Academic expectations as sources of stress in Asian students

Abstract

Education is highly valued in Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) countries such as China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea but the expectations of parents, teachers and students themselves to excel academically can also be a source of intense stress for many students. The Academic Expectations Stress Inventory (AESI), developed by Ang and Huan (Educ Psychol Meas 66: 522–539, 2006) to measure parent, teacher and self expectations as sources of academic stress in Asian adolescents, was administered to 176 Singaporean secondary and college students one month before their major examinations. Rasch analyses of the students’ responses to the AESI showed the nine items in the inventory formed a robust unidimensional scale of academic stress, with two separate unidimensional subscales of Expectations of Parents and Teachers and Expectations of Self complementing the factor analysis conducted by Ang and Huan (Educ Psychol Meas 66: 522–539, 2006). The item thresholds showed the AESI measured the student trait range adequately, and affirmed the inventory as a brief yet valid measure of academic stress for Asian students from a CHC background. The AESI is a valuable tool for teachers and researchers, as it provides an understanding of the role of parents, teachers and self expectations as sources of academic stress among students from a CHC background.