Educational Studies in Mathematics

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-021-10073-w

How are parental expectations related to students’

beliefs and their perceived achievement?

Guangming Wang 1 & Sheng Zhang 1 & Jinfa Cai 2

Accepted: 23 May 2021/

# The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021

Abstract
Research has shown that students’ beliefs related to mathematics are connected to their
affect and motivation as well as their mathematical thinking and activity. Moreover, high
parental expectations have been shown to play a role in students’ positive beliefs and self-
efficacy. This paper reports on two studies investigating parental expectations related to
students’ beliefs and their perceived achievement. These studies highlighted an unusual,
but confirmed finding that students who do not perceive that their parents have specific
mathematics achievement expectations show more positive mathematics-related beliefs
and higher perceived mathematics achievement than students who believe their parents
do have specific expectations. This paper explores possible reasons for this finding related
to parents’ methods of conveying their expectations.

Keywords Parental expectations . Mathematics achievement . High school . China

Students’ beliefs related to mathematics have long been an important topic of study in mathematics
education, both because of their relationship to affect and motivation (McLeod, 1992; Middleton
et al., 2017) and because of their potential influence on students’ mathematical thinking and activity
(Schoenfeld, 1989, 1992). Indeed, the teaching and learning of mathematics necessarily involve
affective and noncognitive considerations including beliefs, emotions, values, and attitudes (Cai
et al., 2017; Clarkson et al., 2010; Kloosterman, 1988; Leder, 1993; Moyer et al., 2018; Pepin &
Roesken-Winter, 2015). Op’t Eynde, De Corte, and Verschaffel (2002) developed a comprehensive
categorization of mathematics beliefs: beliefs about mathematics education, beliefs about the self,
and beliefs about social context. Each of these categories of mathematics-related beliefs is potentially
related to students’ mathematical behavior.
Studies have shown that parental expectations have an effect on educational aspirations,
cognitive ability, mathematics achievement, mathematics learning, motivational beliefs about

* Jinfa Cai
jcai@udel.edu

1
Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
2
University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
 Wang G. et al.

mathematics, mathematical self-efficacy, and so forth (e.g., Cai, 2003; Kirk et al., 2011; Lay
et al., 2015; Levpušček & Zupančič, 2009; Phillipson & Phillipson, 2012). However, there has
not been a systematic body of research focusing on the influence of factors such as parents’
expectations on students’ mathematics-related beliefs.
Moreover, research has found a relationship between the level of educational expectations
of parents of students in East Asian countries and the high performance of students in those
regions on large-scale international academic assessments such as TIMSS and PISA (Cai,
2003; Chen & Lan, 1998; Phillipson & Phillipson, 2007). China is a typical representative of
the Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) countries (Fan et al., 2004) that exhibit these culturally
situated factors. The research reported here was designed to investigate the current status of
mathematics-related beliefs among Chinese high school students, to analyze the influence of
Chinese parents on the beliefs of high school students about mathematics, and to provide a
reference point for home-school cooperation and education in other countries and regions.
Thus, in this paper, we report two studies about parental expectations and students’ beliefs
and their perceived achievement in the context of Chinese high school mathematics education.
Specifically, we report an initial study of parental expectations and students’ beliefs and a
connected, follow-up investigation of a significant phenomenon revealed by the first study.
The first study addressed the following research question: How are students’ perceptions of
their parents’ expectations related to students’ mathematics-related beliefs and their perceived
mathematics achievement? Among other findings, this study showed that students who
believed that their parents had no specific mathematics achievement expectations showed
more positive mathematics-related beliefs and higher perceived mathematics achievement than
students who believed that their parents did have specific expectations. The second study, then,
revisited the research question that motivated the first study, but additionally investigated the
following question: Why would students who believe their parents have no specific mathe-
matics achievement expectations show more positive mathematics-related beliefs and higher
perceived mathematics achievement than students who believe their parents do have specific
expectations?

1 Theoretical basis

1.1 Parental expectations

Parental expectations have long been shown to be important predictors of academic achieve-
ment in East Asian countries and among Asian Americans (Cai, 1995; Chao, 2000; Chen &
Stevenson, 1995; Fuligni, 1997; Goyette & Xie, 1999; Kim, 2020; Mau, 1997; Schneider &
Lee, 1990; Tan, 2017). Under the influence of Confucianism’s “learning and superiority”
philosophy, Chinese parents often set high standards for their children’s academic performance
and long-term educational attainment. In mathematics, this is expressed as higher expectations
for students’ mathematics achievement. In a study of primary school students in Hong Kong,
Phillipson and Phillipson (2007) found that parents with higher educational expectations were
also more likely to have a higher level of educational involvement (parental involvement) and
to invest more time, money, and energy in their children’s studies. Phillipson and Phillipson
(2012) further confirmed that Hong Kong students’ cognitive ability was also influenced by
parental education expectations. Cai (2003) investigated five roles that parents in China (and
the USA) may play with respect to their child’s learning at home: parents as motivators,
How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their...

parents as resource providers, parents as monitors, parents as mathematics content advisors,

and parents as mathematics learning counselors. The results supported the argument, from a
broader cross-national perspective, that parental involvement is a statistically significant
predictor of children’s mathematics achievement.
In other countries and regions, the impact of parental education expectations on students’
academic performance has also attracted the attention of researchers. Froiland and Davison
(2014) found that parental expectations were positively related to students’ achievement. Kirk,
Lewis-Moss, Nilsen, and Colvin (2011), while confirming the findings of Phillipson and
Phillipson, also found that parental educational expectations were positively associated with
students’ own educational aspirations. The research of Levpušček and Zupančič (2009)
showed that parental educational involvement has a direct impact on students’ mathematics
achievement, and it also has an indirect effect on the students through the mediation of
motivational beliefs about mathematics. This suggests that parental expectations for education
and achievement are likely to have an effect on students’ mathematics-related beliefs. How-
ever, although Levpušček and Zupančič explored connections between parental educational
expectations and students’ mathematical self-efficacy, there has been limited research on the
relationship between parental educational expectations and the broader range of students’
mathematics-related beliefs. Moreover, there has been very limited research on the relationship
between parental mathematics achievement expectations and the broader range of students’
mathematics-related beliefs.
It has been hypothesized that high parental expectations lead children to set high academic
standards for their education and make efforts toward meeting those high standards (Jeynes,
2007). A few researchers have also highlighted the fact that for parental expectations to have
this effect, that is, to lead children to set and meet high academic standards, it is first necessary
for the children to perceive that their parents hold such high expectations (Gill & Reynolds,
1999; Yamamoto & Holloway, 2010). That is, the students must notice what their parents are
doing to convey their expectations, whether through words or actions, and then interpret those
words and actions as communicating a set of high expectations for them. Therefore, in this
paper, we consider both students’ perceived parental educational expectations and their
perceived parental mathematics achievement expectations, examining the relationships be-
tween students’ perceptions of such expectations and the students’ mathematical beliefs and
perceived achievement. In addition, we explore the ways parents convey their expectations.

