, estheticism, theoretical orientation, originality, and 49 liberalism. He concluded that students tend to attend those colleges which are most compatible to their personalities. While Chickering's study may have accurately assessed the relationship between personality and college type with its small sample, it was a group of studies con- ducted at Bennington College by Newcomb and Flacks (1964) that attempted to find patterns of behavior for those students who were deviates from the norm. Using, among other measures, the Omnibus Personality Inventory (the same instrument as used by Chickering, 1966), they assessed the prevailing norms within the college environment and were able to isolate two possible types of deviant student behavior: (1) Collegiate--consisting of those deviant students who are involved in the college peer structure and belonging to identifiable sub-groups, and (2) Non- collegiate--membership including those deviant students who neither hold the norms of the institution nor belong to any identifiable sub-group. The researchers found that those students who were classified as "Collegiate" were clearly identified as deviant, had more friends within the college environment, were less inclined to ever accept institutional norms, and were more inclined to stay in school than were the "non-collegiates," who having no "others" in the college community who were significant to 50 them, tended either to move in the direction of the institutional norms or to drop out of school. On the basis of such evidence concerning student subcultures as those previously reviewed, Clark and Trow (1966) devised an extremely informative taxonomy of college student group environments. This is based upon two major factors: (1) the extent to which the student identifies with the school, and (2) the extent to which the students are concerned with ideas. From these, four subcultures emerge: (1) the Academic group who strongly identify with the college, usually through the faculty, and are involved with ideas, (2) the Collegiate group who also identify with the college, however, usually through such subcultures as fraternities and athletic teams, remaining uninvolved with ideas, (3) the Non-Conformist group, composed of those stu- dents who are highly involved with ideas, but not identify- ing with the college itself, and finally (4) the Vocational group which identifies neither with the college nor involves itself with ideas. Skager (1966) attempted to relate changes in student self ratings on such dimensions as: scholarship, expressive- ness, practical-mindedness, popularity, sensitivity to the needs of others, and academic self-confidence to the envi- ronments of the schools which they were attending. He concluded, on the basis of his research, that change found 51 in students due to college experiences is highly related to both environmental and institutional characteristics. Looking directly at the question of the effects upon student achievement of college normative climate, Austin (1965 and 1967) reported in his study of 254,480 students at 307 colleges and universities, that he was able to identify 36 environmental variables. He was able to group them into four categories: classroom environment, physical environment, peer environment, and administrative environ- ment. Of these variables studied, he found 21 to have a significant relationship to college attrition, and he suggested that students are more likely to complete four years if they attend colleges where students peer relationships are characterized by friendliness, cooperativeness, and independence, where the students frequently participate in college activities, where there is a high level of personal involvement with and a concern for the individual student and where the adminis- trative policies concerning student aggression are relatively permissive (Austin, 1967, p. ii). The college studies reviewed are of both great interest and significance in contributing to our knowledge of student subcultures, school normative climate differences, and educational outcomes. We find, however, that some basic questions remain unanswered by these studies. Any cause- effect relationship between academic climate and student personality is inconclusive. The research makes it appear likely that it is an interaction between the two which is 52 affecting educational outcomes, but the extent of this interaction is not known and given. Furthermore, given the advanced age and wide range of experiences held within these samples of students, we are unlikely to come to any specific conclusions by concentrating on colleges and universities. The use of college subjects is misleading in other ways. Not only is the generalizability of our results treatly limited, but by studying higher education, we are dealing for the most part, with a population of students who have chosen, or whose parents have chosen to be part of their particular school environment, thus confounding any results which have been obtained. This writer asserts that results are further confounded by the nature of vari- ables, to the extent that parents of elementary school children select a residential neighborhood with consider- ation to its specific school. Although research on colleges is found to be both interesting and necessary, it appears to insufficiently warrant any conclusions about the effects of school academic or social climates upon our sample of students. Secondary Schools When one is reporting the literature which concerns itself with secondary school normative climates, it seems fairly sound to begin with the research by Coleman (1961), 53 a study of the adolescent subcultures in ten northern Illinois high schools. He concluded that similarities within value patterns did exist, but that individual schools had climates which were to some extent unique. Specifically, Coleman found that proficiency in athletics was considered an important attribute for boys, no matter where the school was located. So was social success for girls. Academic achievement, on the other hand, might either be rewarded or punished by the peer subculture, depending upon the specific environment. Punishment would result in those cases where the academic expectations for students were low and the students themselves perceived that higher achievement by a few would result in greater expectations being placed upon the rest. In schools where achievement was highly valued, the "elite" received higher grades. It was Coleman's contention that once the adolescent "society" was known and understood, it could also be controlled, the outcome being higher achievement. Several other studies have dealt with secondary school academic climates and concluded that they have a significant effect upon the educational achievement of students. Among these studies were those of Walberg (1968), Wilson (1969), Goff (1969), Jones (1971), and Rousseau (1971). Also of great importance is the research of McDill, Meyers, and Rigsby (1967) who studied a non-random sample of 54 20 high schools, which included 20,345 students and 1,029 teachers, in an attempt to isolate and explain the rela- tionship between various normative high school climates and achievement patterns. Using standardized aptitude and achievement tests supplied by Project Talent, and using schools from varying social and regional types, they hoped to find the contribution to achievement of normative climate beyond effect of the socioeconomic composition of the student body. By factor-analyzing 39 school characteristic variables from students and teachers, McDill eg_gl, were able to interpret six factors of school climate: 1. Academic Emulation-~Climate valuing academic excellence. 2. Student Perception of Intellectualism-Estheticism-- Climate stressing an intrinsic value on the acquisi- tion of knowledge. 3. Cohesive and Egalitarian Estheticism--The extent to which academic excellence is a criterion for status. 4. Scientism—-Climate with a scientific emphasis. 5. Humanistic Excellence--Climate press toward creation and maintenance of student interest in art, humanities, social science, and current social issues. 6. Academically Oriented Student Status System-— Student bodies socially reward intellectualism and academic performance. Their results indicated that when S.E.S. composition and intelligence are controlled, the climate effect still 55 maintains some explanatory power in which academic composition, achievement, intellectualism, and subject matter competence are demonstrated and emphasized by faculty and other students. Students entering a school environment will tend to adopt these scholastic norms and will have higher achievement scores. They also concluded that socioeconomic status does serve as an adequate indi- cator of a normative climate in those schools which are either very low or very high on the S.E.S. continuum. However, S.E.S. is a very poor indicator of climate for those schools which are not at the continuum's extremes. We thus find that those researchers studying secondary school environments, as well as those who con- centrated upon colleges and universities, have found the existence of clearly definable normative climates within the subcultures of schools studied. It is in the case of secondary schools, however, that we are more clearly able to see that the climate also had an impact upon achievement beyond those pertaining only to the student as an individual. We, therefore, move on to the literature concerned with ele— mentary school social climates, in order to see if this concept can be expanded and our knowledge significantly increased. 56 Elementary Schools One of the most neglected areas of research for sociology of education has been the study of normative academic climates within elementary schools. Until quite recently, those attempting to comprehensively review the literature on the effects of elementary school climates upon learning, have been unsuccessful (see Boocock, 1966; and Johnson, 1970). Within the recent past, there have been only a few attempts by researchers to study certain aspects of elemen- tary climate. An earlier attempt by Halpin and Croft (1962) to devise a method of researching school climates refined their instrument, the Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire (OCDQ), for an elementary school population, although this instrument was usually employed to study secondary school climates. The idea behind the scale's design is that organizational climates are similar to the personalities of individuals. Just as individuals can have "open" or "closed" personalities, so too can schools. The OCDQ which is administered to school personnel and not to students, contains two groups of scales: one, to find the degree of disengagement, hindrance, esprit, or intimacy demonstrated by the staff, and the other, to measure the degree to which the leader demonstrates aloofness, produc- tion emphasis, trust, and consideration. From this, schools 57 can then be placed upon a six step continuum: from "open," characterized by the membership demonstrating openness and concern for one another, to "closed" in which members feel no group commitment and are unwilling to exhibit openness with other group members. While the Halpin and Croft technique may not have been originally designed for elementary schools, it is still of great interest to those who study elementary school climate. Researchers have often used the OCDQ to char- acterize staff climates with some (see Fascetti, 1971) reporting that elementary schools, in general, have more "open" climates than do secondary organizations. Others have looked at differences between types of schools (Davis, 1969), finding significant differences on the OCDQ between predominantly black and predominantly white high achieving schools. Kenney and Rentz (1970) attempted to replicate the Halpin and Croft procedure on an urban sample, finding that different factors had emerged. These were (1) Principal as authority figure, (2) Teacher qua teacher, (3) Non-classroom teacher satisfaction, and (4) Work conditions. They concluded that it was impossible to separate the internal classroom climate from the environment external to the immediate classroom, which affect urban teacher perception of their schools. It is quite evident that much more research must be conducted with special 58 emphasis upon the effects of the "open-closed" continuum upon school achievement, before we can make any conclusive statements in this area. Also of relevance to this literature is a study by Sinclair (1970) of 12,000 students from 100 elementary schools. By using factor analysis, he was able to artic- ulate five school climate dimensions which, using Pace's terminology, were named Practicality, Community, Awareness, Propriety, and Scholarship. Looking at schools, it was found that they tended to cluster around such categories as, l. Practicality-Schools that are scholarly, yet rebellious. 2. Practicality-Schools that are scholarly, warm, and accepting with a higher score on politeness. 3. Schools characterized by emphasis on student conformity and politeness. 4. Schools which are academically rigorous and have little concern for practicality. 5. Schools low on scholarship and practicality. 6. Rebellious schools which are also low on awareness. 7. Schools which are cold and rebellious, somewhat like jails. A follow-up study conducted by Sadker and Sinclair (1972) identified the emergence of six very interesting new factors. These new factors were named Alienation, Humanism, Autonomy, Morale, Opportunism, and Resources. 59 We have thus far established that the question of why certain schools are more academically successful than are others is a highly complex problem, containing many factors which must be considered. First we reviewed some of the large amounts of evidence showing a close relation- ship between achievement and the mean socioeconomic status of the school student body. Researchers in the fields of sociology, psychology and education have attempted to explain these differences in several ways, three of which were reviewed in this chapter: a genetic theory of intel- ligence, inadequacies of early socialization along with a confrontation of values between the home and the school and, finally, a third body of research has begun to suggest that normative educational climate may be an important causal factor in learning. Variables of Interest Although there are nine variables which are con- trolled for in this study of parent-student communication, they are merely refinements of three basic social- psychological constructs. These three basic variables are (a) evaluations-expectations within the students' social system, (b) community or parent involvement with and surveil- lance of the child's academic activities, (c) feelings of efficacy or sense of control with regard to schools. At 60 the heart of environmental variables influencing student's educational outcome is the phenomenon of students' percep- tion of others evaluations-expectations of them. Evaluations-Expectations One of the most important aspects of the present research lies in this comparison of students' perceived parental evaluations-expectations of them with the actual evaluations of their parents. The literature pertaining to perceived and actual evaluations-expectations is rather limited and thus in this section focus will be on the research in this area based on the symbolic interactionist theory, which assumes relative accuracy on the part of the ego in perceiving the evaluations-expectations of ego's significant others. We shall focus on literature with relevance to students "significant others": peer group, parents, and teachers. Perceived Peer Evaluations and Expectations Several scholars have researched the influence of the peer group on individual students. Among these, Johnson (1970) focuses on Freedman's (1967) thorough review of lit- erature on college student peer group relationship. Freed- man concluded that students' influence over fellow students seemed greater than all other school influences, while the 61 predominant student subculture established and transmitted academic goals through generations. Many scholars support the significance of peers. Parsons (1959) emphasized the compensatory role of peers in providing acceptance and approval apart from the adult. Coleman's (1966) high school study revealed that the peer subculture was an important determinant of the values placed on school related functions such as athletics, dating, cars and academics. Coleman ep_§1, (1966) and Wilson (1969) further emphasized the significant association of factors such as social class status, educational back- ground and the aspiration level of the student majority with the increased achievement for the disadvantaged minority students. This has influenced the hypothesis of Johnson (1970) and other scholars that