metadata: authors: 0: author: Johnson,Hillary C.
1: author: Muller,Noël
count: Indonesia,East Asia and Pacific
docna: 0: docna: Dreams and Barriers: Aspirations,
            Expectations, and Schooling Outcomes of Indonesian Students
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
abstracts: cdata!: High aspirations for their future
            motivate youth to strive toward them and achieve better
            outcomes. However, the influence of perceived constraints on
            the motivational power of aspirations is unclear: do high
            aspirations motivate independently of constraints or only
            when expected constraints seem workable? This paper explores
            this question with a gender lens and using a large,
            cross-sectional survey of adolescent students in Indonesia.
            The findings show that most students aspire to high
            education levels, but only half of the students expect to
            complete the level to which they aspire. Although girls have
            higher aspirations than boys, girls are less likely to
            expect to achieve their aspirations. Years of aspired
            education are strongly correlated with better current
            schooling outcomes (grades and attendance), and while
            expectations are also associated with better schooling
            outcomes, the relationship is nonlinear. Aspirations seem to
            motivate students despite their perceived constraints,
            unless there is a large gap between their aspirations and
            expectations. Although there are similar patterns for boys
            and girls, aspirations are more correlated with
            boys&#x2019; attendance, and expectations are more
            strongly related to boys&#x2019; grades and attendance.
            Students cite both mental barriers and economic constraints
            to achieving their aspirations, especially the latter for
            girls. The results suggest that both male and female
            Indonesian students could benefit from programs that boost
            aspirations and address psychological and economic constraints.
display_title: Dreams and Barriers: Aspirations,
            Expectations, and Schooling Outcomes of Indonesian Students
listing_relative_url: /research/2022/12/33957957/dreams-barriers-aspirations-expectations-schooling-outcomes-indonesian-students
topicv3: Education and Gender m1326343 1545
publishtoextweb_dt: 2022-12-15T00:00:00Z
dois: 10.1596/1813-9450-10267
author_keys: 0: author_key: 1185277
1: author_key: NA
model_extractions: Policy Research Working Paper 10267

# Dreams and Barriers

Aspirations, Expectations, and Schooling Outcomes of Indonesian Students _Hillary C. Johnson Noël Muller_ East Asia and the Pacific Region Gender Innovation Lab December 2022
Policy Research Working Paper 10267

# **Abstract**

High aspirations for their future motivate youth to strive toward them and achieve better outcomes. However, the influence of perceived constraints on the motivational power of aspirations is unclear: do high aspirations motivate independently of constraints or only when expected constraints seem workable? This paper explores this question with a gender lens and using a large, cross-sectional survey of adolescent students in Indonesia. The findings show that most students aspire to high education levels, but only half of the students expect to complete the level to which they aspire. Although girls have higher aspirations than boys, girls are less likely to expect to achieve their aspirations. Years of aspired education are strongly correlated with better current schooling outcomes (grades and attendance), and while expectations are also associated with better schooling outcomes, the relationship is nonlinear. Aspirations seem to motivate students despite their perceived constraints, unless there is a large gap between their aspirations and expectations. Although there are similar patterns for boys and girls, aspirations are more correlated with boys’ attendance, and expectations are more strongly related to boys’ grades and attendance. Students cite both mental barriers and economic constraints to achieving their aspirations, especially the latter for girls. The results suggest that both male and female Indonesian students could benefit from programs that boost aspirations and address psychological and economic constraints.

This paper is a product of the Gender Innovation Lab, East Asia and the Pacific Region. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at hjohnson1@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
# **Dreams and Barriers**

# Aspirations, Expectations, and Schooling Outcomes of Indonesian Students

Hillary C. Johnson `r` Noël Muller<sup>1</sup> World Bank

**Keywords** : Aspirations, expectations, education, gender, socioemotional skills.

**JEL** : D84, D91, I24, J16, J24.

> 1 We thank Diego Catalán Molina, Samantha De Martino, Elizaveta Perova, Daniel Pinzón Hernandez, Kali Trzesniewski, and Renos Vakis for continuous conversations and feedback while developing this paper and related joint work. We also thank Achim Schmillen and participants from the 2020 conferences of the Missouri Valley Economic Association and the Society for Research in Child Development for their comments. Our names are listed in random order.

Emails: Hillary C. Johnson, hjohnson1@worldbank.org; Noël Muller, noel.muller@hotmail.fr.
# **1. Introduction**

Growing evidence suggests that aspirations are a key factor shaping students’ schooling and later-life outcomes (Fruttero, Muller, and Calvo-González 2021). In theory, aspirations for the future act as reference points that guide decisions and inspire effort towards the aspired goals (Ray 2006; Dalton, Ghosal, and Mani 2016; Genicot and Ray 2020). Longitudinal analyses from Brazil, China, Ethiopia, France, and India show that adolescents with higher aspirations indeed also complete more schooling and get better academic outcomes (Glewwe, Huang, and Park 2017; Favara 2017; Ross 2019; Guyon and Huillery 2021; Gagete-Miranda 2022). Likewise, some experimental studies of interventions raising schooling outcomes suggest higher aspirations were the mechanism through which youth changed their behaviors and eventually got better outcomes (Beaman et al. 2012; Avitabile and Hoyos 2018; Ross et al. 2021; Bernard et al. 2022; Riley 2022). On the flip side, disadvantaged students, such as immigrants and those from poor families, are typically less aware of top educational pathways and underestimate their academic ability, leading them to develop low aspirations and eventually confirm these lower prospects (Guyon and Huillery 2021; Carlana, La Ferrara, and Pinotti 2022).

A remaining open question is how perceived constraints affect the motivation spurred by aspirations. Do high aspirations lead youth to better outcomes no matter the constraints they anticipate? Or do aspirations motivate youth only when the expected constraints on their educational path—such as the lack of money and family support, low perceived abilities, etc.—feel manageable? This is a key issue for policy design. If aspirations alone are sufficient to motivate students, interventions can focus on increasing awareness of opportunities and motivating students to dream big. On the other hand, if students’ expectations of their future are more salient, expected constraints may curb motivation, and interventions could focus on removing actual constraints and on fostering the perception that they are surmountable.