1.2 Mathematics achievement and self-efficacy

A large number of studies have shown that there is a significant correlation between student
mathematics-related beliefs and student mathematics achievement (e.g., House, 2005, 2006,
2007, 2009; Lay et al., 2015). These studies typically use students’ mathematics achievement
as a dependent variable and some particular student mathematics-related beliefs, including
beliefs about mathematics self-efficacy, as predictors. For example, Skaalvik and Skaalvik
(2011) explored the relationship between mathematics self-concept and self-efficacy and
mathematics achievement. They found that students’ self-efficacy was a strong predictor of
achievement even beyond prior achievement. Pantziara (2016) noted, however, that few of
these studies “provide causal ordering between the two constructs” (p. 8) of mathematics self-
efficacy and mathematics achievement. Nevertheless, House (2009) concluded after a series of
studies that students with better mathematics performance tend to have more positive
mathematics-related beliefs, and those with poor mathematics performance have more
 Wang G. et al.

negative mathematics-related beliefs. In other words, students’ academic achievement in

mathematics may have a positive effect on students’ mathematics-related beliefs and vice
versa.
In a study of mathematics students in Finland, Hannula, Bofah, Tuohilampi, and
Metsämuuronen (2014) found that mathematics achievement and self-efficacy had a
reciprocal relation, where the dominant effect was from achievement to self-efficacy.
They also found a weaker unidirectional effect from achievement to emotion. Cai and
Merlino (2011) also found that students’ success in mathematical achievement was
linked to positive mathematical dispositions. Students who succeeded in the process of
learning mathematics through concerted effort in overcoming challenges gained a
sense of satisfaction that bolstered their motivation to continue challenging themselves
in mathematics. Cai and Merlino posited that this could produce a positive
disposition-performance cycle. Given the support in the literature for potential recip-
rocal relationships between achievement and beliefs, in this study, the students’
perception of their relative mathematics achievement ranking in their class was used
as the measure of student achievement, and we assumed that the students’ perceived
class mathematics achievement ranking may have had a positive influence on their
mathematics-related beliefs (and vice versa).

2 Study 1

Study 1 was designed to investigate the following research question: How are students’
perceptions of their parents’ expectations related to students’ mathematics-related beliefs and
their perceived mathematics achievement?

2.1 Method

2.1.1 Participants

A survey was administered to a nationwide sample of 10th, 11th, and 12th grade
students using a combination of online sampling and regional cluster sampling. The
survey began with regional cluster sampling, and this was followed by online sam-
pling to ensure a high response rate. In total, 496 completed questionnaires (out of
535) were collected (53.4%, 27.4%, and 19.2% from Grades 10, 11, and 12, respec-
tively; 50.4% males and 49.6% females). The participants came from regions (Central
China, North China, East China, South China, Northwest China, Northeast China, and
Southwest China) throughout China, with samples approximately evenly distributed
among these regions.

2.1.2 Instrument

Study 1 used a High School Student Mathematics Belief Questionnaire (HSSMBQ;

Wang et al., 2019) that was designed to assess students’ mathematics-related beliefs.
The questionnaire included four subscales: beliefs about the role and the functioning
of their own teacher instruction, beliefs about the significance of and competence in
mathematics, mathematics as a social activity, and mathematics anxiety. The first three
How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their...

subscales were based on work by Op’t Eynde et al. (2002) and by Op’t Eynde and
De Corte (2003); the fourth subscale, not reported here, is discussed in Wang, Zhang,
and Cai (2019), which describes the validation of this instrument through a multistage
development process that included the use of exploratory and confirmatory factor
analysis. For the purposes of the present study, three additional questions were
included on the questionnaire to assess the students’ perceptions of their parents’
educational expectations and of their own performance: (1) What are your parents’
educational expectations for you? (2) What are your parents’ expectations for your
achievement in mathematics (3) What is your level of achievement (ranking) in your
mathematics class? Response categories for these questions are provided in the results
below. It should be noted that the instrument was developed, validated, and admin-
istered to students in Chinese; for the purposes of this paper, we have translated the
instrument into English, with every effort having been made to ensure translation
equivalency.

2.2 Results

2.2.1 Mathematics-related beliefs and parental variables

To examine the relationships between the mathematics-related belief scores and the
parental factors, we conducted an ANOVA analysis for each factor and each belief
score (total).1 With respect to parents’ educational expectations, over 85% of the
students felt that their parents expect them to at least obtain a 4-year undergraduate
degree, and about one-third of the students felt that their parents expect them to earn
a Master’s or Ph.D. degree. Overall, the analysis indicated that higher perceived
parents’ educational expectations were associated with students’ more positive
mathematics-related beliefs (F(5, 490)=15.463, p < .001).
Table 1 shows the results for students’ perceptions of their parents’ specific
mathematics achievement expectations and students’ mathematics-related beliefs. In-
terestingly, over 20% of the students felt that their parents expected them to be one of
the top 5 students in their class with respect to mathematics achievement, which
suggests unrealistic expectations from the Chinese parents.
Particularly notable is that 74 students (about 15%) felt that their parents did not
have specific expectations for their mathematics achievement, but these 74 students
showed the most desirable mathematics-related beliefs compared to the other groups
of students. In comparison, the students in the other three categories of perceived
parents’ achievement expectations (top 5 in class, top 50%, class average) had
mathematics-related beliefs scores that were similar across the three groups but were
on average lower than those of the students who reported no specific parental
expectations for mathematics achievement.