peer group influence may provide an adequate substitute for families in which little emphasis is placed on educational achievement. Other researchers have stressed the need for restrictions on generalizing on the effects of peer groups on student populations. Among these, Seashore (1954) in his study of an industrial situation, found that an important variable in comprehending peer pressure upon levels of pro- duction is group cohesiveness. Schmuck's study of schools (1966) revealed that group structure, whether diffuse or hierarchical, influenced not only the student's perceptions 62 and acceptance of other students but also the group drive for academic achievement. Perceived Parental Evaluations- Expectations Research on the limits of parental influence over students and the degree of the significance of parental evaluations and expectations on students academic success has produced conflicting speculations and conclusions. Coleman (1961) claims the existence of an adolescent sub- society separate and often in conflict with the adult society of the community, and thus reducing the amount of parental influence on students. A look at the single area of academic achievement reveals that parental influence is possibly greater here than other influences. Erickson (1967) considered the question when analyzing the broader study on self-concept of academic ability pursued by Brookover e£_al, (1967). Erickson's study of 942 students from three urban high schools showed that (1) parental concern for student achievement surpassed that of friends, (2) the former applied to either sex, (3) parental expectations seemed generally higher, (4) parents held beliefs concerning their child's achievement to be of greater importance than did the peer group, and (5) parental surveillance of students seemed greater than friends' surveillance. Erickson concluded that 63 parental evaluations of and expectations for student achievement appeared to be at least as important as those of the peer group which is evidently important "significant others" in several areas including achievement. Thomas (1969) lent support to Erickson's findings in his study of academic achievement of deaf students. He held that counselling of parents about their children's work seems to improve both the student's self-concept of academic ability and his academic achievement. Coleman §E_31. (1966) in a study of equal educational opportunity also supported the importance of parents as "significant others" to stu- dents in the area of achievement. Kerckhoff and Hull (1973) used ninth and tenth grade boys and their parents to investigate parents' influence based on parent-child argument on goals. They concluded that (l) parent-child agreement cannot be viewed as an wholly spurious basis for imputing influence, (2) agreement measures based on the child's report of the parents' goals led to different outcomes than those based on the parents' report, (3) perceived agreement (using the child's report of the parents' goal) seems to reflect the child's projec- tion of his own goal and criteria of goal-setting on to his parents, (4) the evidence of direct goal transmission from parent to child is stronger among the older boys, but a paternal influence in the son's modelling his father appears 64 to be stronger among the younger boys. These findings do not support the theory that students are greatly influenced by their parents in the setting of their personal goals. Perceived and Actual Teacher Evaluations and Expectations Much of the early research in the area of expecta- tions and learning is attributable to the work of Robert Rosenthal, both in his study of animals (1966) as well as in his highly important collaborative study (Rosenthal and Jacobson, 1968), on elementary school achievement. In order to conduct these studies, naive subjects were told in random groups that certain subjects were either more intelligent or were about to make an educational spurt. Laboratory techni- cians dealt with rats, and teachers dealt with students. In the case of both rats and students, those predicted higher achievers gained significantly more in achievement than did the control group. In the case of students, this jump in achievement was much more pronounced in the earlier grades. Flanigan's nonverbal intelligence texts were admin- istered to all children in an elementary school and disguised as if to test intellectual gain. There were six grades with three classrooms for each grade. In each of the eighteen classes an average of 20 percent of the children were assigned to the experimental conditioning by means of a table of random numbers. The names of these children were 65 submitted to each teacher who was told that the scores for these children on the "test for intellectual blooming" indicated that they would show unusual intellectual gain during the academic year. Eight months after the experi- mental conditions were instituted, all the children were retested with the same I.Q. test and a change score was computed for each child. The results showed that for the school as a whole, those children from whom the teachers had been led to expect great intellectual gain, showed signifi- cantly greater I.Q. scores and school performance than did the control group. This was particularly evident in the very early years where teachers attitudes about the ability of specific children were not yet formed. The expectations of significant others (teachers) does influence students academic performance. Thus, the Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) study lends credence to the hypothesis that expectations have a symbi- otic relationship with achievement. Finn (1972) however points out that this study has been attacked by a number of other researchers as being methodologically incorrect (Snow, 1969); overinterpreted (Elashoff and Snow, 1971); and inadequate at identifying the teacher behavior that produces high and low achieving results (Thorndike, 1968). There has also been a number of attempts at replication of the earlier findings which have failed (Jose and Cody, 1971; 66 Fleming and Anttonen, 1971; Claiborn, 1969; and Rubovits and Maehr, 1971). With regard to teacher expectations, Schneider (1973) notes: What is safe to presume is that teachers have varying teaching styles which closely correlate with their beliefs about the achievement ability of the students in their classes, a phenomenon which has been observed by a number of research- ers (Brophy and Good, 1970; Silberman, 1969; and Rothbart, Dalfen, and Barrett, 1971). This re- sults in the high probability that certain learn- ing activities and results will take place to the exclusion of others, the result being differential achievement (see Gigliotti, 1972), or at least, in teachers reacting to the responses of different students in different ways depending upon their differing expectations (see Cornbleth, Davis, and Button, 1972; or Finn, 1972). When these expec- tations and the accompanying teacher behavior are based upon some social stratification groupings, as race or socio-economic status, we find our- selves in the position that Brookover and Erickson (1969) describe as expectations leading to discrim- ination (probably through some type of tracking). This situation will become increasingly stronger during the years the student remains in school, thus molding a life pattern most difficult to significantly alter (p. 56). That teacher expectations are the result of beliefs about student S.E.S. and/or race, is confirmed both by Howe (1970) and by Rist (1970). Howe studied 255 teachers of differing races and social classes from middle-class white schools, lower S.E.S. white schools, and lower S.E.S. black schools. He concluded that teacher age or teacher race made little difference in their belief that middle-class white students had more ability than lower S.E.S. white students, 67 and that lower S.E.S. white students had more ability than lower S.E.S. black students, especially in reading and math. The Rist study attempted to answer the question of how and why teachers form expectations about students. Data for this analysis was based upon a three year period of observation of a single group of students (K-2), in a school in which both the entire student body and the entire teach- ing staff were black. This study demonstrates that during these early school years teacher expectations of "fast" and "slow" learners are not based upon any objective criteria, such as intelligence tests, but rather upon such subjective "middle-class" characteristics as neatness in appearance, overt signs of interest, necessity for adult interaction, and display of leadership in the class. Those groups of students whom teachers believed to be "slow" learners were characterized as dirty or speaking in a dialect unfamiliar to that of the teacher or the other students who were considered "fast." Expectations and Achievement In order for the expectations of others to affect students academic achievement, the individual student must perceive, accept, and internalize expectations concerning his ability as held by his "significant others." While there appears to be no evidence of what contributes "significant" characteristics to "others" (see Webster, 68 1969), research demonstrates that these persons can be identified by the subject. As mentioned before, within the area of achievement, Brookover and his associates (1962, 1965, and 1967) have identified a student's "significant others" as those individuals occupying the roles of either parent, peer, or teacher. Once the student has finished the process of internalizing the expectations of his "sig- nificant others" and has a view of his own relationship to his academic environment, he then forms his concept of his ability to perform academically and this influences his academic achievement. How similar are students' perceived parental evaluations-expectations to their parents actual evaluations-expectations will be investigated in this study. Brookover ep_gl, (1973) conducted a study to iden— tify social-psychological variables comprising school nor- mative climate that differed between high and low achieving elementary schools, while controlling for school mean, S.E.S., race and urban-rural community type. More specif- ically, they sought to determine which of several social, psychological, environmental factors most strongly predicted achievement as well as differentiated between high and low achieving predominantly white-urban, predominantly black- urban and rural elementary schools. Using questionnaire data from fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students, and their teachers and principal the researchers employed three 69 major methods of analysis: regression, discriminant function and multivariate. Using regression analysis, the study revealed that the following variables were significant predictors of the higher achieving schools and together they accounted for more than 60 percent of the variance in mean achievement: the 1. Lower Student Reported Sense of Futility: P = < 0.0005, predicting an additional 44.92% of the variance in achievement. Greater Teacher Future Evaluations and Expecta- tions: P = 0.0008; predicting an additional 9.83% of the variance in achievement. Teacher Reported Press of Individual Students: P = 0.023; predicting an additional 5.2% of the variance in achievement. Greater Student Perceived Present Evaluation and Expectations: P = 0.052; predicting an additional 3.36% of the variance in achievement. On the basis of the Discriminant Function Analysis, following findings were revaled: 1. Among the predominantly white-urban schools, the 4 student variables significantly (p = <0.019) differentiate higher and lower achieving groups of schools. The most power- ful variable was S.R.S.O.F. followed by Student Perceived School Academic Norms, a much less powerful predictor. Student Perceived Future Evaluations-Expectations and Student Perceived Present Evaluations-Expectations did not appear to be very powerful discriminators of achievement within this group of variables for this stratum. Among the predominantly black-urban schools, the 4 student variables did not significantly (p = <0.5084) differentiate higher and lower 70 achieving groups of schools. Of the four factors, the most powerful predictor was Student Reported Sense of Futility followed by Student Perceived Future Evaluations- Expectations and Student Perceived Present Evaluations-Expectations, much less powerful predictors. Student Perceived School Academic Norms did not appear to be a very powerful dis- criminator of achievement with this group of variables, for this stratum. Among rural schools, the 4 student variables did not significantly (p = <0.2401) discriminate higher and lower achieving groups of schools. Of the four factors the most power predictor was Student Reported Sense of Futility followed by Student Perceived Present Evaluations- Expectations almost as powerful a predictor, and Student Perceived Future Evaluations- Expectations, which was much less powerful. Student Perceived School Academic Norms ap- peared to have very little power in discrim- inating achievement within this group of variables, for this stratum. Among the predominantly white-urban schools, teacher group 1 variables significantly (p = <0.003) differentiate higher and lower achieving schools. The range of predictive power between variables is not great, the order of importance being: Teacher Future Evaluations-Expectations, Teacher Reported Push of Individual Students, and Teacher Present Evaluations—Expectations. For this stratum, the three group 2-teacher variables did not significantly (p = <0.8875) discriminate between higher and lower achieving groups of schools. Of the three factors the most powerful was Teacher Perception of Parent-Student Academic Push, followed by Teacher Reported Feelings of Job Satisfaction, a much less powerful predictor and Teacher Perception of Social System Belief in Student Academic Improvability, a very weak dis- criminator of higher and lower academic achieve- ment within this group of variables, for this stratum. Among the predominantly black-urban schools, teacher group 1 variables did not significantly (p = <0.6538) differentiate higher and lower achieving schools. The range of predictive 71 power between variables was also not great, the order of importance being Teacher Future Evaluations-Expectations, Teacher Present Evaluations-Expectations, and Teacher Reported Push of Individual Students. For this stratum, the three group 2-teacher variables also did not significantly (p = <0.5897) discriminate between higher and lower achieving groups of schools. Of the three factors, the most power- ful was Teacher Perception of System Belief in Student Improvability followed by Teacher Per- ception of Parent-Student Academic Push, much less powerful and Teacher Reported Feelings of Job Satisfaction, a very weak discriminator of higher and lower academic achievement within this group of variables for this stratum. Among the rural schools, group 1--teacher variables significantly (p = 0.0590) differen- tiate higher and lower achieving schools. The most powerful discriminator is Teacher Future Evaluations-Expectations, followed closely by Teacher Reported Push of Individual Students, and finally by Teacher Present Evaluations- Expectations, although nowhere as powerful a variable as others still appears to differen- tiate achievement groups. Group 2--teacher variables are not significant (p = 0.4831) discriminators of achievement but the most powerful variable of the group is Teacher Perceived Parent-Student Academic Push, fol- lowed by Teacher Perception of Social System Belief in Student Academic Improvability, less powerful and Teacher Report of Job Satisfaction, a weak discriminator of Achievement for this stratum. On the basis of the multivariate analysis, the following conclusions were reached: 1. Within variable group A, the five student scales significantly (p = .004) differentiated between white and black schools. Reported teacher press for competition was the only univariate which contributed (p = .0006) significantly to the difference. Black schools reported a higher Reported teacher press for competition than white schools. Further 1. 