We examine this issue for a large sample of students in junior secondary school in Indonesia. We use a cross-sectional survey of approximately 56,000 eighth-grade students (age 14 on average) from 2,095 public schools on the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatera. The data allow to distinguish aspirations, measured from self-reported preferences of students’ future completed educational level in a hypothetical scenario in which they had no constraints, and expectations, which are their selfassessed most likely outcomes given their current situation. Having lower expectations than aspirations would mean that the student perceives binding constraints to achieve his or her educational aspirations.

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We aim to answer three main questions. First, is there a gap between students’ aspirations and expectations, which would indicate that they feel constrained when imagining their future education? If yes, how large is it and how does it differ by gender? Second, how do aspirations, expectations, and having a gap between the two correlate with schooling outcomes such as grades and school attendance, and are these relationships different for girls and boys? Such correlations can suggest the extent to which aspirations and expectations relate to students’ current effort in school. Third, what factors do students perceive as their main barriers to fulfilling their aspirations, and do these factors vary by gender?

Our study has at least three main contributions. First, we compare the relationship between aspirations and outcomes with the relationship between expectations and outcomes from one of the few surveys of students measuring both concepts. Second, this is one of the first studies to discuss students’ constraints related to their aspirations. Third, our analysis systematically assesses gender differences, a relatively understudied topic, and our results are based on a large-scale survey from a middle-income country.

We find that most Indonesian students aspire to high levels of education but only half of the students expect to complete their aspired level. Three-quarters of the students aspire to postsecondary education, dominantly university education. However, on average, students expect educational levels that represent three years less of education than their aspired level. A non-negligible 15 percent of students have a 9-year aspirations-expectations gap, which represents aspiring for an 8-year university degree and expecting to complete the equivalent of high school. While boys tend to aspire to lower levels of education, girls aspire higher but expect much less than they aspire to: while 86 percent of girls aspire to a postsecondary degree (compared to 67 percent of boys), only 55 percent expect it (compared to 42 percent of boys).

Higher aspirations correlate with better grades and, up to a point, lower absenteeism. Aspirations are positively correlated with grades across the distribution, although with decreasing magnitude. Each additional year of aspired education is correlated with fewer missed days of school, up to 19.7 years of aspired education (more than a master’s degree) when this trend reverses. The magnitude of correlation between aspirations and schooling outcomes is notable: aspiring to achieve a bachelor’s degree rather than a high school degree is associated with grades that are 0.14 standard deviation higher and with missing 0.32 fewer days of school per month. Whereas the relationship between aspirations and grades is similar for boys and girls, the relationship between aspirations and absenteeism is stronger for boys, suggesting that girls may have less control over the reasons for which they miss school.

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The relationship between expectations and schooling outcomes follows a more bended arc shape. Expecting to achieve a bachelor’s degree rather than a high school degree is associated with grades that are 0.06 standard deviation higher and with missing 0.17 fewer days of school per month. Expectations are associated with higher grades and absenteeism until between 15 and 16 years of expected education (about the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree) after which the trend reverses. Students who expect to complete high school have similar grades and absenteeism as those who expect to achieve a PhD. Perhaps students with highest grades and high-but-not-highest aspirations express that they expect a bachelor’s rather than master’s or PhD out of higher carefulness —being conscious that possible difficulties and hard work lie ahead—or because part of the students who do not have the top grades would express expecting a PhD without really understanding the requirements and efforts to achieve it. Boys have a stronger relationship between their expectations and their schooling outcomes than girls, suggesting that boys may be particularly motivated by dreams that seem achievable.

Aspirations appear to motivate students despite the constraints they face, except when the gap between aspired and expected education levels surpasses 7 years. Expecting to achieve an education level that is less than the aspired one is positively correlated with grades and school attendance, likely because students who have lower expectations than aspirations are also those who aspire to the highest levels. However, the relationship between current schooling outcomes and the number of years difference between aspired and expected education levels is non-linear. Students who aspire to a PhD but expect at most a secondary-school level have similar or worse current schooling outcomes than those who do not have a gap between their aspired and expected education levels. This suggests that aspirations motivate students despite expected constraints unless their expectations fall very short of their aspirations.

These non-linear patterns are aligned with theoretical and empirical studies that explore the differences between aspirations and current situations. Foundational theory of aspirations in economics argues that aspirations motivate individuals up to a point after which aspirations become too far off one’s initial situation and are no longer motivating, coining the term “aspirations gap” to refer to the difference between someone’s aspirations and his current situation (Ray 2006, Genicot and Ray 2017). Panel data for Indian adolescents confirm that educational outcomes at age 19 correlate positively with the size of their aspirations gap of at age 12—the difference between the wages corresponding to their aspired job and education, and the wages corresponding to their parent’s occupation—up to a point corresponding to about seven times the average parents’ wage, twice the average aspiration gap, and one and a half times the average aspired level (Ross 2019). Similar nonlinear relationships were 4
found for different outcomes in different contexts: between the income aspirations gap and real estate investment measured by expenditures on household construction materials and land in rural Myanmar (Bloem 2021); and between women’s aspirations for personal income and for their children’s education and their savings and expenditures on their children’s education in rural Nepal (Janzen et al. 2017). In our analysis, the initial situation of students — their current education — is the same for all as they are surveyed in grade 8, so the distance between their current and aspired education only differs by their levels of aspirations. Yet, the expectations we measure also capture what students feel is possible, as the initial conditions may do when measuring the aspirations gap.

In our analysis, students report both mental barriers and a lack of resources as their main difficulties to achieving their educational aspirations. The main mental barriers include the perceived lack of study habits and perseverance cited by 30 percent of students, and to a lesser extent not feeling smart enough and fearing of being overwhelmed by higher education (9 and 4 percent, respectively). The lack of resources includes the lack of money, felt by 24 percent of students, and need to work as well as the lack of connections and family support (6 and 1 percent, respectively). Girls are more likely to cite economic constraints, which might be due to the longer studies to which they aspire. Higher perceived economic constraints by girls might also be linked to the low labor market participation and lower wage of women in Indonesia, in addition to restrictive gender norms, driving some families to perceive girls’ education as less valuable (Afkar et al. 2020).

Overall, our results suggest that aspirations are strongly correlated with schooling trajectories: aspiring to high school instead of middle school education and to a bachelor’s degree instead of a high school degree are correlated with current grades that are 0.15 and 0.14 standard deviations higher, respectively. Although in most cases aspirations seem to motivate students despite the constraints they face, encouraging students to set high aspirations without creating opportunities for them to achieve these aspirations can lead to discouragement and frustration (Genicot and Ray 2020). Moreover, students can become demotivated when they expect education levels that are considerably lower than their aspirations. As such, it is also important to address both mental and economic barriers that could impede students from reaching their goals. Different policies may have stronger impacts on boys or girls given gender differences in aspirations, expectations, and perceived constraints. However, all of the aforementioned policies would likely be beneficial for both boys and girls, as patterns of aspirations, expectations, and their relationship with schooling outcomes are similar for both boys and girls, even if magnitudes are different.