1
To correct for the issue of compounding type 1 error for multiple statistical tests, we applied the Šidák
correction. To obtain a familywise alpha level of .05 for Study 1, the Šidák-adjusted alpha level is .007. All of
the statistical tests in Study 1 remained significant under this correction.
 Wang G. et al.

Table 1 Students’ perceptions of parents’ achievement expectations and students’ mathematics-related beliefs

Perception of parents’ achievement expectations Mathematics- Number of students F η2

related beliefs
(total)

Mean SD

Top 5 in class 120.8 27.9 110 18.255*** 0.100

Top 50% 115.2 20.7 112
Class average 127.2 19.0 199
No specific expectation 137.7 18.5 74

***p < .001. Out of the 496 questionnaires returned, one had missing information about parents’ achievement
expectations. We excluded this student in subsequent analyses

2.2.2 Perceived mathematics achievement and parental variables

In addition to examining the relationships between the mathematics-related belief scores and
the parental factors, we also examined the relationships between the students’ perceived
mathematics achievement (reported as their perceived ranking in class, ranging from low to
high) and the parental factors. A chi-square test conducted to examine the relationship between
students’ perceptions of their parents’ educational expectations and students’ perceived math-
ematics achievement in their respective classes was significant, with students who perceived
higher parental educational expectations reporting a relatively higher mathematics achieve-
ment ranking (χ2 (20, N = 495) = 81.255, p < .001).
Table 2 shows the results of the chi-square test conducted to probe the relationship between
students’ perceptions of their parents’ achievement expectations in mathematics and students’
perceived mathematics achievement in their respective classes. Notably, students who perceived
that their parents held no specific expectations for their mathematics achievement also perceived
themselves as having a relatively high mathematics achievement ranking in their classes.
To further explore the subgroup of students who reported that their parents did not have
specific mathematics achievement expectations for them, we compared their belief scores and
parental factors to those of the other subgroups. Table 3 shows that this subgroup of students
did, in fact, differ significantly on these parameters from the other students.

Table 2 Students’ perceptions of parents’ specific expectations in mathematics achievement and students’
perceived achievement

Students’ perceived ranking in their Perception of parents’ achievement expectations Total

respective classes
Top 5 in the Top Class No specific
class 50% average expectations

Low (n = 69) 21 31 17 0 69
Lower middle (n = 108) 19 43 43 3 108
Middle (n = 158) 30 32 79 17 158
Upper middle (n = 119) 24 6 56 33 119
High (n = 41) 16 0 4 21 41
χ2 = 155.253***

***p < .001

How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their...

Table 3 Comparison of students who felt their parents did and did not have specific mathematics achievement
expectations

With or without parental math Number of Mean SD t

achievement expectations students

Mathematics-related beliefs (total) With 421 122.3 22.6 5.536***

Without 74 137.7 18.5
Beliefs about the role and the functioning With 421 48.4 10.1 4.693***
of their own teacher instruction Without 74 53.2 7.6
Beliefs about the significance of and With 421 34.7 9.6 5.670***
competence in mathematics Without 74 41.4 8.0
Mathematics as a social activity With 421 24.6 5.8 3.463***
Without 74 27.1 4.9
Parents’ educational expectations With 420a 4.1 0.9 5.298***
Without 74 4.7 0.8

***p < .001

a There is missing data from one student

2.3 Discussion

The goal of Study 1 was to examine, in the context of Chinese high school students, relationships
between perceived parental expectations (for educational attainment and for mathematics achieve-
ment) and students’ mathematics-related beliefs and perceptions of their own mathematics achieve-
ment in their classes. The results of this study provide support in the context of Chinese secondary
education for several findings from the literature on mathematics-related beliefs. First, the results
show that Chinese high school students’ perceptions of their parents’ educational expectations are
positively related to these students’ mathematics-related beliefs. In other words, students who
believe their parents expect them to attain higher levels of education have more desirable
mathematics-related beliefs. The proportions of students who felt that their parents wanted them
to attain higher education degrees are much higher than the proportions of Chinese people who
possess such advanced degrees, even in the major cities.
Second, students’ perceptions of their parents’ expectations specifically about mathematics
achievement were not related to students’ mathematics-related beliefs in the same way as the
more general parental educational expectations. In the case of parental expectations specific to
mathematics achievement, we found that students who reported that their parents had no
specific expectations possessed more desirable mathematics-related beliefs than all other
subgroups. In addition, these students tended to perceive their mathematics achievement rank
in their class to be higher on average than students who reported their parents expressed some
level of expectation for mathematics achievement. These findings may reflect the observation
of Phillipson and Phillipson (2007) that some forms of parental involvement may be nega-
tively correlated with school achievement. Parental expectations that students will attain a
particular level of mathematics achievement may be experienced by the students as acute
parental academic pressure to achieve in mathematics. If that is the case, our findings that
students who do not feel pressured in this way have more positive mathematics-related beliefs
and perceptions of their mathematics achievement are consonant with those of Levpušček and
Zupančič (2009), who noted that “consistently, the counterproductive effect of student-rated
parental academic pressure on eighth graders’ math achievement was demonstrated both
directly and indirectly through the negative effect on students’ self-efficacy in math” (p. 560).
 Wang G. et al.

Third, students’ reported mathematics achievement level in their classes was positively
related to both parent variables (i.e., students’ perceptions of their parents’ educational
attainment expectations and mathematical achievement expectations). This is consistent with
the findings of some studies (e.g., Chen & Ho, 2012; Froiland & Davison, 2014; Phillipson &
Phillipson, 2012; Rodríguez et al., 2017; Tan, 2017). A unique contribution of this study is that
it shows that students’ perceived mathematics achievement rank is quite consistent with
perceptions of their parents’ expectations.