72 Within variable group B the five student scales significantly (p = .05) differentiated between white and black schools. Self-concept of academic ability (p = .002), Perceived peer expectations and evaluations (p = .05), and Perceived teacher expectations and evaluations (p = .04) were the univariates which contrib- uted significantly to the black and white difference. Black schools reported a higher Self-concept of academic ability, a higher Perceived peer expectations and evaluations, and a higher Perceived teacher expectations and evaluations than white schools. Within variable group C, the four student factors significantly (p = .003) differentiated between white and black schools. Student per- ceived present evaluations-expectations (p = .001), and Student reported sense of futility (p = .001) were the univariates which contrib- uted significantly to the black and white difference. White schools reported a higher Student perceived present evaluations- expectations and black schools reported a higher sense of futility. analysis revealed that: Student reported sense of futility is lower for higher achieving schools in all white-urban, black-urban, and rural comparisons. Student perceptions of future evaluations- expectations are more positive for higher achieving schools among all black- and white- urban pairs, but not for the rural schools. Teacher present evaluations-expectations are more positive in all higher achieving schools, among all the white-urban pairs and all but one of the black-urban pairs. Teacher future evaluations-expectations of students are consistently more positive in the higher achieving of each pair of white- urban schools and in the high achieving black schools of each pair matched on S.E.S. The teacher present evaluations-expectations factor is generally more positive in our rural 73 sample than in urban schools, but the teacher future evaluations-expectations factor is generally lower in the rural schools than in the urban schools. 6. Teacher reported push of individual students (is consistently lower in the higher achieving schools within the white-urban matched pairs, and all but one of the black-urban matched pairs. 7. Job satisfaction appears to have little rela- tionship to achievement, but it does appear to have a relationship to S.E.S. among white and black-urban schools. Interestingly enough, teachers express higher satisfaction in lower S.E.S. black schools than they do in higher S.E.S. black schools, but teachers express greater job satisfaction in higher S.E.S. white schools than they do in lower S.E.S. white schools. 8. Teacher perception of student improvability does not appear to differentiate between the higher achieving white schools, but it does appear to differentiate between higher and lower achieving black-urban schools. It is quite evident from Brookover's study that student perceived and teacher evaluations-expectations do affect student academic achievement. These findings clearly supplement those of earlier studies in the area. These studies do reveal the influence of parents, peer group teachers, and principals evaluations-expectations on stu- dents' academic achievement. This necessitates that stu- dents correctly perceive the actual evaluations-expectations of their parents. This study seeks to determine how similar students perceptions are to their parents actual evaluations- expectations. If per chance this correlation is negative, 74 then the contention that students perceptions of parents evaluations-expectations is an intervening variable between parents and students achievements is highly questionable. Communityjand Parental Integration into the School Environment In response to the poor educational conditions and lack of achievement found in low socioeconomic and/or minority schools much literature in recent years has been discussing the advantages and disadvantages of community or home involvement in the school (Hamilton, 1968; Beruke and Gittle, 1968; Levin, 1970). At the root of this literature is the principle that the time has come for schools to respond to the needs of their local community rather than the community to the needs of the schools (Katz, 1971). This presents a value conflict situation between the school and community, with the students in the center of the con- frontation, thus, presenting negative effects on the school academic climate (Gans, 1962). Studies on school-community integration are rather recent since empirical research in this area has been grossly neglected. A number of studies have been conducted linking parental interest to achievement. Williman (1969) researching the effect of parental participation in an educational program on future academic achievement found that the influence of highly active parents' involvement 75 in the Head Start program appeared to serve as an intervening variable which influenced academic motivation and achievement. He also found that those parents who cared most about the Head Start program were able to communicate this and trans- fer educational aspiration for achievement to their children. Coleman (1966) and Smith and Brahce (1963) also support this contention of the effect of parents on students' academic achievement. A number of studies have even begun to approach the question of the relationship between community-school inte- gration and student achievement, centering mainly on school millage defects (Crane, 1971), community support for such school organizations as the Parent Teacher Association and the community turnover (Sexton, 1961). Feelings of Efficacy/Futility The preceding literature contended that community and parental involvement in the school positively affects students' academic achievement. Wilson (1969) contended that higher achievement and high "sense of control" was found more among middle class students than in low S.E.S. students and Heath (1970) found that white students had a significantly higher "sense of control" or efficacy level with the school than did black children. ('9— (J W! n) ’1 (‘f 76 Battle and Rotter (1963) were in a sense the pioneers of the concept of "sense of control" or efficacy with the schools. They found that low S.E.S. children saw themselves as more externally controlled and less capable of determining their own destiny than did higher S.E.S. children. Haggstrom (1964) and Clark (1965) supported these findings contending that in conditions of poverty, minority group status may produce feelings of powerlessness and frustration. The effects of the phenomenon of sense of control or efficacy with the school on the individual is known. This author contends that the children of parents who see themselves as having a high sense of control or efficacy with the children's school will more correctly perceive their parents social evaluations-expectations of their academic performance. Summary This literature reviewed in this study consisted of two major sections. Since little previous research with regard to the comparison of student perceived and parent actual evaluations-expectations was located, literature was presented on certain variables which were most cited by researchers as affecting educational outcomes, i.e., S.E.S., heredity, early socialization and most recently environmen- tal variables, and school normative climate. 77 Among the most cited environmental variables are the evaluations-expectations of significant others. It has been postulated that significant others' evaluations- expectations do influence students self-concept and hence their academic performance. Thus this theory assumes that students do correctly perceive their significant others (e.g., parents) evaluations-expectations of them. This of course is the major investigation of this study. This research is intended to expand social inter- action theory and to provide educational researchers and policy makers with information necessary to help bring about higher achievement in the schools. CHAPTER IV PROCEDURES AND METHODOLOGY As previously stated, the aim of this analysis is to investigate the similarity of students perceptions of their parents evaluations-expectations of them and their parents actual evaluations-expectations, and whether the similarity of parents-student responses is affected by variables such as school achievement level of the child, schol racial composition, parents academic achievement, parents involvement with their child's school activities, parental surveillance of students academic activities, the parent's satisfaction with his own educational attainment, parent's efficacy with his child's school (otherwise called sense of futility) and the academic performance of the students. The study also investigates which of the two variables, student perception or parents actual evaluations- expectations, is the better indicator of the student's academic performance. Underlying this attempt is the acceptance of research (reviewed in Chapter III) demon- strating that the actual responses of "significant others" to students are important in determining how the individual will perceive himself and that this perception will 78 79 influence his self—concept which in turn guides his behavior academically and otherwise. The basic assumption in the literature, however, is that students accurately perceive the responses of "significant others." This chapter consists of five parts. The sampling population is thoroughly described with a brief overview of the study; the instrumentation employed is operationally defined and the data collection processes presented. The hypothesis is presented and stated in testable form and the design and data analysis techniques explained and justified. Population Under Study, Samples, and Sites of Research As part of the Michigan State Assessment of School programs, the Michigan Department of Education had collected data on socioeconomic status level, racial composition of schools, and achievement level from every elementary school in Michigan. In conjunction with larger research, several elementary schools were selected for study. Schools were paired with regard to similarities in socioeconomic status level and racial composition, and variability with regard to mean achievement level. Sixteen schools were included in the study, resulting in the administering of questionnaires to over 2,000 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students. With the cooperation of the Michigan State Assess- ment Program, Michigan Department of Education and in 80 collaboration with Dr. Wilbur Brookover (Michigan State University), and Dr. Edsel L. Erickson (Western Michigan University), four school communities were selected for the study of student and parent beliefs about themselves, others in their lives and their schools. As part of this second larger study, additional data for this present investigation was obtained. From the group of schools in which students were administered questionnaires, four communities were selected which were located close enough to Michigan State University such that problems inherent in an interview study could be overcome. From the total number of students from each of the four schools who had completed questionnaires, four samples of thirty each were randomly selected for parental interviews. With the assistance of school author- ities, the addresses of the parents were located from school records. Interviews were then conducted with 120 parents of students who had previously completed questionnaires. This entire sampling and data collection procedure was completed during the Spring of 1971 for both student and parent data. The choice of elementary students and parents as subjects in this research stems from the findings in the research of Brookover (1962) and Coleman (1961). Coleman infers that students at the elementary age level are mostly influenced by their parents and that parents decline as a relevant point of reference as adolescents move into the 81 high school system. Brookover, on the other hand, supports Coleman and in his research study of secondary schools ques- tioned students to identify various categories of "others" as important in their lives and as concerned about how well they did in school. Parents were consistently named by 93 to 97 percent of the boys and 96 to 99 percent of the girls in response to "who are the most important persons in your life" and by 95 to 97 percent of the boys and 97 percent of the girls at each grade level in response to the question: "who is concerned about how well you do in school?" Because of the above mentioned findings of Brookover and Coleman, one would conjecture that the interaction of elementary students and their parents would be of such, that students would accurately perceive their evaluations- expectations of their academic performance. Furthermore, based on Brookover's social psychological theory of learning (1969), one would hypothesize that parents (significant others) would also influence elementary students academic achievement. The samples for the current research, 120 students, attended four elementary schools selected on the basis of socioeconomic status and achievement of schools within two strata: two predominantly white schools and two predomi- nantly black schools. All four schools in this study were 82 of low socioeconomic status. All schools were essentially 100 percent white or black and were designated thus. Achievement for the selection of schools for the sample was based on the State Assessment Test* percentile scores. This standardized index of achievement is a score of their separate achievement tests: reading, English, expression, and arithmetic. Identical tests were administered to all fourth grade students in the year 1970-71. The schools index ran from approximately 37.0-63.0. Schools scoring below the mean of fifty were considered achieving below average or "low achieving schools," and those scoring above the mean of fifty were designated "high achieving schools." This achievement information serves to describe the criteria for the selection of the schools used in this study. How- ever, analysis of student academic achievement or perfor- mance in this present study is based on the student's performance on the Stanford Achievement Test, Intermediate II Battery for grades five and six age levels. These tests were administered to the students in the Spring Term of 1971. Truman Kelly (1965) states: The Stanford Achievement Test is the designation of a series of comprehensive achievement tests developed to measure important knowledge, skills, *Educational Testing Service and Michigan Department of Education; Technical Report of Selected Aspects of the 1969-1970 Michigan Educational Assessment Program (Lansing, Mich.: Published by the Michigan Department of Education, 1970). 83 and understandings commonly accepted as desirable outcomes of the major branches of the elementary curriculum. The test had been planned with a view toward simplicity of administration, scoring and interpretation so that they may be used effec- tively by persons with little or no formal training in the use of standard test . . . (p. 3). The Intermediate II Battery is primarily designed for use from the middle grade 5 to the end of grade 6. The Intermediate II Battery includes nine tests: word meaning, paragraph meaning, spelling, language, arithmetic computa- tion, arithmetic concepts, arithmetic applications, and social studies. In this study one of the schools (No. 13) limited its test to only word meaning, paragraph meaning, arithmetic computation, arithmetic concepts, and arithmetic application. This means that our analysis in all four scores was limited to student achievement in these five areas. The average score of the word meaning and paragraph meaning was con— sidered the student's score for English and the average of arithmetic computation, arithmetic concepts and arithmetic application was taken as his arithmetic score. S.E.S. Index The four schools employed in this study were all of low and similar socioeconomic status as indicated in Fig— ure 1. S.E.S. was obtained from an assessment test composed of a battery of items as shown in Appendix A. High and low 84 S.E.S. were above and below the mean score of forty-nine, respectively. To check the validity of our S.E.S. data which has been supported by other researchers, Henderson (1973, p. 62) states that, First, school district officials were asked to evaluate the S.E.S. ranking which the school in question had received on the State Assessment evaluation. Secondly, this researcher, along with other members of the research team, drove through the area encompassing the school atten- dance boundaries to determine if, in their opinion, the State S.E.S. index was noticeably inaccurate. Thirdly, part of the student questionnaires which constituted part of our study, concerning the occupation of either the father, or principal wage earner, was coded on the basis of the Duncan Socio- Economic Index for Occupations (Reiss, 1962, p. 263). To gain insight into the communities in which the schools were located and the relationship of the schools and communities, the principals were asked by questionnaire, "What is there about the community school relationship that would help one to better understand the nature of this school?" The principal of school 13 remarked, "many broken homes," "mothers working," "early independence training," "rework boundaries to lessen load in certain schools," "our kids are no different from anywhere else." The principal of school 14, the other black school, stated: "Sixty percent turnover of kids, parents talk a good game but can't come through," "parents are at fault, not teachers," "inner city principals should get together to develop a program," "no parental involvement," "money should be conditional by 85 requiring parents to be involved," "middle-aged teachers should be brought back into the inner city," "the community is proud that I made it," "teachers are willing to work with what they have," "appears to want miracles." In the two white schools, principals stated: "We have many families moving in for three months to a year and then leaving," "larger families than my last school," "higher rate of unemployment and welfare cases," "higher vandalism but it has decreased in the last three years," "more broken homes," "closely related families attending schools together and this places us in the middle when family feuds occur." The principal of the other white school stated: "Both the parents and school like the close communication," "full and complete communication between the families and the school," "we encourage the families to come in and visit with us." It is necessary to state at this point, that although data was collected from 120 parents and their children, only the data for 111 students and parents was used in this study. In two of the schools, 08 and 09, the data was not complete as coded data for one parent in school 08 and for two parents in 09 were missing. In school 3, no parent data nor standard achievement scores could be located from the school for six students. Since individual students and parents are the main unit of analysis, 111 students and parents provided the sample. 