Our paper has four sections after this introduction. Section 2 introduces the concept of aspirations, how they influence our behaviors, and how they differ from expectations. Section 3 presents the data 5
set, a large cross-sectional survey of adolescent students in Indonesia that is the baseline of an impact evaluation of a school-based program, and the measures of the outcomes and the main variables of interest. Section 4 describes our methodological approach and the limitations of our data and analysis. Section 5 presents the results for our three research questions. We then conclude with the possible policy implications of our findings.

# **2. What are aspirations and expectations?**

Aspirations are desires for the future that motivate. They can be about any desirable goals: completing a given education level, working in a dream job, getting married, or reaching a high social status (Ray 2006). They depend on awareness about possible opportunities, for example knowing about various educational pathways or types of jobs. They also depend on preferences, which are heavily influenced by the social groups one belongs to (Ray 2006; Genicot and Ray 2020). Once set, aspirations drive choices and effort towards them (Dalton, Ghosal, and Mani 2016). In this paper, we study educational aspirations, conceptualized as preferences for the ideal future completed level in a hypothetical scenario in which one had no constraints.

Expectations are the beliefs of the most likely outcome given one’s perceived current situation and constraints (Bernard and Taffesse 2014; La Ferrara 2019). They may coincide with aspirations, and their formations are undoubtedly related. However, expectations capture a different concept: one’s perceived likeliness to achieve one’s goals. Note that constraints are _perceived_ , not necessarily _actually_ impossible to overcome. For example, students can perceive the actual constraint of the amount of money they and their family can allocate to their schooling. However, they can also perceive economic constraints, such as schooling costs, which may or may not be actually binding, for example if the schooling cost can be overcome with a scholarship.

A handful of studies with measures of both aspirations and expectations suggest that they are different concepts. Given that aspirations are ideal outcomes and expectations are most likely ones, expectations are on average lower or at maximum equal to aspirations. In rural Ethiopia, a sample of adults had on average only slightly lower expectations for their children’s education than aspirations — 12.4 and 12.9 years, respectively — but had much lower expectations in terms of income, wealth, and social status, than the level they aspired to (Bernard et al. 2014).<sup>2</sup> Likewise, in a sample of poor households in Colombia, 14 percent of parents expected to complete university themselves while 33

> 2 Measures of expectations in the four dimensions were based on a survey question with a time horizon of ten years, while the aspirations question were based on wished achieved level in life, which may have influenced differential aspired and expected levels.

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percent aspired to it; 21 percent expected their children to do so while 40 percent aspired to it (Garcia, Harker, and Cuartas 2019). Similarly, when asked about educational options they were aware of and felt academically able to follow, French junior-high-school students reported that they felt able to follow only a subset of options of the ones they were aware of (Guyon and Huillery 2021). In El Salvador, Mexico, and Uruguay, a housing program for slum-dwellers had a positive impact on participants’ aspirations but not their expectations, and their expectations were found to be unrelated to the evolution of their housing aspirations over time (Galiani, Gertler, and Undurraga 2021).

# **3. Data**

## _Data set_

We use a large cross-sectional survey that is representative of students in public, secular, middle schools on the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatera, which are home to 70 percent of the Indonesian population. The survey, collected in February-March 2018, covers 55,964 8<sup>th</sup> grade students studying in 2,095 public schools.<sup>3</sup> The data was collected as the baseline of an impact evaluation of a pilot intervention aimed at improving students’ aspirations, mindsets, socioemotional skills, studying practices, and learning outcomes (Johnson et al. 2020).

## _Measures of outcomes and correlates_

**Schooling outcomes** . We measure two current schooling outcomes: absenteeism and grades. Absenteeism (the opposite of school attendance) is the number of missed days of school in the month preceding the survey, which is self-reported by the students. Students who did not miss any day—51 percent of the sample—are marked with a zero. Eighty percent of students who missed at least one day report they missed school because of sickness. Students who mention other factors for missing schools, such as family’s demands, school and weather factors, and issues related to their behaviors, miss more days per month on average. Grades are the average of four subjects—Math, Science, English, and Bahasa Indonesia—of the last semester before the survey. Information on grades was collected from the schools’ administrative data and has been standardized at the school level with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. School attendance and grades correlate highly with college attendance, future wages, and future arrests better than standardized achievement test scores (Jackson 2018).

> 3 The survey lasted 40 minutes on average. It was paper-based and self-administered during school time under the guidance of a trained enumerator.

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**Aspirations, expectations, and the aspirations-expectations gap** . We measure students’ aspirations and expectations for future educational attainment. As it is typically done, aspirations and expectations were measured by one survey question each (Fruttero, Muller, and Calvo-González 2021). For educational attainment, aspirations are measured using the following question with ten response options: “Imagine you had no constraints and could study for as long as you liked. What level of education would you like to complete?” similarly to Favara (2017) and Ross (2019). Expectations are measured using the following question and the same response options: “What level of education do you expect to reach, given your current situation?” We measure the gap in educational attainment as the difference in years of education between aspirations and expectations in educational attainment.

**Socioemotional skills** . The survey includes seven measures of mindsets, perceptions of the classroom environment, and socioemotional skills, which are distinct concepts but which we collectively call “socioemotional skills” in this paper for simplicity. Mindsets are the way in which people perceive their own basic capabilities, in particular regarding how smart they are, and whether they can change it or not (Dweck and Yeager 2019). Socioemotional skills are a set of learned attitudes and behaviors that allow people to manage personal and social situations effectively (Weissberg et al. 2015). Perceptions are about the classroom environment and what is valued and rejected by classmates and teachers in the learning process (Lam et al. 2015). The seven measures are: self-esteem, sense of belonging, perseverance, growth mindset, effort beliefs, learning orientation, and performanceavoidance orientation. These measures are based on a battery of survey questions, aggregated in individual scores according to validated psychological scales and adapted to the Indonesian context. Surveyed students answer statements such as “I cannot change how smart I am” or “I feel I belong at my school” with five response options quantified from 1 to 5: “Not true at all,” “Not quite true,” “A little bit true,” “Quite true,” “Completely true.” The scores are the average of survey questions corresponding to a skill or mindset and range from 1-5. The higher the score, the more of the skill, mindset, and perception one demonstrates. The definitions, survey questions, and a discussion of the validity and reliability of the measures are in Annex 1.