3 Study 2

The findings regarding the students in Study 1 who did not perceive their parents as having
specific expectations for their mathematics achievement were unexpected, given the otherwise
robust connection between parental educational expectations and student achievement that has
been documented in both prior research (and, in the aggregate, in Study 1). Thus, we designed
Study 2 to confirm the relevant findings of Study 1 and to explore this unexpected finding. We
addressed the following research question: Why would students who believe their parents have
no specific mathematics achievement expectations show more positive mathematics-related
beliefs and higher perceived mathematics achievement than students who believe their parents
do have specific expectations?
Given the fact that Chinese parents often set high standards for their children’s academic
performance (including mathematics achievement) under the influence of Confucianism’s
“learning and superiority” philosophy, we found it unlikely that a sizable group of parents
truly had no specific expectations for their children’s mathematics achievement. We thus
looked to the possibility that the way parents convey their expectations for mathematics
achievement leads to their children’s perception of no specific expectations. We designed
Study 2 to understand better how these parents convey their specific expectations about
mathematics achievement as well as to probe how their children interpret what they say and
do to convey expectations.
To explain how the relationship between parental expectations and students’ beliefs and
achievement is articulated, we posited a chain of relationships that exist in an interpretive
space. Figure 1 illustrates how we conceptualized and studied this articulation. We began by
positing that the parents did, indeed, hold specific mathematics achievement expectations for
their children. In order to understand how those expectations might influence the children (and
to discern why the children perceived no such expectations), we probed how the parents

How parents Students'

convey their Message(s) interpretaon Students'
Parents'
expectaons students of their beliefs and
expectaons
(words, perceive parents' achievement
acons, etc.) expectaons

Fig. 1 Links within the interpretive space that connect parents’ specific expectations for their children’s
achievement with students’ perceptions of their parents’ expectations
How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their...

conveyed their expectations. That is, we posited that the expectations were interpreted into
words or actions that the children could perceive, even though the parents might not feel they
were directly expressing their specific expectations for mathematics achievement. Moreover,
the students’ perception of the messages their parents sent also entails an active process of
interpretation. Thus, the students’ ultimate perception of their parents’ expectations is at least
three steps removed in this interpretive space.
Note that in Fig. 1 the arrow between “Students’ interpretation of their parents’ expecta-
tions” and “Students’ beliefs and achievement” is dashed whereas the others are solid. This
represents the fact that, in Study 2, we did not focus on that last link in the chain. However, the
literature does speak to this connection. For example, Yamamoto and Holloway (2010)
considered four mechanisms that could mediate between high parental expectations and
students’ positive academic outcomes: influencing student motivation, boosting students’
academic self-efficacy, increasing parental involvement with schooling, and increasing
teachers’ expectations of students. Of these, all but the last (in which the interaction is between
parents and teachers) implicitly assume the earlier interpretive steps in our model. For
example, for high parental expectations to motivate students to set higher achievement
expectations for themselves, it is implied that parents convey those expectations to their
children, who must interpret their parents’ words and actions in order to incorporate them
into their own achievement goal orientations (Peixoto & Carvalho, 2009). Thus, in Study 2, we
focused on how parents convey their expectations and how students perceive their messages.

3.1 Method

We employed a two-stage process to address our research question. First, we sought to

establish the reliability of the unexpected finding from Study 1 by engaging in a replication.
Thus, we used the same HSSMBQ (Wang et al., 2019) with a new sample of students. Once
we established the reliability of the finding, we further investigated the students who perceived
no specific mathematics achievement expectations from their parents. To do this, we conduct-
ed semi-structured telephone interviews with a subset of these students and their parents.

3.1.1 Participants

Questionnaire participants The participants for Study 2 were students at three senior high
schools in Tianjin, China. Because of the similarities of the samples from different regions in
Study 1, we decided to sample only one location in Study 2. High schools in China include
10th, 11th, and 12th grades. Because the mathematics academic performance of 11th grade
students tends to be more stable than that of students in their first year of high school (10th
grade), and because 12th grade students face the college entrance examination, we selected
11th grade high school students as the subjects in this study. In total, 437 completed
questionnaires were collected (out of 451), 205 from male students and 232 from female
students.

Telephone interview participants With the assistance of their teachers, we invited all 73 of
the students who responded that their parents had no specific expectations for their mathe-
matics achievement in the questionnaire investigation to participate in a semi-structured
telephone interview. Of these, 16 of the students accepted our invitation and provided their
parents’ phone numbers. We contacted the parents of the 16 students, and 13 of these students
 Wang G. et al.

Table 4 Interview participants’ background information

Student Gender Ranking of mathematics achievement in the class by their teachers Parent

A Girl Good (top 10%) Mother

B Girl Upper middle (10–35%) Mother
C Girl Upper middle (10–35%) Father
D Boy Upper middle (10–35%) Father
E Boy Good (top 10%) Mother
F Girl Upper middle (10~35%) Mother
G Girl Lower middle (65~85%) Mother
H Boy Upper middle (10~35%) Mother
I Girl Lower middle (65~85%) Mother
J Boy Middle (35 to 65%) Mother
K Girl Middle (35 to 65%) Mother
L Girl Lower middle (65~85%) Mother
M Girl Lower middle (65~85%) Mother

and their parents agreed to participate. Before the formal start of all interviews, the participants
were clearly informed of the research about parents’ expectations for their children’s mathe-
matics learning, and their consent to participate and to be recorded was obtained. In order to
avoid leading the parents in a particular direction in the interviews, we did not describe that the
study specifically focused on children’s perception that their parents did not have specific
mathematics achievement expectations, nor did we tell the parents that their children had
responded that way on the survey. The participants’ identities were blinded and are represented
here by letters (e.g., “Student A” and “Parent A”). Table 4 provides background information
for each student participant in the telephone interview.