86 Figure 1 presents the characteristics of schools selected for the study: race, S.E.S., achievement level, and sample N, and Figure 2 presents the design for the sample selection criteria. School Percent Race White S.E.S. Achievement Level 08 09 13 14 White 100.0 Low-44.9 Low-44.6 White 97.7 Low—46.65 High-55.1 Black 0.8 Low-43.8 High-47.2 Black 13.8 Low-46.7 Low-38.0 29 28 24 3O Figure 1. Characteristics of schools selected for the study--race, S.E.S., achievement level, and sample N. L O W S. Ifigh BLACK WHITE Achieving Low Achieving High Achieving Low Achieving Figure 2. Design for sample selection criteria. 87 Instrumentation The instruments employed in this study consisted of two separate but interrelated questionnaires, one for students and one for parents. These questionnaires were originally developed by Dr. Wilbur B. Brookover, Richard Gigliotti and Dr. Edsel L. Erickson in 1969. Both ques- tionnaires were interrelated in that they contain a number of similar questions designed to elicit attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of those individuals sampled. The original instrument used for student data collection was pre-tested to check for needed revisions at six elementary schools in a moderate-sized industrial city. This resulted in the elimination or rephrasing of several items whose intended meaning the subjects judged difficult to comprehend. Data Collection Student data was collected through the use of a group administered questionnaire technique by a trained staff of four, including the writer. Depending upon the literacy level of the students, the questionnaires were read to the students in their entirety or students were allowed to complete the instrument on a self-administered basis. This method of data collection was advantageous in terms of finance and efficiency. 88 The research team was composed of a group of four male researchers who administered the questionnaires. There were both black and white researchers ranging in age from twenty-five to thirty. The researchers were able to observe the school environment, and the reactions of the subjects and the school staff towards the team. The student achieve- ment test scores on the Standard Achievement Test were delivered to this author by the Office of the Superintendent of the particular school. Coding of the questionnaire data was done by the staff which collected the data. In most cases all question- naires were retained. Data was key punched and verified by the Data Processing Office at the Computer Lab of Michigan State University, and all analysis was by either the Control Data Corporation 3600 or 6500 Digital Computer. Parent data was collected by a group of four Sociology Students from Western Michigan University, one of whom was the writer who later transferred to Michigan State University. All questionnaires, responses and inter- views were conducted in the homes. Western Michigan Univer- sity's Computer Laboratory was employed in the key punching and Data Processing of the data. 89 Perceived Evaluations and Expectations The dependent variable in this study is the similarity between students perceived parental, and parents actual evaluations-expectations of them. The scales in the study were constructed to measure these dimensions of eval- uations and expectations which are defined as follows: 1. Perceived evaluation is defined as evaluating definitions Which an individual perceives another person holds of him in respect to his ability in academic tasks in general, as compared with others in his school class. Perceived expectations is defined as expectations which an individual perceives another person holds of him in respect to academic rank, as compared with others in his school class. These definitions are in line with the self-other relationship theory favored by Wilbur B. Brookover. To top this variable, evaluations-expectations, students were asked the following questions: 1. How far do you think your parents believe you will go in school? 1. Finish grade school. 2. Go to high school for awhile. 3. Finish high school. 4. Go to college for awhile. 5. Finish college. Think of your mother and father. Do your mother and father say you can do work better, the same, or poorer than your friends? 1. Poorer 2. Same as most 3. Better 90 3. Would your mother and father say that your grades would be the best, same as most, or below most of the students when you finish high school? 1. Below most 2. Same as most 3. The best 4. Do your parents think you can finish college? 1. No 2. Maybe 3. Yes 5. Remember, you need more than four years of college to be a teacher or doctor. Do your mother and father think you could do that? 1. No 2. Maybe 3. Yes 6. What grades do your mother and father think you can get? 1. Mostly D's and E's. 2. Mostly C's and B's. 3. Mostly A's. Parents Actual Evaluations- —_ Expectations Data was collected from parents on the following variables: actual evaluations-expectations of their chil- dren's academic performance, parental academic achievement, parental involvement in child's school activities, parental surveillance, parental satisfaction with his personal edu- cational level and parental sense of futility. It is nec- essary to emphasize that in this study "actual" evaluations- expectations are the "reported" evaluations-expectations of parents. 91 Parent present and future actual evaluations- expectations is defined as the level of academic performance which the parents believe to be normal and probable for his child in the school. Present and future evaluations- expectations were measured by asking parents: 1. How far in school do you think your child should go? I think he I think he I think he I think he I think he thle—I 0000. should finish 8th grade or less. should go to high school. should graduate from high school. should go to college for awhile. should graduate from college or go beyond college. 2. Do you think your child can do work better, the same, or poorer than his (or her) friends? 1. Poorer 2. The same 3. Better 3. Do you think your child will be with the best, average, or below average students when he (or she) graduates from high school? 1. Below average 2. Average 3. Above average 4. Do you think your child could graduate from college? 1. No 2. Maybe 3. Yes 5. Remember, a person needs more than four years of college to be a doctor or a college professor. Do you think your 1. No 2. Maybe 3. Yes child could do that? 92 6. What grades do you think your child g§£_get? l. D's and E's 2. B's and C's 3. A's and B's Previous research has successfully utilized the six previous items as indicators of parental evaluations- expectations of their child's academic ability (Brookover g5;gl,, 1965). These items were developed in slightly altered form, as mentioned before, to measure perceived significant others evaluations-expectations. In that form, this scale was subject to several reliability and validity studies; these studies dealt with unimpaired, visually impaired, hearing impaired students and a study of the current and future characterization of self (Vonk, 1969; Joiner, 1966; Brookover §£_§l., 1965; Bilby, 1972). In all cases, the scale was shown to be internally consistent, reproducible, stable, as well as having content and pre- dictive validity. In the Bilby study, the six items displayed quite high interrelations. Parental Achievement--the highest academic level parent had achieved was measured by asking parents: 1. How far did you go in school? . Eighth grade or less . Some high school . High school graduation . Some college . Graduated from a two year college . Graduated from a four year college or university . Did graduate work beyond the B.A. \lO‘U’l-bDJNI-J 93 Items 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 were categorized high academic achievement levels while items 1 and 2 were indicators of low achievement level. Parental Involvement--frequency of interaction with school (i.e., teacher or principal) and attending school events were measured by the following question: During the school year have you attended any school events--for instance, films, programs, PTA meetings, plays, and so forth? 1. Never 2. Seldom 3. Sometimes 4. Often Responses 1 and 2 indicate low involvement and items 3 and 4 indicated high parental involvement. Parental Surveillance--the degree to which parents were aware of the performance of their child in the student role was measured by asking parents two questions: 1. Could you tell us what stories or reading books your child has been studying at school? 2. Do you know what your child has been working on in arithmetic class lately? Parents answers were classified under the following three categories: 0. Do not know 1. Can give a general answer 2. Can give a specific answer Responses 0 and l were considered low surveillance indi- cators and response 2 as an indicator of high parental surveillance. 94 Parental satisfaction with his educational level-- parental attitude towards their academic achievement was measured by the following question: If you could have your way and could change your school background, how would you change it? 1. Would quit sooner 2. Satisfied with background 3. Would finish more schooling Responses 1 and 2 indicated persons who are satisfied with their educational achievement and item 3 indicated those who are dissatisfied. Parental efficacy with the schools--the perception of parents hopelessness or their influence in the decision making processes in the schools, was determined by the following question: Do you think that the opinion of parents carry any weight in influencing the decisions about important issues made by your child's school? 1. Yes, definitely 2. Unsure 3. Definitely not or not for the most part. Items 2 and 3 were indicators of low parental efficacy and item 1, an indicator of high level of efficacy. It must be borne in mind that a person with a high efficacy score would have indicated that he believes he carries weight or has some say in his child's school and those with low efficacy would indicate the contrary. Other variables considered were socioeconomic status of school, academic achievement and race. 95 Socioeconomic Status (S.E.S.)--The rank position of a person or unit in society on the basis of prestige, power, and property (income). Academic Achievement--The level of performance which the school or child has demonstrated in academic subjects. BEEEF'A division of mankind possessing traits that are transmissible by descent sufficient to characterize it as a human category. The two racial classifications in this study are black and white with reference to schools. Design and Analysis This section enumerates the specific techniques employed in reaching the general research objectives in this study, and the design used in the analysis of the data. These objectives may be briefly restated in the form of empirical questions: 1. What is the degree of similarity between students perception of their parents evaluations-expectations of their children's academic performance, and their parents actual evaluations-expectations? 2. Is there a difference in this similarity level of students and parents responses when the following variables are considered: school achievement, racial composition of school, parents academic 96 achievement, parents involvement with their child's school activities, parents surveillance of the child's academic performance, parents satisfaction with their own academic attainment, parental effi- cacy with the schools, and the academic performance level of the student? 3. Is there a difference between student perception of their parents evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations as a predictor of student academic achievement? These three factors forming the basis for this research are the following research hypotheses which will be tested to answer the first question. Major Hypothesis 1: Students perceived parental evaluations-expectations of their academic performance will not differ signif- icantly from their parents actual evaluations- expectations. In null form 97 Sub-Hypotheses: a. There is no difference in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to student perceived parental evaluations-expectations between students in black schools and students in white schools (see page 28). H _ R2 ' uB ' uw In null form H 02 - uB # uw There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents have high efficacy with their children's school and students whose parents have low efficacy with the schools. HR 3 uHF # “LF In null form Ho 3 uHF = uLF There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations, between 98 students in high achieving schools and students in low achieving schools. In null form “LA There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to per- ceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations, between students whose parents have high academic attainment and stu- dents whose parents have limited academic achievement. H R5 uPH # uPL In null form Ho 5 “PH = “PL There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents are highly involved in their children's schools activities and students whose parents are not highly involved in their children's school activities. 99 R6 ‘ “HI # uLs In null form H 06 . uHI # uLs There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations—expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents have high surveillance over their children's academic performance and students whose parents have low surveillance over their children's academic performance. H R7 . 11HS 6 111.8 In null form H0 0 .— 7 ° uHS ‘ “Ls There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to student perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents are satisfied with their own educational attainment and those whose parents are dissatisfied with their own educational attainment. H . R8 ' uHSE g “LSE In null form 0 : uHSE = uLSE 100 h. There is no difference in the evaluations- expectations scores of their children's academic performance between parents with limited educational attainment and parents with high educational attainment. uHEP = uLEP In null form “HEP ¢ “LEP Major Hypothesis 2: There is a linear relationship between students achievement scores and their similarity scores-- the latter measured by a comparison of students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations. In null form 10 Major Hypothesis 3: The relationship between student perceived parental evaluations—expectations scores and student achieve- ment scores is the same as the relationship between parents actual evaluations-expectations scores and student achievement scores. 101 R11 : SP,SA = PP,SA In null form H 011 SP,SA ¢ PP,SA Data Analysis The procedures for data analysis are suggested by the nature of the hypothesis. The major hypothesis and its sub-hypothesis allowed for a test of differences between two means and the analysis of variance F test was employed as the statistical technique. The hypothesis tested assumed that the differences between the means of the two groups, “1 - ”2 is equal to zero. The alternative hypothesis is that it is different from zero: R1 ‘ u1 = '12 01 = “1 # uz or R1 : U1 - u2 = 0 1 ‘ “1 ' '12 I 0 This test assumes that there are equal variances in the two populations commonly referred to as the assumption of homo— geneous variances but most importantly it assumes that the samples are randomly drawn from the population and that there are independent samples. 