Summary statistics of outcomes, aspirations, expectations and covariates are in Annex 2.

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# **4. Empirical Strategy**

## _Methodological approach_

We use descriptive statistics to explore how students’ aspirations and expectations for their future education compare (section 5.1) and the main barriers students perceive to achieving their aspirations (section 5.3). To assess how much students’ aspirations and expectations correlate with immediate schooling outcomes (section 5.2), we use polynomial regression analysis using the following equation: Where: Sis represents the schooling outcomes—grades and absenteeism—of individual _i_ in school _s_ AEis represents the number of years of aspired or expected education or the difference between the two (each in one specification) SEis is socioemotional skills that are known to influence schooling outcomes (OECD 2015) Xis is four demographic factors (age, sex, location in urban or rural areas, and location in the islands of Java or Sumatra) εis is the error term.

We cluster standard errors at the school level to adjust for sample design (Abadie et al. 2022). We include the quadradic of AE _is_ because previous studies suggest that the relationship between aspirations and outcomes may not be linear (Ross 2019; Bloem 2021), and a graphical depiction of this relationship suggests this is the appropriate functional form.

### _Limitations_

The reader should interpret results of the methodological approach for section 5.2. as correlations controlling for confounding factors, rather than causal effects. Although the results demonstrate policy-relevant patterns, we acknowledge five limitations:

**Simultaneity bias (or reverse causality).** Schooling outcomes and facets of aspirations are likely jointly shaped since, in theory, people adapt their aspirations with their realized outcomes (Dalton, Ghosal, and Mani 2016). For example, a junior-secondary student may aspire to complete a bachelor’s degree but upgrade his aspiration to a master’s degree after getting good grades in upper-secondary

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level. Given that our survey is cross sectional—i.e. our information about grades, facets of aspirations, and other information is at the same point in time—this bias may be particularly relevant. In our survey, grades that were given by schools are actually from the semester before students reported their aspirations, so the risk of reverse causality—the estimated outcome causing one of his supposed determinants—may be high. Another source of reverse causality may arise between the schooling outcomes and the measures of socioemotional skills we control for. For example, having higher grades may contribute to boosting self-esteem (Almlund et al. 2011).

**Endogeneity of controls.** Our measures of socioemotional skills (self-esteem, sense of belonging, growth mindset, and perseverance, among others), which we control for in regressions given their proven impact on schooling outcomes in other contexts, may contribute to shape aspirations and expectations and generate endogeneity. While there is little research so far on the topic, two studies in Italy and India find that self-efficacy, a belief that captures one’s confidence about his ability to successfully achieve goals, drives aspirations (Bandura et al. 2001; Roy, Morton, and Bhattacharya 2018).

**Omitted variable bias.** Our data may lack some important determinants of our outcomes of interest, such as students’ cognitive skills — mental abilities such as comprehension and reasoning— which are a great determinant of academic performance and school attainment, or other socioemotional skills we do not measure. In this case, we would be unable to observe relevant differences across individuals that may explain their differences in outcomes and misinterpret the latter as the result of the characteristics we measure.

**Measurement error** . There is a risk, as with every survey, that our survey measures people’s characteristics with error. For example, some students may understand differently subtle questions on aspirations. Besides, survey-based measures of mindsets and socioemotional skills are notoriously noisy, especially in low- and middle-income countries (Lajaaj and Macours 2019). School grades also have a degree of subjectivity.

**Selection bias.** Another caveat is that the relationships we explore only represent the population of students who attend public, secular schools,<sup>4</sup> which is selective given that it excludes youth who quit school earlier as well as those who attend private schools, religious schools, or technical and remedial schools. According to the Institute for Statistics of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 81 percent of girls and 75 of boys of age to be enrolled in junior-

> 4 In the Indonesian education system these schools are known as _Sekolah Menengah Pertama Negeri_ .

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secondary level are actually enrolled at the lower secondary level in Indonesia in 2015. While this is the majority of the age cohort, the relationships between aspirations, expectations, and outcomes could be different if out-of-school adolescents were still in school and considered, especially since they likely have either lower aspirations or face greater constraints to continuing their education.

# **5. Results**

## **5.1. What do students aspire to and expect when imagining their future education?**

## _High aspirations, lower expectations_

Indonesian adolescent students in our sample dream of completing high educational levels. When asked what level of education they would like to complete if they had no constraints and could study as long as they liked, three-quarters of students aspired for postsecondary education, dominantly university education (Figure 1).<sup>5</sup> This proportion is similar to the average for a handful of low- and middle-income countries for which we have similar data: the 74 percent aspiring for university in Indonesia are similar to Vietnam in which 75 percent of 12-year-olds —including those who are not students anymore— respond to a similar question that they aspire to complete university, higher than Ethiopia (69 percent) and India (68 percent) but lower than Peru (79 percent) (Favara et al. 2018).<sup>6</sup> Among students in Indonesia, almost half aspire for a PhD —the highest level representing eight years of postsecondary education and more than twenty years of education in total— that is three times more than any other level, be it postsecondary magister or technical and vocational high school.<sup>7</sup>

> 5 Only 3 percent of the students wish for a vocational postsecondary education.

> 6 Data on aspirations for these countries are from the Young Lives Surveys, which measure educational aspirations with a similar survey question in: “Imagine you had no constraints and could study for as long as you liked, or go back to school if you have already left. What level of formal education would you like to complete?” (Favara 2017, Ross 2019).

> 7 The proportion of students aspiring to a doctorate may seem high, considering that many students of this age might not actually know that the doctorate level exists nor what it entails. Given that students were presented this question on a paper they were filling themselves with an ascending list of educational levels, they might have checked the highest one, possibly with limited knowledge of it. In this case, this could be interpreted as a strong signal that students see value in education and want the most of it if they had no constraints.

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Many students, especially girls, thus perceive constraints to achieving their aspirations. The fact that half of students have lower aspirations than expectations, often much lower, may indicate that they perceive high barriers. Given that girls have a much larger difference with their expectations than boys, they may feel that it is harder for them to achieve their aspirations, whether the barriers are correctly or wrongly perceived. However, boys, who have lower aspirations than girls in the first place, could also suffer from barriers in setting those aspirations that could have to do with lack of information or lack in confidence in their abilities —even in a hypothetical scenario without constraints. We explore the constraints students face in achieving their aspirations in Section 5.3.