3.1.2 Instruments

Two instruments were used in Study 2. The first instrument was the HSSMBQ (Wang et al.,
2019). The same question about parental expectations for mathematics achievement that was
used in Study 1 was included in the questionnaire for Study 2.
The second instrument was a semi-structured interview protocol designed to gather data
that could speak to the unexpected findings from the original study. The interview protocol
was divided into two parts: a shorter, confirmatory component addressing the student and a
longer parent interview protocol. The student component began with confirming the student’s
response to the item on the questionnaire assessing their perception of their parents’ mathe-
matics expectations. The students were then asked to describe things that parents could say or
do that would convey their specific expectations for mathematics achievement: “What would
your parents do or say that would convey their specific mathematics expectations to you?”
This question was designed to provide data that could illuminate the kinds of words or actions
that the students might be looking for (or be primed to perceive) from their parents when
gauging their parents’ expectations. Finally, the students were asked a short series of questions
about why they thought that their parents did not express specific expectations for their
mathematics achievement. These questions probed possible reasons including that their parents
were satisfied with their mathematics achievement, that their parents thought they were good a
self-management, and that their parents were concerned that they were under too much
How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their...

pressure already. These questions were intended to provide data that spoke to the students’
interpretations of their parents’ expectations.
The parent component of the interview protocol was designed to probe the nature of their
mathematics expectations and their expression of those expectations to their child. That is, the
parent interview was designed to provide data addressing the interpretive link between their
expectations for their children’s mathematical achievement and how they actually conveyed
those expectations. At the time of the telephone interviews, the parents were unaware that their
children had reported not feeling specific expectations from them regarding their mathematics
achievement.
The main elements of the parent component of the interview protocol were the following
questions:

& What are your specific expectations for your child’s mathematics achievement in school?
A. Top 5 in the class, B. Top 50% in the class, C. About average in the class, D. We have
no specific expectations
& What do you do to indicate to your child that you have specific expectations for his or her
mathematics achievement?
& Whether or not you have specific expectations for your child’s mathematics achievement
in school, do you think that having specific mathematics achievement expectations would
have an impact on your child’s emphasis, passion, motivation, and anxiety regarding
mathematics?

3.1.3 Data analysis

Questionnaire Each item was scored from 1 to 5. The reverse-score items in the questionnaire
were reverse scored. According to the scoring system developed by Wang et al. (2019), the
scores of high school students’ mathematics-related beliefs were calculated based on their
questionnaire responses. In a small number of cases of missing responses, the missing data was
imputed using the mean score for that item. Of the 437 respondents, 38 (8.7%) did not include
a response to the question on parental expectations about mathematics. Excluding them from
the analysis would have impaired the representativeness of the sample. Thus, the
nonresponding students for this question were considered a separate group in the ANOVA
analysis (the No response group).

Telephone interview The data from the interviews underwent a qualitative analysis. The
audio recordings of the interview were transcribed. The researchers then initially coded the
transcripts for statements related to parental expectations. These included any statement
bearing on ways that parents convey their specific expectations to their children for the parent
part of the interview and any statement about how students perceived or expected they might
perceive their parents’ specific expectations for the student part of the interview (e.g., “They
want me to have a certain level of scores,” “They want me to maintain my level of
achievement,” and “They want to make sure there is no huge fluctuation from one task to
another”). This resulted in two sets of preliminary codes encompassing the different ways that
the parents and students described how expectations could be conveyed.
These codes were verified by two research assistants who coded the full set of transcripts.
Disagreements were resolved through discussion between the research assistants and the
 Wang G. et al.

researchers, relying on the audio recordings as a further check on the speaker’s intent. One area
of disagreement involved using codes initially developed for particular segments of the
interview, that is, responses to a particular question, to code potentially relevant responses to
other questions. Based on a review of the relevant interview segments, it was clear that parents
and students circled back to earlier questions (or anticipated later questions) from time to time,
and that such responses were indeed relevant and reflective of their positions on the earlier (or
later) questions. Finally, looking across the codes and associated interview excerpts, the
researchers grouped codes based on overarching themes related to ways parents convey
expectations and reasons that parents might not have or might not convey expectations to
their children. These overarching themes and categories are represented in the various cate-
gories reported in the results below.

3.2 Results

3.2.1 Questionnaire investigation

Table 5 shows the results of the ANOVA analysis.2 To some extent, these results confirmed
the findings from the original study. Students with different perceived parental expectations
about their mathematics achievement showed statistically significant differences in their
mathematics-related belief scores (in total and for the subscale “Beliefs about the significance
of and competence in mathematics”). On average, students who believed their parents had no
specific expectations for their mathematics achievement again showed higher belief scores in
total and on the “Beliefs about the significance of and competence in mathematics” subscale
than students in the other three categories of parental expectations (Top 5 in class, Top 50% in
class, Class average). Students in the No response group largely resembled the students who
believed their parents had no specific expectations with respect to their mean total
mathematics-related belief scores and their mean belief scores on each subscale.
Table 6 below shows perceived parental expectations versus perceived achievement.
Overall, the significant difference from the chi-square test shows that the perceived mathe-
matics achievement rankings are different across students in the five categories of the parental
mathematics achievement expectations. Students who perceived no specific expectations for
their mathematics achievement largely resembled the students who believed their parents
expected them to be one of the top 5 students in their class. However, students in the no
specific expectation group were quite different from the students who believed their parents
expected them to be in the top 50% of their class or to achieve about the level of the class
average. In fact, over 16% of the students who believed their parents had no specific
mathematics achievement expectations perceived their mathematics achievement to be high.
In contrast, 3% and 2% of the students who believed their parents expected them to be in the
top 50% or at the class average, respectively, perceived their mathematics achievement to be
high.

2
As in Study 1, we corrected for the issue of compounding type 1 error for multiple statistical tests by applying
the Šidák correction. To obtain a familywise alpha level of .05 for Study 2, the Šidák-adjusted alpha level is .010.
Thus, two of the ANOVA tests in Study 2 that would otherwise be significant at the .05 level (see Table 5) were
no longer significant under this correction.
How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their...

Table 5 Students’ perceptions of parental expectations about mathematics achievement and students’
mathematics-related beliefs

Perception of parental Mean S.D. Number F η2

expectations about of
mathematics students

Mathematics-related belief (total) Top 5 in class 125.7 18.53584 58 5.269*** 0.047

Top 50% in class 123.7 17.80933 218
Class average 118.5 20.26143 50
No specific expectation 132.3 17.7 73
No response 129.5 20.4 38
Beliefs about the role and the Top 5 in class 49.1 8.0 58 2.431* 0.022
functioning of their own teacher Top 50% in class 49.8 6.9 218
instruction Class average 48.6 8.0 50
No specific expectation 51.8 5.9 73
No response 51.5 6.4 38
Beliefs about the significance of and Top 5 in class 37.3 7.8 58 5.459*** 0.048
competence in mathematics Top 50% in class 35.6 7.4 218
Class average 33.5 8.3 50
No specific expectation 39.0 7.1 73
No response 38.6 9.2 38
Mathematics as a social activity Top 5in class 25.5 5.4 58 3.218* 0.029
Top 50% in class 24.8 4.8 218
Class average 24.1 4.9 50
No specific expectation 26.5 4.3 73
No response 26.6 4.9 38