102 The program employed in this analysis was the Finn Univariate Analysis of Variance, as adapted for the Michigan State University Control Data Computer 3600. The Finn program provides the following statistical information, although all of the available techniques are not used in our analysis: multivariate F, univariate F, and least square estimate of effects. The multivariate F is the overall F test of all the dependent variables in combina- tion. The univariate F is the F test for each dependent variable within the multivariate group. The least square estimate gives the direction and magnitude of the effect of interest in terms of the dependent variable for each level of the independent variable. F was used in this study because only one dependent variable is investigated: stu- dent accuracy in perceiving their parents actual evaluations- expectations of their academic performance. All tests were conducted on the null hypothesis and the probability level selected for rejecting the null hypothesis was .05 alpha level. As a test to determine the relationship between students achievement and student-parent similarity of responses with regard to evaluations-expectations, regres- sion analysis procedures were employed. This also reveals direction of the relationship where it occurred. To compare parents actual evaluations-expectations and students 103 perceived parental evaluations-expectations as indicators of students academic performance, the statistical technique of correlation coefficients was employed. Tests were conducted in the null form and the test statistic for testing H0 against H with the formula appears in Glass and Stanley (1970, p. 313). If the Z falls below the required critical value of 1.96 then the null hypothesis of no difference can be expected. In this study one dependent variable is employed and that is the similarity of student and parents responses in regard to parents evaluations-expectations of their chil- dren's academic performance. This is measured by student and parents responses to six interrelated multiple choice items. Each item reSponse was scored varying from one to three or four. Negative responses indicated low score. In this analysis the author is concerned with the difference of the total score of parents and students on each of the six questions or individual items. Signed differences between parents and student scores were employed and the direction of the difference was also of interest. Design The analysis of variance table is the design employed for the analysis of the data, and is as follows: 104 Source df Ms F P Hypothesis 1 l 14.41 1.469 .228 Error 110 9.81 F = 1.469, with l and 110 df which yields P value of .228. Null hypothesis not rejected at .05 alpha (a) level of significance. df degrees of freedom Ms = means squared F = computed test statistic, one way analysis of variance P = probability value If the null hypothesis is true the P value is the probability of getting a calculated F statistic as large or larger than the F value obtained from the sample. If the P value is less than the chosen alpha (a) level, then the null hypothesis is rejected. While the Anova table was employed in presenting the results of the test using the total scores, Figure 3 will be used to present the findings on each of the six individual items when all the hypotheses of parent and student similarity are tested. This will reveal whether there is a consistent pattern of findings on any individual 105 .mcowumuommxolmGOAHMsHm>o Hmsuom musmnmm zuflz mc0flumuommxoumcoflumsam>o musmumm mo coaumoouom ucwpsum mcwummfioo swsz moHnMflHm> ucmsogfioo oau mo muasmou one .m oHsmHm ouoom Hmuoa moddfihomuwm mo :ofiumaam>o Hammond mpflHflnmmmo HMGOflmmOMOHm mmmHHoo ouoamaoo on unflaflnd coaumspmum Hoonom and; um mocmshomuom cwuowmxm mucoflum nufl3 oumu ooddfihomumm Hammond wUGMEMOMHom pasp< wuwafiusm coaumoswm mocmaafio>usm unmEm>HO>GH unmao>oflno< comm Hm>mq Houseman dowuommmflumm Hmucoumm Hmunonmm mo Hm>oq udmfiobmflnoé Hmucmumm Hmucoumm Hoonom 106 item. "=" indicates a significant finding. "-" indicates no significance. Contingency tables will also be employed to show the distribution of scores for parent-student pairs on the variables of interest. Summary One hundred and eleven students from two black and two white schools were selected in a random manner as the sample to investigate the degree of similarity between parents actual evaluations-expectations and students per- ceived parental evaluations-expectations of their academic performance. Students respond to questionnaires, which were quite similar to those their parents were asked to respond to, about their views of their children's academic perfor- mance. Independent variables were school achievement level, school racial composition, parents achievement, parental involvement in child's school activities, parental surveil- lance of child academic input, parental satisfaction with his own educational attainment, parental efficacy with his child's school and the level of students academic perfor- mance. Further investigation centers on whether a differ- ence exists in the expectations for children, between highly educated parents and those with limited education. Investi- gation was further expanded to see whether there was a 107 difference between students perceived evaluations- expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations as indicators of students academic achievement. The hypotheses were tested by using the Finn Univariate F Test, regression analysis procedures and the analysis of coefficient correlation. The probability level selected for rejecting the null hypothesis was .05. CHAPTER V FINDINGS Under the rubric of symbolic interaction many social scientists have contended that the actual responses of "significant others" to students are important in deter- mining how the individual will perceive himself, and that this perception will influence his self-conception which in turn guides his behavior. This contention assumes that students more or less accurately perceive the responses of significant others. This study attempted to investigate the similarity of students perceptions of their parents evaluations-expectations of their child's academic per- formance with parents actual evaluations-expectations of the same. This is measured by comparing parents actual evaluations-expectations with the student's perception of the same, measured by their responses to questions focusing on the following component variables: 1. the highest academic level the student will reach in his life time 2. the level of academic performance parents presently expect of the child in comparison with other students and friends 108 109 3. parents present and future evaluation of the child's academic potential in comparison with other classmates 4. the child's ability to complete a four year pro— fessional college degree 5. parents present evaluation of the child's academic performance. This study also investigated which of the two variables, student perception of parents actual evaluations-expectations, is the more valid indicator of the student's academic performance. Initial Research Hypothesis The general research hypothesis for which the data was collected is as follows: 1. Students perceived parental evaluations-expectations of their academic performance will not differ signif- icantly from their parents actual evaluations- expectations of them. In null form 01 = “s # up Analysis Procedure: Analysis of variance F test Alpha: .05 level of significance 110 Tests were also conducted to measure the effect of the following controlled variables on the similarity of parent-student responses. Additional tests also measured their effect on each component variable: Racial composition of the school School achievement level Parental academic achievement Parental involvement in the child's school activities Parental surveillance of the child's school performance Parent's satisfaction with his own educational attainment Parental sense of futility Academic performance level of the child. It was hypothesized that: a. There is no difference in the degree of similarity of student-parent responses to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations betwwen students in black schools and students in white schools. H In null form 111 There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to per- ceived parental evaluations-expectations, between students whose parents have high efficacy with their child's school and students whose parents have low efficacy with the schools. HR : :1: II t t' 3 E E In null form H 1: m II 1: I." 03 E E There are differences in the degree of similarity of parent and student responses with regard to per- ceived parental evaluations-expectations, between students in high achieving schools and students in low achieving schools. H R4 11 11 HA" LA In null form H “L =“L 04 A A There are differences in the degree of similarity of parent and student responses with regard to per- ceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations, between students whose parents have high academic attainment and students whose parents have limited academic achievement. 112 In null form Ho 1: *U ll 1: *U 5 H L There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to per- ceived evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents are highly involved in their child's school activities and students whose parents are not highly involved in their children's school activities. HR : LlHI # 11L 6 S In null form There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parents responses with regard to per- ceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents have high surveillance over their children's academic performance and students whose parents have low surveillance over their children's academic performance. 113 In null form There are differences in the degree of similarity of students and parents responses with regard to per- ceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents are satisfied with their educational attainment and those whose parents are dissatisfied with their own educational attainment. HR : uH # 11L In null form There is no difference in the expectations- evaluations score of their children's performance between parents with limited educational attainment and parents with high educational attainment. HR 9 E E In null form 114 Major Hypothesis 2: There is a linear relationship between students achievement scores and parent-student similarity scores with regard to students perceived and parent actual evaluations-expectations. H R10 1 w II o H 010 w 5..- ‘1L 0 Major Hypothesis 3: The relationship between student perceived parental evaluations-expectations scores and student achieve- ment scores is the same as the relationship between parents actual evaluations-expectations scores and student achievement scores. HR 11 0SP, SA = ppP,SA Ho 11 pSP, SA ¢ pPP,SA The analysis of variance F test was used in analyz- ing each component variable controlling for school academic achievement level, school racial composition, parental effi- cacy with the schools, parental involvement with child's school activities, parental surveillance of student academic performance and parental satisfaction with his/her educa- tional attainment. These form sub-hypotheses a through h. 115 As a test to determine whether there is a linear relation- ship between students academic achievement and parent- student similarity scores, regression analysis procedures were employed and the analysis of correlation coefficients was used to investigate whether the relationship between student perceived parental evaluations-expectations scores and student achievement scores was the same as the relation- ship between parents actual evaluations-expectations scores and student achievement scores. In other words, what is the relationship between student perceived evaluations- expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations as an indicator of student academic performance? All hypotheses in this study were tested in the null form. It must be borne in mind that the dependent variable in hypotheses 1 through 9 is the parent-student similarity score (parent total score minus student total score) as elaborated upon in the preceding chapter. Results The general hypothesis that students are generally accurate in their perception of their parents evaluations- expectations was supported (Appendix B, Table 1). On the total similarity scores the data suggests that there is no mean level difference between parents and students scores when the total population is considered. However, the 116 correlation between students total score and that of parents is .336 which suggests a low linear relationship. The con- tingency Table 2, Appendix B shows the distribution of parents total score with student total score when the total population is considered. The fairly even spread of scores across possible values indicates the linear relationship. One possible explanation for this is that in some sub-groups, parents may excel over students in total scores, whereas in other sub-groups the reverse may be true. Thus when consid- ering the mean scores for the parents for the whole group versus the mean scores for the students in the entire group, the differences in the sub-groups may disappear or may not be evident. The test for hypotheses Ia and lb tend to sup- port this conclusion of sub-group differences for when the sub-group is divided into sub-groups based on racial compo- sition of schools, and parental efficacy with the schools, the differences are significant. Other sub-groupings (school achievement level, parental academic attainment, parental involvement, parental surveillance, parental satisfaction with his own educational attainment and the child's academic performance) did not produce significant differences. Controlling for School Racial Composition The findings reported in Table 3, Appendix B, reveal that in the schools examined, there is significant difference 117 between the similarity scores of students in black schools and students in white schools with regard to student per- ceived and parents actual evaluations—expectations. Exam— ination of the cell means in Table 4, Appendix B reveals that the average difference in total score (parents minus students) in white schools was -.2759. This indicates that in white schools, on the average, students perceived their parents as expecting more of them academically than parents say they do. In the black schools the average difference in total score was 1.0567 which indicates that students per- ceive their parents as expecting less of them in their academic performance than their parents actually expect. Tests were also conducted to discover which of the two categories of schools had the greater absolute scores, i.e., the means of the absolute differences of student scores on perception of parents evaluations-expectations compared with parents actual evaluation scores. This was . computed by using absolute difference scores. This test was employed as it tells how far apart are the parent and student on a single parent-student score regardless of which score is higher. The reader would recall that mention was made of the possibility of the signed differences balancing each other out (large positive versus large negative) not allowing the reader to discover where the true differences are. In the absolute score test all are positive and the 118 possibility of balancing out is nil. This test was also employed on this variable of race and efficacy since they are the only two variables which made significant differ- ences on our hypotheses. The test revealed that in white schools parents scores and student scores differed an average of 2.551. In black schools, parent scores and student scores differed on an average of 2.547. It appears then that parents and students in both types of schools are equally inaccurate in their views of the students perfor- mance. However, on the basis of the previous analysis using signed differences it appears that the parents in the predom- inantly black schools have higher evaluations-expectations, on the average, than their children perceive and the opposite is true of the white. Controlling for Parental Efficacy with Child's School The findings in Table 5, Appendix B, are similar to those reported in Table 3. There is evidence to suggest that students whose parents see themselves as having high efficacy with their child's school to differ from students whose parents have low efficacy with the