The role of expectations in children's experience of novel events

Teacher-student relationship quality as a function of children's expectancies

Study 1, a longitudinal field study, tested children's summertime expectancies of their upcoming teachers as a predictor of teacher-student relationship quality (TSRQ) across an academic year. Eighty-one fourth- to sixth-grade children and their 16 teachers reported on TSRQ 2, 20, and 36 weeks into the school year. Children's summertime expectancies predicted TSRQ, with greater expected autonomy support predicting higher quality relationships, as reported by both children and teachers. In Study 2, we manipulated 71 third- through sixth-grade children's expectancies of a guest teacher's autonomy-supportiveness prior to a 6-week instructional unit and measured TSRQ repeatedly throughout. The causal effect of expectancies was limited to the oldest children, and its direction differed by sex and time of measurement. Implications are discussed.