Primary school teachers' expectations from students and the reflections of these expectations on students

The aim of this study is to investigate the factors that affect primary school teachers' expectations from their students and their behaviors in reflecting these expectations to their students. The study was conducted with teachers working in six randomly selected primary schools in the Esenyurt district of Istanbul. The 'Teacher Expectations Survey' developed by the researcher was applied to 262 teachers and the interview form, also developed by the researcher, was applied to 20 teachers. This study employed a convergent parallel design within the mixed methods research approach. The interview findings were analyzed using the Nvivo program, which is used in qualitative research studies. As a result of the data obtained from the survey and interview form, it was seen that academic success has a great effect on primary school teachers' development of high expectations for students. It has been found that, in addition to academic success, being eager to learn, communicating with peers, being responsible and family interest are also effective in teachers' developing high expectations for students. Primary school teachers can develop low/high expectations for students by being affected by positive and negative comments about them. Factors that are effective in developing low expectations are academic success, mischief, lack of interest in lessons and negative behavior towards peers. Teachers display behaviors such as being less patient, showing more interest, showing less attention, seating students in the front rows, and asking easy questions towards students from whom they have low expectations. The fact that students use their mother tongue properly is also a factor that influences the majority of teachers to choose these students for any celebration. According to the findings, the nationality of the students does not cause any particular difference in the attitude of the teachers. Teachers show behaviors such as asking more difficult questions, showing more interest, giving responsibility and giving the right to speak more often to students for whom they have high expectations.