schools, in their parent-student similarity scores (P==.050). Examination of the cell means (Table 6, Appendix B) further reveals that parents who have a high efficacy level with their children's school have higher evaluations-expectations than their 119 children perceive (difference of the total score, parent minus student) being .8767. On the other hand, students of low efficacy parents also did perceive their parents as having higher evaluations-expectations than their parents indicated. (Low efficacy difference of the total score = .740741.) Controlling for School Achievement Level Table 7, Appendix B, reveals that the null hypoth- esis that students in low S.E.S. high achieving schools do not differ Significantly from students in low S.E.S. low achieving schools in their similarity scores has not been rejected. Students similarity scores do not appear to differ when school achievement level is considered. However, the correlation within low achieving schools between parents total scores and students total score is .1897 and for high achieving schools .5359. Observed cell means (Table 8, Appendix B) reveals that the average difference of the total score for high achieving schools was .2076 and for low achieving schools .5000. Controlling for Parental Academic Achievement There is no difference in the degree of similarity of students and parents responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual 120 evaluations-expectations, between students whose parents have completed high school or have attended college and students whose parents have had less than twelfth grade education. These findings are reported in Table 9, Appendix B. P==.2986 at .05 level of Significance. Observed cell means are presented in Table 10, Appendix B, and reveal that the average of the difference in total score for students of high educated parents was -.0227 and limited educated parents .6119. Controlling for Parental Involvement The findings in Table 11, Appendix B, reveal that in low S.E.S. schools there are no differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents are highly involved in their children's school activities. The possibility of difference was less than .9484 at .05 level of significance. The observed cell means (Table 12, Appendix B) reveals that the average of the dif- ference total for involved parents was .3830 and for limited involved .2338. Controlling for Parental Surveillance Table 13, Appendix B, presents the findings that there are no significant differences in the degree of 121 similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations, between students whose parents have high surveillance over their children's academic performance and students whose parents do not demonstrate high surveillance over their chidren's academic performance. Observed cell means (Table 14, Appendix B) demonstrates that h-e average of the difference total score (parents minus students) for high surveillance parents was .12500 and for low surveillance parents was .4930. Controlling for Parental Satisfaction with Educational Attainment The findings reported in Table 15, Appendix B, suggest there are no differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents are satisfied with their own educational attainment and those whose parents are dissatisfied with thier own educa- tional level. The probability of differences between the two levels of satisfaction was less than .9124 at the .05 level of significance. Observed cell means (Table 16, Appendix B) reveals that the average of the difference in the total score for students of satisfied parents was .4286 and those of dissatisfied parents .3444. 122 Evaluations-Expectations Controlling for Parental Educational Level Tests were also conducted to measure whether or not parents with high educational attainment differed from parents with limited educational attainment in their evaluations and expectations for their children. Table 17, Appendix B, reveals that parents educational level makes no difference in their educational evaluations and expectations for their children. Parents in both categories hold high expectations for their children. Probability of difference was .2215. Relationship between Student Achievement!and Parent-Student Similarity Scores The finding in Table 18, Appendix B (regression analysis) reveal that there was no relationship between student's achievement scores and the student-parent sim- ilarity scores, with regard to students perceived and parents actual evaluations-expectations. The lack of relationship existed on all of the individual items, for at no time was their significance at the .05 level. It is necessary to elaborate on Table 18 at this point. First, an explanation of Multiple y. Multiple Y is the correlation between the observed similarity score and the predicted simr ilarity score, where the predicted score is based upon the linear regression of the similarity scores (parent minus 123 student) and the student achievement scores. Multiple Y simply tells us how good a job the regression line did in explaining the relationship between similarity scores and achievement scores. For example, if the multiple Y is high this means that the similarity score predicted by using the regression equation based on achievement scores is very nearly the same as the actual similarity score for each parent-student pair. If the multiple Y is low (near zero) then the predicted score is not necessarily near the actual similarity score. The latter situation appears in this study. Thus the line did not provide a good explanation of the relationship between similarity scores and achieve- ment scores. P is the probability that the population multiple Y is different from zero, given the sample value for the multiple Y. The Relatignship between Student Perceived Scores, Parental Actual Scores and Student Achievement Scores As mentioned earlier, correlation coefficients were employed to compare the relationship between student "per- ceived" scores, parental "actual" scores and student achievement scores. There was no evidence to suggest that parents "actual" scores were more related to students achievement scores than were student "perceived" scores when student's English and arithmetic test scores were used as 124 measures of achievement and total scores for both parents and students on the same individual items were used as independent variables. The formula employed in testing these relationships appears in Glass and Stanley (1970), Statistics in Education and Psychology. According to the formula, if the Z score falls below the required critical value of 1.96, then the null hypothesis of no difference or relationship cannot be rejected. In this case the Z score for the correlation of parents actual and students achieve- ment scores was similar to the correlation between students perceived scores and students achievement scores as calcu- lated using word and paragraph test average as the achieve- ment score for the first test and arithmetic as the achieve- ment score for the other. The 2 values were .3691 and .7892, respectively. In neither case are the Z values large enough to reject the null hypothesis. In this study six component variables were employed to measure students accuracy in perceiving their parents actual evaluations-expectations. Questions asked to parents and students centered on: 1. the highest academic level parents believe their child will attain in his adulthood 2. the level of academic performance parents believe their child can demonstrate in comparison with his friends from high school with other classmates. 125 3. parents rating of the child's performance at graduation from high school with other classmates 4. the child's academic ability to complete a college program 5. the child's academic ability to complete a profes- sional career realizing that four years of college is the minimal requirement 6. the parents present evaluation of the child's academic performance. Table 19, Appendix B, presents the results on the investigation as to whether there was a pattern of response on any of the individual items (or component variables) when the hypotheses were tested. In Table 19, "+" signifies a significant difference and "-" signified a non-significant Situation. The data did not present any noticeable pattern of significance on any individual item. In all cases where the null hypothesis of no difference was not rejected the same situation appeared for each individual item when based on total scores. The null hypothesis was rejected on the test for racial composition of schools and parental efficacy with the children's school. In the former, this Significant difference was the same as it appeared on the individual items on parents evaluations-expectancies of adult perfor- mance, and parents rating of the child's performance com- pared to his friends'. The parent and student differences 126 on later individual items affected the significant difference on the hypothesis on parental efficacy with the child's school. The Relationship of the Interaction of Race and:Parental Efficacy to Student-Parent Similaritnycores The question as to what effects the interaction of parental efficacy with the schools and school racial compo- sition have on the parent and student similarity scores is of great interest. This was also investigated and the evidence did not suggest that the interaction of race and parental efficacy has an effect on parent-student similarity scores. This is further discussed in the following results. (F==.237° with 2 and 105 degrees of freedom which yields a P value of .7895.) The Relationship of the Interaction of Race and Parental Efficacy to Student Achievement Scores As mentioned in Chapter IV, student achievement data was received for all 111 students in this study. The achievement data for three students was incomplete and thus discarded in all analyses pertaining to academic achievement. Two variables, race and parental efficacy, affected student-parent similarity scores. However, inter- action of these two variables failed to produce any effects on parent-student similarity scores, and an effort was made 127 to investigate whether this interaction would significantly affect student academic achievement. Of the 108 students for which achievement data was complete, 89 were fifth graders and 19 were sixth graders. Since the number of sixth graders was low the test was conducted on the fifth grade data using only English (word paragraph scores) and arithmetic scores gained by students in the standard achievement tests. This regression analysis test revealed that the interaction of school racial compo- sition and parental efficacy with the school did signifi- cantly affect student achievement scores in the arithmetic area, but not the English component, as presented in Table 20, Appendix B). The Relationship between Parental Efficacy and Student Achievement Since the interaction of school racial composition and parental efficacy significantly relates to student achievement, the problem of the effects of the different efficacy levels on the achievement of black and white students evolves. Table 21, Appendix B, reveals that there are differences on achievement scores between students of parents in the different efficacy levels in the predomi- nantly white schools. Students whose parents have high efficacy achieved higher than those whose parents had low efficacy. The null hypothesis of no difference was rejected 128 (P‘<.0012). The same does not hold for black schools. There is no evidence to suggest that there are differences in student achievement between different parental efficacy levels in predominantly black schools as revealed in Table 22, Appendix B (P==.6304). Table 23, presenting the fre- quency distribution of the cell means, reveals that the means for the black schools on all parental efficacy levels are within the 40.0-44.6 range, while the achievement scores in the white schools are higher on the high parental effi- cacy level than those in the low and medium parental effi- cacy level. To measure whether these apparent differences on mean achievement scores in white schools as affected by parental efficacy, was of statistical significance, the Scheffe statistical method of multiple comparisons was applied. This test revealed that in white schools the average student achievement scores for the students whose parents have high efficacy with his child's school, is significantly higher than the average scores of the students whose parents are unsure of or have low efficacy with their child's school. The ratio 2.377 was significant at the .05 level of significance. Further Investigation of Student- Parents Similarity Outcomes It was hypothesized in this study that differences would be found in the degree of Similarity of student and 129 parent responses with regard to student perceived and parents actual evaluations-expectations as a result of the levels of the variables parental efficacy, school achieve- ment level, parental achievement level, parental involvement in child's school activities, parental surveillance of child's academic performance and parental satisfaction with his own educational background. However, only two of these variables, parental sense of efficacy and school racial composition,made any significant difference in similarity scores. Further information was needed to help explain the situation. Contingency tables reveal wide and scattered distribution of scores within each group, which shows no significant relationship between parent and students scores and affect most unexpected correlations as presented on the following page. The correlation of parents total and stu- dents total score within each level of tested variables is shown on next page. School achievement level and parental satisfaction with his educational attainment were the only two variables where the pattern of the correlations between the two levels was in the direction expected. The others were quite con- trary to previous research findings. 130 Variable Correlations (r) Low Achieving Schools .1897 High Achieving Schools .5359 High Efficacy .2857 Unsure Efficacy .2003 Low Efficacy .5632 High Parental Involvement .0246 Low Parental Involvement .4785 Parental Satisfaction with Educational Background .2976 Parental Dissatisfaction with Educational Background .3663 White Schools .331 Black Schools .371 High Surveillance Parents .288 Low Surveillance Parents .377 Parents--Highly Educated .289 Parents--Limited Education .359 Summarygof Findings Three major hypotheses, one consisting of seven sub-hypotheses were formulated and tested. The first major hypothesis and its sub-hypotheses were tested using the analysis of variance F test (Finn Program) at the .05 level of confidence for determining significance. Regression analysis procedures were employed to determine the relation- ship between student achievement and student-parent similar- ity score which was the second major hypothesis. To test 131 whether the relationship between student "perceived" parental evaluations-expectations scores, and student achievement scores is the same as the relationship between parents "actual" evaluations-expectations scores and stu- dents achievement Scores the statistical technique of correlation coefficients was employed. As a result of the significance of race, and parental efficacy on parent- student Similarity scores, subsequent post hoc tests were conducted to investigate the effect of the interaction of these two variables on student achievement, parent-student similarity scores and the effects of the various levels of parental efficacy on the student achievement in black and white schools. All tests were conducted in the null form. The seven sub-hypotheses of major hypothesis 1 investigated the effect of the following variables on parent-student Similarity scores: 0 School racial composition 0 Parental efficacy with the schools 0 Parental educational achievement level 0 School achievement level 0 Parental involvement in the child's school activities 0 Parental surveillance of the child's academic performance 0 Parental satisfaction with his own educational attainment 132 A summary of all results of the statistical analysis is presented in the following table. A discussion of the findings and their possible implications appear in Chapter\fi[. Table 24. Summary of Results Statement of Rejection or Null Hypotheses Non-Rejection 1. No significant differences between students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations of students academic performance Non-Rejection la. No significant differences between students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations controlling for school racial composition. Rejection lb. No significant differences between students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations controlling for parental efficacy. Rejection 1c. No