***p < 0.001, *p < 0.05 (not statistically significant under the Šidák-adjusted alpha level of .010)

Table 6 Students’ perceptions of parents’ achievement expectations versus students’ perceived achievement

Perception of parents’ achievement expectations Total

Top 5 in Top Class No specific No

the class 50% average expectation response

Students’ perceived Low 1 26 13 9 4 53

ranking in their Lower Middle 8 56 17 17 5 103
respective classes Middle 13 88 16 16 15 148
Upper Middle 25 42 3 19 9 98
High 11 6 1 12 5 35

χ2 = 73.169***, df = 16, p < 0.001

3.2.2 Telephone interview

The telephone interview for the student portion was conducted to confirm the students’
responses to the parental expectation item on the questionnaire, to clarify what they considered
to be a parental expression of an expectation for their mathematics achievement, and to explore
what they thought were the reasons their parents did not express such expectations. All but one
student (Student H) confirmed their questionnaire response that they did not feel that their
parents had specific expectations for their mathematical achievement. However, Student H
changed his answer to say that his parents expected him to be in the top 50% of the class. More
 Wang G. et al.

specifically, Student H said that, in general, his parents do not have expectations at the surface
level (i.e., they do not explicitly state expectations), but he has an understanding (i.e., a tacit
agreement) that his specific mathematics achievement should be in the top 50% of his class.
The students gave a number of examples to illustrate what they thought qualified as a parental
expression of a specific expectation for their mathematics achievement. Overall, there were three
categories of ways that the students felt parents could express such expectations (see Table 7). The
first, and most commonly cited, way the students described was if a parent stated a specific score or
rank requirement that the student needed to attain. For example, Student F explained, “Parents
express their expectations in their words, such as what score or what ranking they are hoping for.”
The second way was if a parent paid special attention to the student’s mathematics scores. This
attention could be purely focused on the student herself, as in Student K’s example: “After each
exam, do they care about your math scores? … After looking at your score, will they suddenly start
to ask why you got this score?” Alternatively, this attention could be comparative, as Student I
described: “Pay special attention to math scores, and compare my math scores with my scores in
other subjects, or compare my math scores with the math scores of other students.” The third way
that the students considered that parents might convey an expectation for mathematics achievement
was by stating that they were looking for an improvement over past performance on tests. As
Student G put it, parents “just tell you often, ‘I hope you can improve.’” In all three of these
categories, the common thread was that parents would express their expectations for mathematics
achievement by discussing and paying attention to the students’ mathematics scores. In this respect,
the students’ conceptions of what parental expressions of their expectations might look like are not
unusual. Thus, the students’ response that their parents did not have specific mathematics achieve-
ment expectations for them can be interpreted as the students not perceiving any special attention
from their parents regarding their mathematics scores (or rankings). Within our conceptualization of
the interpretive links between parents’ expectations and students’ beliefs and achievement (Fig. 1),
this finding speaks to the messages that students perceive coming from their parents and, indeed,
how the students used the messages they perceived to interpret their parents’ expectations.
To pursue the details of this interpretation on the students’ part, we asked the students to
explain why they thought their parents did not convey specific expectations for their mathe-
matics achievement. Many of the students affirmed three possible explanations (see Table 8).
First, seven of the thirteen students believed their parents were already satisfied with their
mathematics achievement, thus making it unnecessary to point out specific expectations. As
Student B stated, “They don’t have too many specific expectations for my achievement
because they are satisfied with it.” Nine students thought that their parents believed they were
sufficiently self-motivated and self-disciplined and thus did not require additional prompting.
Finally, 10 students felt that their parents did not express expectations for their mathematics
achievement because their parents did not want to put too much pressure on them. Several of
the students considered more than one of these explanations to be applicable.

Table 7 Ways students believed that parents should convey their specific expectations for mathematics
achievement

Code Students

Make clear score requirements or ranking requirements ABCDFHJM

Pay special attention to math scores BKLI
Anticipating/expecting the improvement of mathematics test scores EG
How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their...

Table 8 Possible explanations for parents’ lack of expression of expectations for mathematics achievement

Explanation Students Parents

Parents satisfied with their child’s mathematics achievement ABCDEFH None

Child has self-discipline in studying mathematics ABCDFGHKL ABCDFGHKL
Parents don’t want to create too much stress for their child ACDFGIJKLM All
Expressing specific expectations will annoy child N/A, did not provide this BDE
choice for students

In the parent portion of the telephone interview, the parents claimed that on the surface level, they
did not have specific mathematics expectations. That is, although they reported to the interviewer
that they had a particular mathematics achievement expectation, they did not feel like they overtly
expressed those expectations to their children. However, during the course of the interviews, eight of
the parents (Parents B, C, E, G, I, J, K, and M) did explicitly express those expectations for their
children’s mathematics achievement to the interviewer. For example, Parents B and C specifically
stated to the interviewer that they expected their child to be in the top 5 and top 10, respectively. The
other parents who expressed such expectations during the interview were somewhat less specific
(e.g., expecting their child to be “above average” or “the higher the better”). Clearly, many of the
interviewed parents recognized the importance of mathematics for educational advancement (it is
allotted 150 points in the college entrance examinations; other subjects like physics are only allotted
100 points). Performing well in mathematics makes a difference for going to college or later to work.
Even those parents who did not provide indications of specific expectations for their children’s
achievement in mathematics clearly expressed some degree of more general educational expecta-
tions. For example, if their child has a low grade in a particular area, the parent’s expectation is that
the child will bring that grade up. Thus, although Parents A, D, F, H, and L all said they had no
specific mathematics achievement expectations, during the interview, they each made statements
like this that indirectly conveyed their expectations.
With respect to the parents’ explicit expressions (or lack thereof) of their expectations to their
children, the interviewer probed a similar set of possible explanations to those covered in the student
portion of the interview (see Table 8). In stark contrast to the students’ perceptions, not a single
parent reported being satisfied with their child’s mathematics achievement as a reason for not
conveying expectations for mathematics achievement. However, there was an exact alignment
between the parents who said they did not express expectations because they felt their child was
sufficiently self-disciplined and their children’s perceptions of this. Parent F gave a typical response:
“My child has a very strong ability for self-discipline. Her self-discipline is very strong. She is very
self-motivated in studying and learning, so in general, her father and I don’t have to monitor her
studies too closely.”
Moreover, all of the parents agreed that they did not communicate their mathematics achieve-
ment expectations to their children because they did not want to cause them too much stress. This
was true both for parents who felt their children excelled in mathematics (e.g., Parent A) and for
parents who felt that their children were not as good at mathematics (e.g., Parent L). Compare, for
example, Parent A’s statement, “She also pursues perfection in everything, so we are afraid that she
will be too stressed and don’t want to set her goals. As long as she can make progress or maintain her
own state, it’s fine” with the statement from Parent L: “I think the more you force her, the more
pressure she will get. She is not very good at math, and I think the pressure on the child will be
great.” Causing students stress was a category that showed a strong parallel between parents and
students (10 students agreed that this could be an explanation for their parents’ not expressing
 Wang G. et al.

