What do Students Want?: Expectations and Undergraduate Persistence

At the descriptive and theoretical levels, surprisingly little attention has been given to students' expectancies when they enter college. Using data from a longitudinal study, this article describes the expectancies of entering freshmen at a Midwestern state university; distinguishes expectancies from three other types of expectations—self-labels, attributed norms, and own norms; and investigates the extent to which all four types of expectations predict who leaves and who stays at the university. Of five types of expectancies, social expectancies were most frequently mentioned, and expectancies concerning specific positions best predicted students' persistence. On aver age, however, expectancies more weakly predicted persistence than did self-labels and own norms, which were shaped, in part, by attributed norms.