significant differences between students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations of students academic performance when school achievement level is controlled. Non-Rejection 1d. No significant differences between students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations of students academic performance when parental academic attainment level is controlled. Non-Rejection 1e. No significant differences between students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations of students academic performance when parental involvement in school activities is controlled. Non-Rejection 1f. No significant differences between students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations of students academic performance when parental surveillance of students academics is controlled. Non-Rejection 133 Table 24--Continued Null Hypotheses Statement of Rejection or Non-Rejection lg. 1h. No significant difference between students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations of students academic performance when parental educational attainment level is controlled. No significant difference between highly educated parents and those of limited educational attainment in the expectations they hold for their children. No linear relationship between students academic achievement scores and parent-student similarity scores, the latter measured by the comparison of parent actual and student perceived evaluations-expectations. The relationship between perceived parental evaluations-expectations scores and student achievement scores does not significantly differ from the relationship between parents actual evaluations-expectations scores and student achievement scores. No significant differences between students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations controlling for the interaction of school racial composition and parental efficacy with the school. No significant effect of the interaction of Non-Rejection Non—Rejection Non-Rejection Non-Rejection Non-Rejection school racial composition andgparental efficacy with the child's school on student achievement. Rejection No significant effect of parental efficacy with the schools on the achievement in black and white schools. Parental efficacy affected student achievement in white schools. In white schools, the children of high efficacy parents did achieve higher than those of low efficacy parents. Parental efficacy level with the school showed no relationship to the student achievement in black schools. Rejection CHAPTER VI SUMMARY, FINDINGS, LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Summary The purpose of this study was to investigate the similarity of parents and their children's perceived parental responses with regard to parents expectations- evaluations of their children's academic performance. More specifically, this study investigated whether there is a significant difference between students perceived parental evaluations-expectations of them and their parents actual evaluations-expectations in low S.E.S. families. How good a job do S.E.S. parents do in communicating to their children their evaluations and expectations for their academic performance? Do children do as good a job in adequately perceiving these parental evaluations-expectations? These were the major questions in this research. The theoretical foundations upon which this research was built were the symbolic interactionist theory of Mead (1902), Kinch (1963) and the social psychological theory of human behavior as expounded by Brookover and Erickson (1969). 134 135 Kinch contended that the actual responses of "others" to the individual are important in determining how the individual will perceive himself. This perception will influence his self-conception which in turn guides his behavior. Kinch's model appears schematically as follows: A-———+ P-——-+ S-—-—+ B where A = Actual expectations (i.e., responses or behavior of significant others) P = Perceived expectations S = Self-concept B = Behavior = "leads to" . . . . Brookover's (1969) social psychological theory of learning similarly proposed: 1. The social norms and expectations of others define the appropriate behavior for persons in various social situations. 2. Each person learns the definitions of appropriate behavior through interaction with others who are important and significant to him. 3. The individual learns to behave in ways that he perceives are appropriate for him. 4. The individual also acquires conceptions of his ability to learn various types of behavior through interaction with others whose evaluations are important to him. The literature in this study indicated a paucity of research in the area of "perceived" and "actual" evaluations- expectations. However, the literature reviewed many of the 136 cited reasons for the variation of academic achievement among students (heredity, school academic climate, early socialization, expectations-evaluations of significant others, and socioeconomic status), but stressed the im- portance of the child's academic environment which includes the expectations and evaluations of his significant others. School normative climate literature was also presented. The theoretical framework on which this study was built was developed in Chapter II. The data and instruments (Chapter IV) form part of a larger study on environmental influences on education, conducted by Brookover and associates (1972). This present study was designed to measure the effects of the following variables on parent-student simi- larity with regard to parents actual and students perceived parental evaluations-expectations: standard achievement level, racial composition and S.E.S. of school, parental surveillance of child's academic performance, parental efficacy with the child's school, parental academic achieve- ment level, parental satisfaction with his own educational achievement and parental involvement with the child's school activities. Standard achievement level, racial composition and S.E.S. of schools were made available through the gen- erosity of the Michigan State Department of Education. It was then possible to stratify as needed in the analysis. A 137 sample of two black and two white low S.E.S. schools, one of each group being high and low achieving, was selected from a listing of Michigan elementary schools. Question- naires were administered by our research team to all students in the fourth and fifth grades. The names of the parents of 120 randomly selected students in these classes were then gathered from the office of the principal. The parents were then interviewed in their homes by members of our team and the sociology research team at Western Michigan University. Student questionnaires centered on their per- ceived parental evaluations-expectations of them and paren- tal interviews centered on their evaluations—expectations of their children. A standardized procedure for coding was done by the same research team. Eleven statistical hypotheses were formulated and tested. Each hypothesis was tested using the Finn Univar- iate Analysis of Variance. Two hypotheses were generated to determine whether any interaction effects between race and parental efficacy in the school was manifested on parents-student similarity scores and student achievement scores. A post hoc test was conducted to measure the effects of different parental efficacy levels on student academic achievement. 138 Findings Hypothesis 1: Students perceived parental evaluations-expectations of their parents academic performance will not differ significantly from their parents actual evaluations-expectations. With respect to Hypothesis 1, it was found that there was no Significant difference between parents actual and student perceived evaluations-expectations of students academic performance. Hypothesis la: There is no difference in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to stu- dent perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations, between students in black schools and students in white schools. With respect to Hypothesis la, it was found that there was a significant difference in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to parents actual and students perceived parental evaluations— expectations, between students in black schools and students in white schools. In white schools on the average, students perceived their parents as expecting more of them academ- ically than parents say they do. In black schools students 139 perceived their parents as expecting less of them in their academic performance than their parents indicated. Further tests, using absolute scores indicated that students and parents in both types of schools are equally inaccurate in their views of parents actual evaluations-expectations. However, on the basis of the previous analysis, parents of black students have higher expectations than their children perceive. The opposite is true in white schools. Hypothesis 1b: There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations, between students whose parents have high efficacy with their children's school and students whose parents have low efficacy with the schools. With respect to Hypothesis lb, it was found that there are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to students perceived par- ental and parents actual evaluations-expectations when students parental efficacy is controlled. Parents who have a high efficacy level with their children's school have higher evaluations-expectations than their children per- ceived. Interestingly enough, low efficacy children did 140 perceive their parents as having higher evaluations- expectations than their parents indicated. Hypothesis lc: There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parents responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students in high achieving schools and students in low achieving schools. With respect to Hypothesis lc, it was found that there was no significant difference in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to student perceived parental and parents actual evaluations- expectations between students, when the achievement level of their schools was considered. Hypothesis 1d: There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations between students whose parents have high academic attain- ment and students whose parents have limited academic achievement. 141 With respect to Hypothesis 1d, it was found that there was no significant difference in the degree of sim- ilarity of student and parent responses with regard to student perceived parental and parents actual evaluations- expectations between students, when their parental educational level was considered. Hypothesis 1e: There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental and parents actual evaluations- expectations, between students whose parents are highly involved in their school activities and students whose parents are not highly involved in their children's school activities. With respect to Hypothesis le, it was found that there was no significant difference in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to student perceived parental and parents actual evaluations- expectations between students when their parents' involve- ment in their school's activities was considered. Hypothesis lf: There are differences in the degree of Similarity of student and parent responses with regard to 142 perceived parental and parents actual evaluations- expectations between students whose parents have high surveillance over their children's academic performance and students whose parents have low surveillance over their children's academic performance. With respect to Hypothesis f, it was found that there was no Significant difference in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental and parents actual evaluations- expectations between students when their parents surveil- lance over their academic performance was considered. Hypothesis lg: There are differences in the degree of similarity of student and parent responses with regard to perceived parental evaluations-expectations and parents actual evaluations-expectations, between students whose parents are satisfied with their own educational attainment and those whose parents are dissatisfied with their own educational attainment. With respect to Hypothesis 1g, it was found that there was no significant difference in the degree of Similarity of student and parent responses with regard 143 to perceived parental and parents actual evaluations- expectations between students when their parents satis- faction with their own educational attainment level was considered. Hypothesis lh: There are no differences in the evaluations and expectations scores for their children's academic performance between parents with high educational attainment and parents with limited educational attainment. With respect to Hypothesis 1h, it was found that parental educationl level made no difference on their evaluation and expectation scores for their children. Hypothesis 2: There is a linear relationship between students achievement scores and their similarity scores, the latter measured by a comparison of students perceived and parents actual evaluations- expectations. With respect to Hypothesis 2, no linear relationship was found between students' achievement scores and their similarity scores. 144 Major Hypothesis 3: The relationship between student perceived parental evaluations-expectations scores and student achieve- ment scores does not significantly differ from the relationship between parents actual evaluations- expectations scores and student achievement scores. With respect to Hypothesis 3, it was found that the relationship between student perceived parental evaluations- expectations scores and student achievement scores did not significantly differ from the relationship between parents actual evaluations-expectations scores and student achievement scores. Hypothesis 4: There are no differences in the degree of similarity of students and parents responses with regard to perceived parental and parents actual evaluations- expectations between students, when the interaction of their school racial composition and their parents efficacy with the school was controlled for. With respect to Hypothesis 4, no differences in the degree of similarity of students and parent responses with regard to perceived parental and parents actual evaluations- expectations was found between students when their interac- tion of their school racial composition and their parents efficacy with the schools was controlled for. 145 Hypothesis 5: There is no significant effect of the interaction of school racial composition and parental efficacy with the school, on students academic achievement. With respect to Hypothesis 5, the interaction of school racial composition and parental efficacy did have a significant effect on student achievement scores, as revealed in the following hypothesis. Hypothesis 6: There is no significant difference between the three reported levels of parental efficacy on student achievement in black and white schools. With respect to Hypothesis 6 the three reported levels of parental efficacy did make significant difference on the achievement of students in black and white schools. There was no evidence to suggest that there were differences in student achievement between differing parental efficacy‘ levels in predominantly black schools. However, the achievement scores in the white schools are higher for those students whose parents have high efficacy with the school than the achievement scores for those students whose parents' efficacy level is categorized as "medium" or "low.' This was confirmed statistically. 146 Limitations Although this research design has contributed substantially to our efforts to investigate parents-student communication on education and has revealed a number of facts with regard to educational achievement, there was still a results. 