Examining University Students’ Academic Expectations: Adaptation of the Academic Expectations Questionnaire in Greece

Abstract

It is claimed that student expectations about university is an important factor in understanding the relationship between the student and the university. There are some scattered studies that investigate various dimensions of students’ expectations; however, there is a need for valid and reliable measures in different educational–cultural environments that will provide further data on the nature and development of students’ academic expectations in higher education. The aim of this study was to adapt the academic expectations questionnaire (AEQ) in the Greek language and to examine its structural validity and internal consistency. Moreover, the relationship between students’ academic expectations and their adaptation to their university was examined as an indication of the instrument’s convergent validity. The participants were 439 first- and second-year university students from teacher education departments. Before the pandemic, the students completed, anonymously and online, two scales: the AEQ version and the college adaptation questionnaire. The results of the study attested to the AEQ version internal structure, confirming five different but interrelated expectation factors with adequate internal consistency: personal–social development, student international mobility, social interaction, social pressure, and training for employment. Moreover, positive associations between academic expectations and students’ reported academic, personal, and social adaptation to their university were found adding, thus, to the instrument’s convergent validity. The study offers further data on understanding university students’ academic expectations in a different educational and cultural environment. This might help to support students with unrealistic expectations to overcome possible difficulties in transition and adaptation in university life. © Common Ground Research Networks, Irini Dermitzaki, Christina Roussi-Vergou, Georgios Vleioras, Mariza Chatzistamatiou, All Rights Reserved.