The Impact of Retention in First Grade on Parents’ Expectations

In this American Educational Research Journal article, Jan Hughes, Oi-Man Kwok, and Myung Hee Im (Texas A&M University) report on their comparison of 118 ethnically diverse, at-risk first graders who were retained, compared to similar first graders who were not retained. In their repeat year in first grade, retained students felt more cognitively competent, and teachers had similarly positive perceptions. 

However, parents of retained students had lower expectations of their children, and these lower expectations continued into the following year. The researchers speculate that this difference in perceptions was because retained students and their teachers were looking at cognitive competence compared to first graders who were a year younger than the retained students, whereas parents were outside the classrooms and responding to the stigma of retention. 

“The negative effect of retention on parent educational expectations at Year 2 in turn has a negative effect on reading and math achievement as well as on children’s perceived cognitive competences,” say Hughes, Kwok, and Hee. “In the case of cognitive competence and behavioral engagement, this decrease in parent expectations reduces the magnitude of the positive direct effect of retention on these outcomes… Because parental influences on children are not limited to a given year but persist across years and because parent expectations are strongly stable across years…, the downward adjustment in expectations in response to grade retention may have enduring negative effects on children’s perceived competence, behavioral engagement, and achievement.” 

“Effect of Retention in First Grade on Parents’ Educational Expectations and Children’s Academic Outcomes” by Jan Hughes, Oi-Man Kwok, and Myung Hee Im in American Educational Research Journal, December 2013 (Vol. 50, #6, p. 1336-1359),

http://aer.sagepub.com/content/50/6/1336.abstract; Hughes is at jhughes@tamu.edu. 

From the Marshall Memo #514