Comparison of the academic expectations of Colombian first-year university students according to the parents’ level of education

Introduction: Academic expectations represent what students hope to achieve during their training and are a predictor of academic and social performance. These academic expectations are shaped by the parents, therefore their education is an important variable in the academic development of the children. Although parents project their aspirations on their children, motivate them to have high levels of aspiration and are responsible for creating more intellectually stimulating environments, the objective of this study was to identify the differences in the academic expectations of a sample of students, according to the level of education of their parents. Method: This research had the participation of 261 Colombian university students who are studying their first year of undergraduate, between the ages of 16 and 54 (mean = 21,9). For this study, the Academic Perceptions-Expectations Questionnaire (CPA-E; Deaño et al., 2015), was used, the scores of each participant were obtained, together with their sociodemographic data stipulating the parents’ level of education, and descriptive data and one-way variance (ANOVA) analyzes were done. Results: The academic expectations of students with both parents without higher education (mean= 189.176), are below the average, being significantly different from the academic expectations scores of individuals with one (mean= 202.050) or both parents with higher education (mean= 204.286, p < 0,001). Discussion: The relevance and need of access to education for most of the Colombian population is demon-strated, understanding that this is an influential factor in the academic expectations of a person, and that there must be differential support for students with parents without training professional.