1. number of limitations to this research and its The small sample size, the limited range of partic- ipants in terms of S.E.S., race and types and number of schools limited the impact of this study, espe- cially Since previous research shows that some of our results may not hold up in high S.E.S. situa- tions. Generalizations of our findings beyond the schools studied Should not be made. The instrument employed in data gathering, though adequately serving its purpose was not originally designed to research parents and students communi- cations as such, and thus the need of replicating this study is vital. This study was also limited in that only one group of significant others was studied. Any replicating should include teacher, peer group and others, and a more national or universal sample. Efforts may not have been made by the interviewers to ensure that the questions they asked were fully 147 comprehended by the parents or that the perceived responses given were actually those the parents intended to give. 5. Missing data on achievement was quite conspicuous for the black students. Schools could not account for this. The bias could distort our findings with regard to achievement in black schools. Discussion and Recommendations The primary interest of this study was to determine how similar students perceived parental evaluations- expectations are to the actual evaluations-expectations of their parents. These findings showed that although there is some linear relationship between parent and student re- sponses, this relationship is rather low. One can conclude that in low S.E.S. families, black and white, parents while holding positive evaluations-expectations for their children do not adequately communicate these evaluations-expectations to their children. This finding supports that of James Cole- man (Equality of Educational Opportunity) who found that "either Negro, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Indian children fail to correctly perceive the parents interest or lack of interest in their schooling as fully as do whites and oriental Americans . . . or the parents of minority groups are less able to translate their interest into 148 effective support for their child's learning than are white or oriental American parents" (p. 302). Greenburg and Dervin (1972), communication special- ists, in accounting for this phenomenon emphasizes that poverty and the tension of one parent structure of many low S.E.S. homes affects communication in the homes. Research also shows that there is lack of verbal and emotional communication between husband and wife which is carried over to their relations with their children. These communication patterns cause severe delay in child development and related difficulties. The child is handi- capped in language, and verbal and perceptual skills in school. Aggressive rather than verbal methods are used to relate to others. Since little attention is paid to the child's requests at home, he assumes that he will not be heard. He learns that intensity of sound is more impor- tant than message content and that assertion by force is more important than knowledge. The absence of verbal interaction and communication inhibits general development. Another finding of this study relative to sense of efficacy was also supported by Coleman (1966), Brookover (1973) (already cited), and Bear, Hess and Shipman (1971). This study found that there was a difference in similarity score (i.e., in parent-student communication between stu- dents whose parents have high efficacy with the schools and 149 students whose parents have low levels of efficacy with the schools). Bear, Hess and Shipman researching disadvantaged mothers and their four-year old children have shown that those mothers with a sense of futility or low sense of efficacy relative to the environment, have children with lower scores on the Stanford-Binet I.Q. tests. James Coleman, elaborating on this phenomenon of sense of control contends, of all the variables measured in the survey, including all measures of family background and all school variables, these attitudes of efficacy with the school or sense of control, students interest in the school, etc., showed the strong- est relation to achievement of all three grade levels (6-9). Taken alone, these attitudinal variables account for more of the variation in achievement than any other one set of variables (all family background variables together or all school variables together). The special impor- tance of sense of control of environment for achievement of minority-group children and per- haps for disadvantaged whites as well, suggests a different set of predispositional factors operating to create low or a high achievement for children from disadvantaged groups than for children from advantaged groups. For children from advantaged goups achieVement or lack of it appears closely related to their self-concept: what they believe about their environment; whether they believe the environment will respond to reasonable efforts or whether they believe it is instead merely random or immovable. In different ways, it appears that children from advantaged groups assume that the environment will respond if they are able enough to affect it; children from disadvantaged groups do not make this assumption, but in many cases assume that nothing they will do can affect the envi- ronment--it gives benefits or withholds them but not as a consequence of their own action. . . . Thus for many disadvantaged children a major 150 obstacle to achievement may arise from the way they confront the environment. Having experienced an unresponsive environment, the virtues of hard work of diligent and extended effort toward achievement appear to such a child unlikely to be rewarding. As a consequence he is likely to merely "adjust" to his environment, finding sat- isfaction in passive parents. . . . It may well be then that one of the keys toward success for minorities (or disadvantaged) which have experi— enced disadvantaged and a particularly unrespon— sive environment--either in the home or the larger society--is a change in this conception. This present study failed to show any major effects of parental involvement, parental educational level, school achievement level, parental satisfaction with educational level, school achievement level, parental surveillance on student-parent Similarity scores. It also failed to show any relationship between student academic scores and Simi- larity scores, and any different effects between parental actual and student perceived evaluations-expectations as indicators of student's achievement. It is the opinion of this writer that because of the limitations of this study (already discussed) these findings operated. The major findings of this study, poor communica— tions of expectations-evaluations to students, effects of parental efficacy with the school and racial composition on student achievement and parentbstudent communication of evaluations-expectations in low S.E.S. families gives much insight and implications to educators: 151 This research expands the social interaction theory and provides educational researchers and policy makers knowledge necessary to help bring about higher educational achievement in the schools. That which is important is not only the actual responses or behavior of significant others but that which the students perceive. It appears that in low S.E.S. homes, communication about school (evaluations-expectations) may not be universal or consistent, as in high S.E.S. families where there may be daily communication about school. Since parents in low S.E.S. families fail in this area of communication, this gives the school a tremendous opportunity to communicate more to low S.E.S. students about education and instill in them positive attitudes or as Coleman states a "more positive self-conception." This author fully supports Coleman's notion that the schools more than any other institution hold the most important keys for the success of the disadvantaged. APPENDICES APPENDIX A SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS QUESTIONS USED IN MICHIGAN STATE ASSESSMENT TEST 1969-1970 APPENDIX A SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS QUESTIONS USED IN STATE ASSESSMENT TEST 1969-1970 General Information Questions Does your family have a dictionary? (S.E.S.) (A) Yes (B) No (C) I don't know Does your family have an encyclopedia? (S.E.S.) (A) Yes (B) No (C) I don't know Does your family have a vacuum cleaner? (S.E.S.) (A) Yes (B) No (C) I don't know Does your family have a typewriter? (S.E.S.) (A) Yes (B) No (C) I don't know Does your family have a dishwashing machine? (S.E.S.) (A) Yes (B) No (C) I don't know How many cars does your family have? (S.E.S.) (Don't count trucks.) (A) None (B) One (C) Two or more Do you have your own wrist watch? (S.E.S.) (A) Yes (B) No 152 153 Has anyone in your family traveled in an airplane in the last year? (S.E.S.) (A) Yes (B) No (C) I don't know How much education does your father have? (S.E.S.) (A) Grade school--Grades 1-8 (B) High school--Grades 9-12 (C) College or special training after high school (D) I don't know How much education does your mother have? (S.E.S.) (A) Grade school--Grades 1-8 (B) High school--Grades 9-12 (C) College or special training after high school (D) I don't know How many different schools have you gone to since you started first grade? Count only the schools which you went to during the day. (S.E.S., Att. A, Att. B) (A) One--only this one (B) Two (C) Three (D) Four (E) Five or more What is the highest grade you want to finish in school? (S.E.S., Att. A, Att. B, Att. C) (A) I don't want to go to school any more (B) I only want to finish high school (C) I want to go to a special school, like a nursing or business school (D) I want to go to college Are you planning to go to college? (S.E.S., Att. A, Att. B, Att. C) (A) Yes (B) No (C) I'm not sure APPENDIX B TABLES 154 Table 1. Comparison of Student-Perceived Parental Evaluations- Expectations and Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations Source df MS F P Hypothesis 1 l 14.41 1.469 .228 Error 110 9.81 F==1.469 with l and 110 df which yields p value of .228. H01 : us = up not rejected at .05 level. Table 2. Contingency Table Showing the Distribution of Parents and Students Total Scores for Overall Analysis Parent Total Student Total 6 7 8 9 10 ll 12 13 14 15 Total 6 7 8 l 9 10 ll 2 12 2 9 l3 1 5 l4 2 16 15 l 5 l6 2 l6 l7 2 ll 18 5 l7 l9 1 9 20 6 18 Total 22 111 155 Table 3. Differences Between Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations and Students Perceived Evaluations-Expectations, Controlling for Schools Racial Composition Source df MS F P Hypothesis 2 1 49.169 5.2012 .0246 Error 109 9.453 F==5.20 with 1 and 109 df which yields p value of .0246. B # “W rejected at .05 level of significance Table 4. Observed Cell Means (Parents Minus Students) Controlling for School Racial Composition Difference of Total Variable P-S(1) P-S(2) P-S(3) P-S(4) P-S(5) P-S(6) Score White -.0517 -.2931 -.0690 .2931 -.0862 -.0690 -.2759 Black .5472 .0377 .0755 .2075 .1132 .0755 1.0566 Table 5. Comparison of Students Perceived Parental Evaluations- Expectations and Their Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations with Parental Efficacy with the Schools Controlled Source df Ms F P Hypothesis 3 2 28.98 3.063 .050 Error 108 9.459 F==3.063 with 2 and 108 df which yield p value of .050. HO accepted. 3 ‘ “HF 5 “LP 156 Table 6. Observed Cell Means (Parents Minus Students) Controlling for Parental Efficacy with the Schools Difference of Total Variable P-S(l) P-S(2) P-S(3) P-S(4) P—S(5) P-S(6) Score High Efficacy .2603 .0137 .0959 .3288 .0959 .0822 .8767 Unsure .6364 -.4545 -.0909 .0909 -.2727 -.2727 -.3636 Low Efficacy .0000 -.4074 -.2222 .1111 -.1111 -.1111 -.7407 Table 7. Comparison of Students Perception of Parents Evaluations- Expectations of Them with Parents Actual Evaluations- Expectations Controlling for Achievement Level of Students Schools Source df MS F P Hypothesis 1 2.368 .2397 .6255 Error 109 9.88 P‘= .2397 with l and 109 df which yield p value of .6255. #11 HO : “HA LA accepted. Table 8. Observed Cell Means (Parents Minus Students) on Similarity Scores Controlling for School Achievement Level _== Difference of Total Variable P—S(l) P—S(2) P-S(3) P-S(4) P-S(5) P-S(6) Score High Achievement .1321 -.2264 .0377 .2830 -.0189 .0000 .2075 Low Achievement .3276 -.0517 -.0345 .2241 .0345 .0000 .5000 157 Table 9. The Comparison of Students' Perception of Parents Evaluations-Expectations of Their Academic Performance with Their Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations with Parental Academic Achievement Level Controlled Source df MS F P Hypothesis 1 10.698 1.090 .2986 Error 109 9.806 F==l.09 with l and 109 df which yields a p value of .2986. H0 : “PH # “PL accepted. Table 10. Observed Cell Means for Similarity Scores (Parents Minus Students) Controlling for Parental Education Level Difference of Total Variable P-S(1) P-S(2) P-S(3) P-S(4) P-S(5) P-S(6) Score High Educ. Level .1136 -.2045 -.04546 .2500 -.0455 -.0909 -.0227 Low Educ. Level .3134 -.0896 .0299 .2537 .0448 .0597 .6119 Table 11. Comparison of Students' Perception of Parents Evaluations- Expectations of Their Academic Performance with the Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations Controlling for Parental Involvement in the Child's School Activities Source df MS F P Hypothesis 1 .0417 .0042 .9484 Error 109 9.904 ==.0042 with l and 109 df which yields p value of .9484. F H0 : “HI # “LI accepted at .05 level of Significance. 158 Table 12. Observed Cell Means for Similarity Scores (Parents Minus Students) Controlling for Parental Involvement Difference of Total Variable P-S(l) P-S(2) P-S(3) P-S(4) P-S(5) P-S(6) Score High Involvement .0851 -.0638 .0000 .2340 .0851 .0426 .3830 Low Invo Involvement .3438 -.1875 .0000 .2656 -.0469 -.0313 .3438 Table 13. Comparison of Students' Perceptions of Parents Evaluations- Expectations of Their Academic Performance with Their Parents Actual Evaluations—Expectations Controlling for Parental Surveillance of Thier Children's Academic Performance Source df MS F P Hypothesis 1 3.464 .3509 .5549 Error 109 9.872 E“=.3509 with l and 109 df which yields p value of .9484. H0 : “HS # ULS accepted at .05 level of Significance. Table 14. Observed Cell Means for Similarity Scores (Parents Minus Students) Controlling Parental Surveillance Difference of Total Variable P-S(1) P-S(2) P-S(3) P-S(4) P-S(5) P-S(6) Score High Surveillance .0500 -.1250 -.1250 .2250 .0500 .0500 .1250 Low Surveillance .3380 -.1408 .0704 .2676 -.0141 -.0282 .4930 159 Table 15. The Comparison of Students Perceptions of Parents Evaluations-Expectations of Their Academic Performance with Their Parents Actual Evaluations-Expectations Controlling for Parental Attitude to Their Own Educational Attainment Source df MS F P Hypothesis 1 .1205 .0122 .9124 Error 109 9.903 F==.9124 with l and 109 df which yields a p value of .9124. H0 : UHSE # ULSE accepted at .05 level of Significance. Table 16. Observed Cell Means for Similarity Scores (Parents Minus Students) Controlling for Parental Satisfaction with His Own Educational Attainment Difference of Total Variable P-S(l) P-S(2) P-S(3) P-S(4) P-S(5) P-S(6) Score Advanced Education .2857 -.2857 .0476 .2857 .0476 .0476 .4286 Limited Education .2222 -.10000 -.0111 .2444 .0000 -.0111 .3444 Table 17. Comparison of Parents Achievement Level with the Academic Expectations for Their Children Source df MS F P Hypothesis 1 11.780 1.5120 .2215 Error 109 7.803 F==l.512 with l and 109 df which yields a p value of .2215. Null hypothesis of no difference accepted at .05 level of significance. 160 Table 18. The Relationship of Student Achievement Scores and Their Similarity Scores with Regard to Student Perceived and Parental Actual Evaluations-Expectations Variable Multiple r P Ultimate lifetime performance .0694 .9917 Rated performance among friends .0543 .9974 Expected high school rating .0967 .9625 Ability to complete college .1578 .7485 Academic professional capability .1852 .5909 Present evaluation of performance .1571 .7523 Total scores .1398 .8350 161 OHOOm Hmuoa OUGMEHOMHmm mo coflumsHm>o ucomonm wpflawnmmmo Hmcoflmmowoum omwaaoo mumamfioo on muflaflna coaumscmnm Hoonom am“: pm oodMEHom Ime Umuoomxm upcofium nufi3 mums mocmsuom Inmm usmmonm mosmsuomumm uaocd Suwawusm GOHHGUSpm Hmucmumm cofluommmflumm HMpd¢HMd momma Iaflo>H5m Houseman uqoao>ao>cH ucofio>oano¢ comm Hmuconmm mo Hm>oq Hmucmnmm Ho>mq uswEm>mH£o¢ Hoosom mcoflumuooQRMImQOAumsHm>m amouom muconmm nufl3 msoflumuommeImsoaumsHm>m mucoumm mo coflummonmm unopsum vcflummaoo song moanmflhm> usosomaoo mnu mo muasmmm was .mH mance 162 Table 20. The Interaction Between School Racial Composition and Parents Efficacy with Their Schools on Student Achievement Score Variable MS F P English 203.53 1.4041 .2514 Arithmetic 221.702 3.8414 .0255 For word meaning F==1.404 with 4 and 164 df which yield p value of .2514 at .05 level of significance. No significant effect on English (on word meaning scores). For arithmetic average, F==3.84l4 with 4 and 164 df which yields p value of .0255 at the .05 level of significance. Significant affect on arithmetic scores. Table 21. The Effects of Parental Futility Levels on Achievement of White Students in Low S.E.S. White Schools Source df MS F P Hypothesis 2 428.565 7.306 .0012 Error 83 44.514 163 Table 22. The Effects of Parental Futility Levels on Achievement of Black Students in Low S.E.S. Black Schools Source df MS F P Hypothesis 2 27.224 .4641 .6304 Error 83 10.612 F =.464l with 2 and 83 df which yields p value of .6304. Null hypothesis of no effect not rejected at .05 level. Table 23. 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