Excessive educational expectations are a known risk factor for anxiety, depression, and even suicidal ideation among students. However, current instruments measuring educational expectations have largely been for primary and secondary students with a focus on parental expectations. To examine the degree of educational expectations perceived by college and university students, the study describes the development and testing of the Higher Education Expectation Scale (HEES). The scale measures the perceived educational expectations from multiple sources among students in higher education. The first study detailed the design, content validity, and initial exploratory factor analysis of the scale among 302 Malaysian tertiary students. Results from the factor analysis show that students perceived expectations from four distinct sources: parents, self, educators/institutions, and culture. The initial scale had adequate to good reliability but had poor convergent and concurrent validity. The second study addressed the limitations identified in the first study with a new sample of 302 Malaysian tertiary students. A similar four-factor structure was tested and showed good to excellent reliability and moderate convergent and concurrent validity. Overall, the results produced a final 28-item HEES multidimensional scale that will allow empirical investigations into the impact of excessive expectations on tertiary students' psychological and physical well-being.

Authors:
Izzat Morshidi, James Cook University Singapore, Singapore
Peter Chew, James Cook University Singapore, Singapore
Lidia Suarez, James Cook University Singapore, Singapore

About the Presenter(s)
Izzat is a Ph.D. candidate at James Cook University Singapore and academic at the University of Reading Malaysia. His project is on suicide risk and academic burnout among students in higher education. He is also a Teaching Fellow of the HEA, UK.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/izzat-morshidi-977770a7/

Connect on ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Izzat-Morshidi

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