# **5.2. How much do students’ aspirations and expectations correlate with immediate schooling outcomes?**

Aspirations for higher levels of education in the future are positively correlated with Indonesian students’ current grades and negatively correlated with absenteeism. This is consistent with findings from other countries that show a positive relationship between aspirations for the future and schooling outcomes (Glewwe, Huang, and Park 2017; Favara 2017; Ross 2019; Guyon and Huillery 2021; Gagete-Miranda 2022). However, the relationship between aspirations for the future and current schooling outcomes is not linear (Figure 5 and Table 1). Although higher levels of aspirations are always associated with higher grades, the curve flattens for the highest levels of aspired educational attainment. For absenteeism, aspiring to higher levels of education is correlated with lower absenteeism until 19.7 years of education when the trend starts to reverse. Considering that students who aspire to any level of university training would be motivated to deploy a lot of effort in their current academic pursuits, it is not surprising that aspiring to a PhD-level education only has a slightly stronger correlation with current academic outcomes than aspiring to a bachelor’s degree. These relationships are robust to other specifications detailed in Annex 3.

Compared to students who aspire to a lower level of education, those who aspire to complete high school or university have considerably better current schooling outcomes. Aspiring to complete high school rather than middle school is associated with grades that are 0.15 standard deviations higher and missing 0.39 fewer days of school each month. Similarly, aspiring to achieve a bachelor’s degree rather than a high school degree is associated with grades that are 0.14 standard deviations higher and with missing 0.32 fewer days of school per month (Figure 6). To put these results in context, this relationship is on par or higher than the conditional correlations of several socioemotional skills and mindsets with current schooling outcomes (Table 1).

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# **Table 1. Conditional correlations of grades and absenteeism with aspired and expected education**

||**S**|**tandardized a**|**verage grade**|**s**|**Number of**|**school days**|**missed in the**|**past month**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|
|Aspired education in years<br>|**0.091*****<br>(0.01)||||**-0.276*****<br>(0.03)||||
|Aspired education in years<sup>2</sup>|**-0.002*****||||**0.007*****||||
||(0.00)||||(0.00)||||
|Expected education in years||**0.154*****<br>(0.01)||||**-0.322*****<br>(0.03)|||
|Expected education in years<sup>2</sup>||<br>**-0.005*****||||<br>**0.010*****|||
|||(0.00)||||(0.00)|||
|Diff. in years between aspi. and expect.|||**0.029*****<br>(0.00)||||**-0.040*****<br>(0.01)||
|Diff. in years between aspi. and expect.<sup>2</sup>|||<br>**-0.002*****||||<br>**0.003*****||
||||(0.00)||||(0.00)||
|Having lower expect. than aspi. (dummy)||||**0.122*****||||**-0.117*****|
|||||(0.01)||||(0.02)|
|Self-esteem|-0.004|-0.005|-0.001|-0.000|-0.050***|-0.048***|-0.054***|-0.054***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Sense of belonging|0.063***|0.066***|0.065***|0.066***|-0.101***|-0.105***|-0.105***|-0.107***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Perseverance|0.042***|0.046***|0.047***|0.048***|-0.029**|-0.033***|-0.037***|-0.038***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Growth mindset|0.145***|0.151***|0.152***|0.153***|-0.090***|-0.095***|-0.101***|-0.104***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Effort beliefs|0.053***|0.056***|0.055***|0.055***|0.002|-0.002|-0.002|-0.002|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Learning orientation|0.123***|0.129***|0.131***|0.130***|-0.095***|-0.102***|-0.109***|-0.110***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Performance-avoidance orientation|-0.059***|-0.059***|-0.060***|-0.060***|0.039***|0.039***|0.042***|0.042***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Age (with decimals)|-0.101***|-0.104***|-0.109***|-0.110***|0.143***|0.146***|0.160***|0.162***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Being a girl (dummy)|0.580***|0.601***|0.596***|0.595***|-0.360***|-0.392***|-0.393***|-0.395***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.02)|
|Living in urban area (vs. rural)|-0.113***|-0.110***|-0.091***|-0.090***|-0.109***|-0.105***|-0.147***|-0.151***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Living in Java (vs. in Sumatra)|<br>0.038***|<br>0.031***|<br>0.020***|<br>0.021***|<br>0.009|<br>0.015|<br>0.041|<br>0.040|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Constant|0.231*|-0.020|1.230***|1.212***|1.893***|1.939***|-0.753***|-0.753***|
||(0.12)|(0.12)|(0.08)|(0.08)|(0.33)|(0.32)|(0.21)|(0.21)|
|Observations|54,639|54,615|54,610|54,610|55,039|55,014|55,009|55,009|
|R-squared|0.24|0.23|0.23|0.23|0.05|0.04|0.04|0.04|

_Source_ : Authors’ calculations based on the 2018 survey “Getting to Know 8th Grade Students.” _Note_ : Conditional correlations are Ordinary Least Squares regressions. Yellow and blue highlights show significant correlations at least at the 95 percent level for the variables of interest and covariates, respectively. Grades are the average of four subjects—math, science, English, Bahasa Indonesia—of the last semester before the survey and come from the schools’ administrative data. They are standardized at the school level, with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. Measures of socioemotional skills are standardized for the entire sample (see annex 2 for definitions). Standard errors are clustered at the school level. The base level of the dummy ‘have lower expectations than aspirations’ includes 5 percent of students with higher expectations than aspirations.

_*p < 0.1 **p < 0.05 ***p < 0.01_ 18
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Aspirations appear to motivate students despite constraints that seem binding, except when students aspire to the highest level of education but only expect a high school degree or less. Overall, students who expect to achieve a level of education that is less than their aspired level have grades that are 0.12 standard deviations higher and absenteeism that is 0.12 days per month lower than those who expect to achieve their aspired level (Table 1). This finding is likely linked to the fact that the students who do not expect to achieve their aspired education level are also those who have the highest aspirations. However, the magnitude of the gap between the aspired and expected education levels matters. As shown in Figure 5, the gap between the aspired and expected education levels is positively correlated with grades and school attendance until approximately 7 years, when the trend reverses. Figure 2 shows that the majority of students with more than a 7-year gap have a gap of 9 years, which is the equivalent of aspiring to a PhD but expecting to complete high school. This suggests that binding constraints can demotivate students who dream big but expect much less.

