| Popis: |
The purpose of this research was to explore the motives, values and expectations of Israeli Russian immigrant students and their parents who emigrated from Russia in the 1990s. Instruments administered to the students included the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)--a projective measure for assessing motives (Murray, 1938). The Thematic Apperception Test required the students to create imaginative stories in response to a series of four pictures. In addition, the students were asked to answer a Student questionnaire. The instrument administered to the parents included a Parent questionnaire. The questionnaires were used to evaluate values, expectations and opinions. The study took place in an afternoon school called the "Impulse School". All the teachers and students attending this school are Russian, and the lessons are all in Russian. Ninety-nine students participated in this study. The majority of students were ages 10-11. This group included both genders. One hundred and four parents took part in this study. Fifty-nine parents have a child who participated in the study. Every one of the parents has children attending the "Impulse School". The data from the Parent and Student questionnaires shows a lack of relationship between parent-student pairs. The adults and students have different perceptions of the academic expectations and evaluations of the students' functioning. The students perceive their parents to have higher expectations and they evaluate their schoolwork higher than their parents. The only similarity between parents and students was in both groups' definitions of success. The majority of students and parents defined success in achievement terms. This study reveals the parents' perception of the Israeli educational system as being academically weaker than the Russian one. The results agree with McClelland's (1987) assertion that correlation between the two types of measures ---the projective and unconscious TAT, and the direct and conscious questionnaires, is quite low. The majority of TAT stories expose negative feelings associated with achievement motivation. By contrast, the questionnaires show that the students value good grades and express academic self-confidence. Many of the stories did not focus on achievement motivation but on the affiliation motive, despite the fact that three out of four pictures were supposed to arouse achievement themes. |
