From early aspirations to actual attainment: the effects of economic status and educational expectations on university pursuit

    Authors

    C. L. Wu;H. Y. Bai

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    High. Educ.

    Keywords

    University aspirations; University attainment; Economic status; Educational expectations; Taiwan; COLLEGE APPLICATION; SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS; STUDENTS; SCHOOL; FAMILY; ADOLESCENTS; ENROLLMENT; CHOICE; ACHIEVEMENT; EXPERIENCES; Education & Educational Research

    Abstract

    This study investigated the effects of economic status and the educational expectations of significant others on early university aspirations and actual university attainment. The study analyzed two-wave longitudinal data collected from 1,595 Taiwanese students in their 9th grade in middle school and in their freshman year at universities. The results revealed that economic status affected neither university aspirations nor university attainment. Among the significant others studied, parental expectations fundamentally affected university aspirations and teacher expectations consistently affected university aspirations and attainment. After considering economic status and educational expectations, early university aspirations remained strongly related to actual university attainment. Future research directions and practical educational approaches are recommended based on the aforementioned results.

    Journal Title

    Higher Education

    Volume

    69

    Issue/Number

    3

    Publication Date

    1-1-2015

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    331

    Last Page

    344

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000351164400001

    ISSN

    0018-1560

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