While aspirations are positively associated with grades across the distribution and negatively associated with absenteeism across almost all of the distribution, the relationship between expected educational attainment and current schooling outcomes is more complex. Aligned with the theory that expecting to achieve a higher level of education can motivate students to do their best at school, expectations are associated with higher grades and attendance until 15.4 and 16.1 years of expected education, respectively. However, around the number or years needed to complete a bachelor’s degree, the trend reverses. The grades of students who expect to receive a PhD are aligned with those of students who expect to complete high school (Figure 5). Perhaps students with higher grades express that they expect a bachelor’s degree rather than master’s or PhD out of higher carefulness —being conscious that possible difficulties and hard work lie ahead— while they stand firm on their aspirations to the higher levels. Alternatively, some students with grades close to the mean may express expecting a PhD without fully understanding the requirements and effort needed to achieve it.

The relationship between expectations and schooling outcomes is weaker for girls than for boys, although the same general pattern remains (Table 2). Expecting to achieve a high school degree rather than a middle school degree is correlated with grades that are 0.22 and 0.13 standard deviations higher and 0.44 and 0.23 fewer days of school missed per month for boys and girls, respectively. Boys who expect to obtain a bachelor’s degree have grades that are 0.15 standard deviations higher and miss 0.23 fewer days of school per month than those who expect a high school degree, whereas for girls these correlations are only 0.06 and 0.12, respectively. As discussed above, dreaming big seems to equally motivate boys and girls to work hard and improve their grades in school. However, boys are particularly motivated not only when they dream big but when those dreams seem achievable.

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# **Table 2. Conditional correlations of grades and absenteeism with aspiration and expectations by gender**

|||**Standardized a**|**verage grades**||**Number o**|**f school days **|**missed in the p**|**ast month**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|
|Being a girl (dummy)|**0.436****<br>|**1.014*****<br>|**0.590*****<br>|**0.603*****<br>|**-1.841*****<br>|**-1.887*****<br>|**-0.432*****<br>|**-0.455*****<br>|
||(0.18)|(0.17)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.49)|(0.45)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Aspired education in years|**0.084*****<br>(0.01)||||**-0.350*****<br>(0.05)||||
|Aspired education in years<sup>2</sup>|**-0.002*****<br>||||**0.010*****<br>||||
||(0.00)||||(0.00)||||
|Girl * Aspired education|0.016||||**0.179*****||||
||(0.02)||||(0.06)||||
|Girl * Aspired education in years<sup>2</sup>|-0.000||||**-0.005*****||||
||(0.00)||||(0.00)||||
|Expected education in years||**0.177*****<br>(0.02)||||**-0.421*****<br>(0.05)|||
|Expected education in years<sup>2</sup>||<br>**-0.005*****||||<br>**0.013*****|||
|||(0.00)||||(0.00)|||
|Girl * Expected education in years||**-0.049****||||**0.196*****|||
|||(0.02)||||(0.06)|||
|Girl * Expected education in years<sup>2</sup>||0.001*||||**-0.006*****|||
|||(0.00)||||(0.00)|||
|Diff. aspi. and expect. (years)|||**0.028*****<br>(0.00)||||**-0.057*****<br>(0.01)||
|Diff. aspi. and expect. (years)<sup>2</sup>|||**-0.002*****||||**0.005*****||
||||(0.00)||||(0.00)||
|Girl * Diff. aspi. and expect. (years)|||0.001<br>||||**0.040*****<br>||
||||(0.00)||||(0.01)||
|Girl * aspi. and expect. (years)<sup>2</sup>|||0.000||||**-0.003****||
||||(0.00)||||(0.00)||
|Lower expect. than aspi. (dummy)*||||**0.131*****<br>||||**-0.177*****<br>|
|||||(0.01)||||(0.03)|
|Girl * Lower expect. than aspi.||||-0.017||||**0.116*****|
|||||(0.02)||||(0.04)|
|Self-esteem|-0.004<br>|-0.005<br>|-0.001<br>|-0.000<br>|-0.051***<br>|-0.048***<br>|-0.054***<br>|-0.054***<br>|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Sense of belonging|0.063***|0.065***|0.065***|0.066***|-0.101***|-0.104***|-0.105***|-0.107***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Perseverance|0.042***|0.046***|0.047***|0.048***|-0.029**|-0.033***|-0.037***|-0.037***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Growth mindset|0.145***<br>|0.151***<br>|0.152***<br>|0.153***<br>|-0.091***<br>|-0.095***<br>|-0.101***<br>|-0.103***<br>|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Effort beliefs|<br>0.053***|<br>0.056***|<br>0.055***|<br>0.055***|<br>0.002|<br>-0.002|<br>-0.002|<br>-0.002|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Learning orientation|0.123***|0.129***|0.131***|0.130***|-0.095***|-0.102***|-0.110***|-0.110***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Performance-avoidance orientation|-0.059***|-0.059***|-0.060***|-0.060***|0.039***|0.039***|0.042***|0.042***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Age (with decimals)|-0.101***|-0.103***|-0.109***|-0.110***|0.143***|0.146***|0.159***|0.161***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Living in urban area (vs. rural)|<br>-0.113***|<br>-0.109***|<br>-0.091***|<br>-0.090***|<br>-0.110***|<br>-0.106***|<br>-0.147***|<br>-0.151***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Living in Java (vs. in Sumatra)|0.038***|0.032***|0.020**|0.022***|0.008|0.014|0.039|0.038|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Constant|0.285**|-0.218|1.234***|1.206***|2.500***|2.688***|-0.731***|-0.714***|
||(0.14)|(0.14)|(0.08)|(0.08)|(0.42)|(0.41)|(0.21)|(0.21)|
|Observations|54,639|54,615|54,610|54,610|55,039|55,014|55,009|55,009|
|R-squared|0.24|0.23|0.23|0.23|0.05|0.04|0.04|0.04|

_Source_ : Authors’ calculations based on the 2018 survey “Getting to Know 8th Grade Students.” _Note_ : 2,024 students (5 percent of the sample) have higher expectations than aspirations.