expectations). Finally, three parents (B, D, and E) noted that they did not communicate specific
expectations for mathematics achievement because they felt it would annoy their children. For
example, Parent B described a well-established understanding with her child that
My child gets very upset and annoyed about this point. This is very well known by the
people around her. Since I already know she gets very upset about this, I usually don’t
do this; I don’t want to annoy her.
At the same time, Parent B left open the door for more oblique ways to convey expectations:
But I will use other methods to let her know she didn’t meet her potential on this test or
help her to analyze which aspects she had issues with for that test. Is it because she
didn’t arrange the time well for taking the test, or she didn’t work hard enough to review,
or is it because she didn’t master certain pieces of knowledge?
Thus, although the parents held expectations for their children’s achievement, their interpre-
tation of those expectations into explicit words and actions was constrained by both positive
beliefs about their child’s self-discipline and by affective concerns about stress and pressure.
As the parents discussed how they convey mathematics achievement expectations (implicitly) to
their children, several themes emerged (see Table 9). Seven of the parents indicated that they
provided guidance to help their child recognize the importance of mathematics. These parents noted
that mathematics serves as a foundation for other science content areas (Parents B, D, and E), is a
significant and important content area itself, especially for college entrance (Parents B, E, G, J, L,
and M), and is important for future work and life (Parents B and D). For example, Parent B stated
that “mathematics is one of the most important subjects … mathematics is a foundation. If you don’t
learn mathematics well, for physics, chemistry, or biology, it will be as if the foundation is not firmly
established.” Parent D echoed this foundational role for mathematics learning but also added that for
“the ability to think and solve problems … the exercise of mathematics on your mind is actually a
subtle influence on it.” Yet, despite these kinds of clear statements of the importance of doing well in
mathematics, the parents appeared to not discuss it that directly with their children, opting instead to
convey their beliefs through ordinary conversations about the child’s learning and life. As Parent E
noted, “We will say this indirectly,” for example, through discussions about what kind of university
the child wants to be able to attend and what scores are needed for that. Indeed, Parent B specifically
noted that she was more explicit about establishing these foundational beliefs when her child was

Table 9 Parents’ ways to convey their specific expectations for mathematics achievement to their children

Code Parents

Establishing importance of mathematics

Providing guidance about the importance of mathematics BDEGJLM
Monitoring mathematics performance
Paying attention to changes in child’s mathematics performance EHIJKM
Encouraging child to examine and reflect on their progress and achievement BCEIJM
Motivation and encouragement
Encouraging child to align their expectations realistically with their interests and ability ACDFGL
Providing ongoing encouragement and motivation EM
Providing resources to improve
Explicitly mentioning the level of mathematics beyond their reach for helping children All
Hiring tutor with mathematics outside of school BJ
How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their...

still in elementary and middle school, but felt it was now appropriate to pull back from such explicit
guidance now that her child was in high school.
Another set of themes clustered around the parents’ monitoring of their children’s mathe-
matics performance. This kind of parental action manifested as an ongoing attention to
changes in the child’s scores and performance in mathematics as well as in other subjects.
For example, Parent K described how she and her husband would check in with their daughter:
“We usually talk more when she comes home, and when we talk to her on the phone. We will
look at the changes in her own performance to see if she is improving or regressing.” Similarly,
Parent I stated that they “compare with her own previous results; see if her performance has
declined or improved.” For some parents (Parents B, I, and M), this included helping their
children to analyze and reflect on their own performance to know how to improve. Parent I
went on to give this example:
This time, she didn’t do well on the math test because there were several questions she
should have been able to do, but she made mistakes because of carelessness. … She
should be more careful next time. You don’t need to get points for questions you can’t
do, but you mustn’t lose points for questions you can do.
Indeed, several parents described how they would give reminders or spurs when they
perceived that their child was not doing as well in mathematics as in other subjects (Parents
C and J) or not putting in as much work as in other subjects or as much work as they have
previously put in (Parents E, J, and M).
Several parents (Parents A, C, D, E, F, G, L, and M) also described how they provided
encouragement and motivational support in response to what they saw when monitoring their
children’s performance. Largely, this took the form of helping the child to calibrate their
expectations of themselves relative to the child’s own interests and ability rather than imposing
the parent’s specific expectations for a particular score and pushing the child to meet those
expectations. Parent C, recognizing that his daughter did not aspire to excel in mathematics,
explained his perspective:
We are not telling her that she should want to be a mathematician. If you want to be a
mathematician, you might have to be more talented in this area. If you don’t want to be a
mathematician, you just have to learn happily, right? I always think so. The key point is
to learn happily.
Similarly, Parent D wanted his son to put in effort because of an intrinsic interest in the subject,
not because of parental pressure:
If I set a goal for his studies, it may be a kind of pressure for him, not an interest. I hope
he can do this learning out of his own volition or out of his own interest, and then
manage it by himself, instead of being pressured by us parents. Pressure from parents
will work for at most one or two years. In his future life, we parents can’t be there to
pressure him all the time.
In essence, these parents were encouraging their children to have realistic expectations based
on their intrinsic motivation and knowledge of their own interests, thus focusing on developing
the children’s independence. Parent A described a typical example of this orientation toward
independence: “As parents we never propose specific expectations or plans for her study; she
can just follow her own interests. Mathematics is her own interest. She is very self-conscious
and self-disciplined.” In addition, Parents E and M noted that they based their efforts to
 Wang G. et al.

