Research On Differences Of Undergraduates' Engagement Based On Classification Of Students' Expectation

With the popularization and expansion of higher education in China, the students' needs and expectations become increasingly diverse. The education reform in colleges and universities is focused on students and expected to pay attention to a variety of needs of students in order to comply with the development of higher education. Tinto holds the view that the establishment of a higher and clearer expectation of students can be conducive to getting academic success for them. Institutions of higher education should encourage students to set a challenging expectation and offer a variety of guidance to them according to different kinds of student expectations, which makes students take continuous efforts to achieve their expectations, helps them to focus more on study and promote the improvement of the quality of higher education. Therefore, this study mainly makes use of the expectation theory and college action model for student success to categorize students with different expectations and analyze their performance and difference in the engagement degree from the perspective of student expectations, based on the SSLD data of Huazhong University of Science and Technology(H University for short). And the following conclusions are found in the research:1)The undergraduates of H University perform very well in the student expectations as a whole, moreover, H University has six types of undergraduates sorted by the studying expectation scores from high to low: respectively, high expectations type, type of giving attention to two or more things, professional type, passive type, unitary type and low expectations type. 2) The uneven distribution of different types of students is embodied in the differences of quantity, gender and grades. There is a larger number of the high expectations type of students and a smaller number of the low expectations type of ones. The studying expectations of female students are higher than those of male students. The number of students with high expectations gradually decreases as the grade increases, while the number of students of the passive and professional type increases as the grade varies from low to high. Other types of students remain unchanged with the grade increasing. 3) There are significant differences in different types of students engagement, the greater the degree of student engagement is and vice versa. 4) The undergraduates of H University perform general in the student engagement as a whole. They have a better self-regulation and self-discipline of learning and stronger skills of emotion regulation and stress resistance, but the lower level of interaction between teachers and students would not facilitate the development of students. In the end, the times and quality of teacher-student interaction are in bad need of improvement. 5) Student expectations play a vital role in the student engagement. In a word, Student expectations and student engagement are positive correlation.Based on these conclusions, the researcher proposes that colleges should help and lead students to have a correct self-recognition and to foster self-confidence, and encourage them to meet challenges, to overcome difficulties, to set a challenging studying expectation and to make a university plan based on their expectations. Different kinds of supports from colleges should be provided for different types of students. That is, the high expectations type of students should be given enough autonomy and facility support, while the students of medium expectations type should be offered appropriate guidance. Students with the lower expectations should be paid much more attention to and be helped to overcome difficulties. Besides, teachers should have correct views on students, carry out students-centered teaching and learning activities and strengthen after-class interaction and care about students. Colleges and universities should change the way of teacher evaluation that focuses more on researches and less on teaching activities in order to make teachers devoted to talent cultivation work, strengthen the frequency of teacher-student interaction and then improve the quality of talent cultivation of higher education.