_*p < 0.1 **p < 0.05 ***p < 0.01_ 21
<!-- Start of picture text --> 35<br>30<br>25<br>2<br>&5 20<br>“3Ba°<br>vo<br>26<br>©o2<br>a<br>10<br>5<br>fe)<br>Lack of study Economic Not smart enough Low grades Lack of parental Time management Lack of Frequent illness for Do not know yet<br>habits or constraints support connections _ oneself and family<br>determination<br><!-- End of picture text -->
_Notes_ : All surveyed students were asked about the main difficulty to achieve their aspired level of education. Students had to pick one answer among nine possible. Less than 1 percent responded that their main difficulty was “other” and 2 percent of students responded they did not see any barriers to achieving aspired level of education (not displayed in the graph). The “Lack of parental support” data also include responses to a possible answer labelled as “Family will not allow”, which less than half a percent of students chose.

Students who have lower expectations than aspirations are more likely to perceive economic constraints as their biggest obstacle, suggesting that students may perceive economic constraints as more challenging to overcome than mental barriers. Indeed, 31 percent of students who do not expect to achieve their aspired education level cite economic constraints as their main difficulty, compared to 18 percent of those who expect to be able to achieve their aspirations (Figure 8). Because constraints that are perceived as insurmountable would likely lead to a gap between aspirations and expectations, economic constraints may seem more difficult to overcome than other barriers. Nevertheless, mental barriers can also pose obstacles that appear difficult to overcome: 30 percent of students who do not expect to achieve their aspired education level cite a lack of study habits or determination as their main obstacle and 12 percent cite other mental barriers (compared to 34 and 14 percent of students who expect to achieve their aspired education level, respectively).

Girls are more likely to cite economic constraints as their main difficulty to achieving their aspired education level (29 percent of girls compared to 20 percent of boys). This does not seem driven by a lack of parental will to invest in girls’ education: similar levels of girls and boys cite lack of parental support (financial or encouragement) as their main barrier. Instead, the result is likely linked with girl’s overall higher aspirations. As discussed in section 5.1, 86 percent of girls would like to complete a postsecondary degree, and 54 percent of girls aspire to PhD, compared to 67 and 39 percent for boys respectively. Completing a postsecondary degree, and PhDs in particular, requires more resources than lower levels of education due to a need to cover both tuition and living expenses for a longer period of time while studying. This may also be that restrictive gender norms, lack of childcare options, and low labor market participation and lower wage of women in Indonesia, make some families perceive girls’ education as less valuable and thus costly (Afkar et al. 2020).

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<!-- Start of picture text --> m@ Students with lower expectations than aspirations<br>@ Students with expectations equal or higher than aspirations<br>35<br>30<br>25<br>zue®255<br>“20<br>€&Ps&5©<br>& 1<br>10<br>° i = =<br>Lack of study Economic Not smart Low grades —_ Lack of parental Time Lack of Frequent illness Do not know yet<br>habits or constraints enough support management connections _for oneself and<br>determination family<br><!-- End of picture text -->
# **6. Conclusion**

Our study presents Indonesian students’ aspirations and expectations for their future education, how aspirations and expectations relate to current schooling outcomes, and the main constraints students perceive to achieving their aspirations. Most students aspire for the highest levels of education: threequarters of students aspire to postsecondary education. However, half of students do not expect to reach the education level to which they aspire. On average, boys have lower aspirations, and girls are less likely to expect to achieve their aspired level of education. These gender gaps may negatively influence both boys and girls because aspirations are positively correlated with grades and school attendance, and large gaps between aspired and expected education levels can demotivate students. Students perceive both mental barriers and lack of resources as obstacles to achieving their aspirations, and resource constraints are more salient among girls and among students who do not expect to achieve their aspired education. While we cannot establish causal links between aspirations, expectations, and students’ outcomes, our descriptive findings point to potentially important directions for future research and policy work.

Encouraging students to dream big may be an effective approach for boosting students’ current academic outcomes. Although both boys and girls may benefit from these types of interventions, they may be particularly beneficial for boys, who have lower aspirations on average than girls. Some pilot studies have improved students’ aspirations and performance in school by making them believe that they can achieve more through exposure to role models (through video documentaries or in person) (Breda et al. 2020; Riley 2022), and tutoring and career counseling (Carlana, La Ferrara, and Pinotti 2022).

While fostering aspirations may boost immediate schooling outcomes, programs and policies should also support students in overcoming the obstacles they face in the future. If aspirations do not materialize, students may become frustrated or discouraged (Genicot and Ray 2020). As such, boosting aspirations without addressing students’ constraints could have longer term negative impacts on their wellbeing. Moreover, when students expect that binding constraints will prevent them from attaining a level close to their aspired level—for example, expecting a secondary-level education while aspiring to a PhD—they can be demotivated, as reflected by lower grades and higher absenteeism. Helping students overcome both perceived and actual barriers could particularly benefit girls who are more likely to perceive binding constraints that will prevent them from achieving their aspirations.

For Indonesian adolescents, policies and programs that help students overcome both economic and mental barriers would be relevant for both boys and girls. Although girls are more likely to perceive 25
economic constraints than boys, sizeable shares of both boys and girls report each type of constraint. Examples of programs addressing economic constraints include scholarship programs and informational campaigns on financing opportunities, which have been shown to reduce actual and perceived economic constraints and motivate students in other contexts (Avitabile and de Hoyos 2018; Laajaj, Moya, and Sánchez 2022). Mental barriers felt by students may be surmounted by shifting students’ mindsets. The way that students view themselves, their capacities, and their opportunities influences how they set their aspirations and behave (Bandura et al. 2001). Students persuaded that their abilities and intelligence are fixed and cannot be improved through dedication and hard work — having what is called a “fixed mindset,” by contrast to a “growth mindset”— avoid challenges and effort and tend to get lower school outcomes (Dweck and Yeager 2019). School interventions in the U.S. and middle-income countries have shown that perseverance and growth mindset can be taught and have positive impacts on schooling outcomes, especially for the most vulnerable students (Alan, Boneva, And Ertac 2019; Yeager et al., 2019; Outes, Sánchez, and Vakis 2020).