encourage their children on the particular situation. Parent M emphasized building up her
daughter’s self-confidence with encouragement because her daughter seems to be afraid of
mathematics: “She doesn’t seem to have much confidence in herself. She seems to be a little
afraid of mathematics, so we always encourage her.” Similarly, Parent E noted that if her son’s
exam turned out well, this would be an opportunity for encouragement to keep it up for the
next time, but that if an exam went poorly, she would just say, “Don’t be discouraged, you can
definitely improve your score next time.”
Finally, Parents B and J specifically discussed providing their children with mathematics
tutors. All of the parents expressed during the interviews that they felt ill-equipped to help
directly with mathematics content such as helping with homework. Although some reported
that they could still provide some mathematics help when their children were in elementary or
middle school, once they entered high school, they were no longer able. Parent B explained,
I was able to help a little bit when she was in junior high school, but now I can’t at all. I
never went to high school, I went to technical secondary school, so I don’t know much
about this subject now. Besides, I don’t dare to talk about it. I’m afraid what I say will be
different from what the textbook says.
Indeed, even if they felt they were able to directly help, they believed they should not. Instead,
they wanted to let the students be more independent in their learning. But, some parents did
provide additional external tutoring. Parent B went on to say, “But in this process, I will find a
teacher for her, find a teacher to help her review, preview.”

4 Discussion of Study 2 and overall discussion

We conducted Study 2 with two goals in mind. First, we wished to confirm the finding of
Study 1 that students who do not perceive that their parents have specific mathematics
achievement expectations show more positive mathematics-related beliefs and higher per-
ceived mathematics achievement than students who believe their parents do have specific
expectations. Study 2 did confirm this. This finding is not otherwise represented in the
literature, although some researchers have examined how students’ perceptions of their
parents’ more general educational expectations are related to school achievement (Clinton &
Hattie, 2013; Gill & Reynolds, 1999; Peixoto & Carvalho, 2009).
The second goal was to probe the connection more deeply to understand why this particular
group of students held such positive mathematical beliefs and perceptions of their mathematics
achievement. Based on the findings of Study 2, the means by which parents convey their
expectations seems to be a key factor. For those students who did not perceive that their
parents had mathematics achievement expectations for them, their parents also generally
believed that they did not explicitly express such expectations. Given that the students’ images
of the ways their parents could express such expectations were quite unsubtle, imagining that
their parents would pay special attention to and make clear statements about desired mathe-
matics scores or rankings, it seems reasonable that the parents’ comparatively indirect ways of
conveying their mathematics achievement expectations would not match those images. More-
over, these parents’ indirect ways of conveying expectations appear to be intentional—meant
to avoid putting additional parental pressure on their children and avoid causing them too
much stress. Thus, the parents’ interpretations of their expectations into words and actions (the
first arrow in Fig. 1) were deliberately constrained to be more subtle and implicit, and this had
How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their...

implications for the students’ perceptions (second arrow) and interpretations (third arrow) of
their parents’ messages because the students framed parental expectations as things that would
be communicated very explicitly and directly. Peixoto and Carvalho (2009) noted in their
study that performance-focused parental attitudes were related to a number of negative student
outcomes, including lower self-esteem and work-avoidance. By conveying their mathematics
achievement expectations in an indirect way, it would appear that these parents avoided such
negative outcomes, and indeed, the large majority of the interviewed students perceived that
their parents were trying not to put too much pressure on them.
In addition to not creating more stress for their children, these parents also chose ways
to convey their expectations that centered on providing encouragement and helping their
children monitor their own studies. There are several ways that parents can be involved
in their children’s mathematics education. Of the roles that parents can play, indirect
support roles such as motivator, resource provider, and monitor appear to be more
strongly associated with positive outcomes than direct assistance roles such as mathe-
matics content advisor and mathematics learning counselor (Cai, 2003). The parents in
the present study largely felt that they were not equipped to play direct roles in their
children’s mathematics education. Instead, they explicitly chose to pull back from more
explicit involvement such as making statements of expectations for mathematics achieve-
ment in the high school years. A potential future study might examine this phenomenon
across different grade levels to see how parents’ expectations and their decisions about
how to convey those expectations change over time as they did with Parent B. It seems
that many of the parents felt that their children already were self-disciplined enough in
studying mathematics, and so they mostly provided guidance and encouragement in self-
monitoring such as making sure that no particular course grade fell behind the others. If
students perceive that their parents are taking on this kind of supportive, encouraging
role, focusing on overall academic expectations, they may be more likely to develop
stronger self-efficacy and motivation to achieve (Clinton & Hattie, 2013).
One direction that we did not explore in this study, but which could be a fruitful
future direction for research, is to conduct similar student and parent interviews for
students who did perceive that their parents had high expectations for their mathematics
achievement. This would allow comparison of ways that parents convey their expecta-
tions and potentially a characterization of the most helpful ways for parents to convey
their expectations, whether they are in the vein of monitoring, motivating, or resource
provider roles. In addition, such an extension of this work would need to maintain a
focus on how the students perceive expectations. It is, after all, possible that parents of
both kinds of students could convey their expectations in similar ways, but that the
students perceive them differently.
Ultimately, the contribution of this pair of studies is to further open up the “black box”
between parents’ mathematics achievement expectations and students’ beliefs and achieve-
ment. As Fig. 1 shows, the strong relationships documented in the literature between parents’
expectations and students’ achievement and beliefs have a number of mediating elements—
places where interpretation is key. These studies show the feasibility and the importance of
examining not only how parents convey their expectations but also how students perceive,
interpret, and internalize such messages. In that regard, this study is exploratory in nature. As
we indicated, there are several ways to extend this work, and we believe that the framework we
have outlined (Fig. 1) can serve to help map out future studies in this area.
 Wang G. et al.

Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/
10.1007/s10649-021-10073-w.

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