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30
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||<br><br>|8|<br> <br><br><br><br>4—[staycommittedtemygoal,evenifittakesalongtime||||
|||9|<br>1<br>I feel comfortable at schoal||||
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|Orientation|andlackofknowledge|28|3<br>Inmmymathclass,it’sveryimportantnottolookdumb||||
# **Validity of socioemotional skills measures**

All measures of socioemotional skills were adapted from previously validated scales and translated from English to Bahasa by a professional translator and translated back to English by a team member to check for substantive changes to the meaning of each item. The measures were piloted twice (in January 2018 and February 2018) and adaptations to the items and response categories were made to facilitate students’ interpretation of the measures. Adaptations were primarily focused on reducing ceiling effects for heavily skewed items. Based on items that were less skewed, items were adapted by changing items to be in the first person rather than in the second or third person.

Cronbach’s alphas, which measure scale reliability, range between 0.64 to 0.73 (table A.1.1). Although these Cronbach’s are lower than standards in high-income countries, they are consistent with prior research on the socioemotional skills in low- and middle-income countries (e.g. Laajaj and Macours 2021). Socioemotional skills correlate modestly between themselves and correlate as expected; for example, growth mindset negatively correlates with a lack of challenge-seeking. Examining the reliability and validity of socioemotional skills measures from this survey, Napolitano et al. (2021) find that most of the measures of growth mindset, learning goals, and perseverance measures had no gender bias and measure the same constructs as the same items for U.S. adolescents.

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# **Annex 2. Summary statistics**

## **Table A.2.1. Summary statistics**

||**Missing**<br>**values**<br>**(%)**|**Unique**<br>**values**|**Min.**|**Max.**|**Mean**|**Median**|**Standard**<br>**deviation**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Absenteeism (incl. those with zero absence)|0.1|29|0.0|31.0|1.2|0.0|2.0|
|Absenteeism (excl. those with zero absence)|51.1|28|1.0|31.0|2.5|2.0|2.2|
|Average grade in four subjects|0.8|>500|25.5|97.8|78.4|78.5|5.1|
|Bahasa Indonesia|0.9|414|0.0|100.0|80.1|80.0|5.8|
|English|0.9|485|0.0|99.0|78.0|78.0|6.3|
|Math|0.9|493|0.0|100.0|77.2|77.2|6.6|
|Science|0.8|433|13.0|100.0|78.4|78.0|6.1|
|Average grade in four subjects (stz.)|0.8|>500|-5.1|4.6|0.0|-0.1|1.0|
|Bahasa Indonesia (stz.)|1.0|>500|-5.5|5.1|0.0|-0.1|1.0|
|English (stz.)|1.0|>500|-5.4|5.5|0.0|-0.2|1.0|
|Math (stz.)|1.2|>500|-5.6|6.0|0.0|-0.2|1.0|
|Science (stz.)|1.0|>500|-5.5|5.5|0.0|-0.1|1.0|
|Aspired edu. level is postsecondary|0.0|16|8.0|21.0|17.6|18.0|3.8|
|Expected edu. level is postsecondary|0.1|38|8.0|21.0|14.7|12.0|3.5|
|Aspired educational level (7 cat.)|0.0|16|0.0|1.0|0.8|1.0|0.4|
|Expected educational level (7 cat.)|0.1|38|0.0|1.0|0.5|0.0|0.5|
|Aspired education in years|0.0|16|1.0|7.0|5.5|6.0|1.8|
|Expected education in years|0.1|38|1.0|7.0|4.1|3.0|1.8|
|If there's a aspired-exp. difference for edu.|0.1|47|0.0|1.0|0.6|1.0|0.5|
|Difference in years of edu. between aspired|0.1|47|-13.0|13.0|2.9|1.0|3.8|
|Expect to get a degree in preferred subject|0.1|79|0.0|1.0|0.6|1.0|0.5|
|Self-esteem|0.0|17|1.0|5.0|3.5|3.5|0.6|
|Sense of belonging|0.5|25|1.0|5.0|4.2|4.3|0.5|
|Perseverance|0.1|17|1.0|5.0|3.6|3.8|0.6|
|Growth mindset|0.3|17|1.0|5.0|3.2|3.3|0.8|
|Effort beliefs|0.2|13|1.0|5.0|3.8|3.7|0.7|
|Learning orientation|0.1|17|1.0|5.0|3.8|4.0|0.7|
|Performance-avoidance orientation|0.2|13|1.0|5.0|3.4|3.3|0.9|
|Self-esteem (stz.)|0.0|17|-3.9|2.3|0.0|0.0|1.0|
|Sense of belonging (stz.)|0.5|25|-6.6|1.7|0.0|0.3|1.0|
|Perseverance (stz.)|0.1|17|-4.3|2.2|0.0|0.2|1.0|
|Growth mindset (stz.)|0.3|17|-2.8|2.2|0.0|0.0|1.0|
|Effort beliefs (stz.)|0.2|13|-3.9|1.8|0.0|-0.1|1.0|
|Learning orientation (stz.)|0.1|17|-4.1|1.6|0.0|0.2|1.0|
|Performance-avoidance orientation (stz.)|0.2|13|-2.7|1.8|0.0|-0.1|1.0|
|Age|0.1|>500|8.8|23.0|14.2|14.1|0.7|
|Being a girl (vs. a boy)|0.0|2|0.0|1.0|0.5|1.0|0.5|
|Living in urban area (vs. rural)|0.2|2|0.0|1.0|0.4|0.0|0.5|
|Living in Java (vs. in Sumatra)|0.0|2|0.0|1.0|0.6|1.0|0.5|

33
# **Annex 3. Robustness checks**

The relationships between aspired and expected education and schooling outcomes shown in Table 1 are robust to several alternative specifications. First, the positive link between aspirations and expectations and grades and negative correlation with absenteeism holds with aspirations and expectations as dummies, taking the value of 1 for completing a postsecondary degree (as done in other studies like Favara [2017], for example) (Table A.3.1). Second, regressions with aspired and expected education levels as categorical variables instead of the quadratic terms confirm that the nonlinearity of the links between expectations and schooling outcomes is not solely due to the estimation equation functional form (Table A.3.2.). Taking general high school as the reference category, higher expected levels are most positively correlated with grades (and negatively with absenteeism) at the bachelor’s level but less correlated for higher levels. Finally, using a Tobit model for regressions on absenteeism to account for the fact that half of the students are never absent (thus have 0 days of absence) shows similar results as the regular OLS model (Table A.3.3).

34
# **Table A.3.1. Conditional correlations of grades and absenteeism with aspired and expected education as dummies (completing a postsecondary degree vs. secondary or below)**

||**Stand**|**ardized average**|**grades**|**Number of s**|**chool days misse**<br>**month**|**d in the past**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)|(2)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(8)|
|Aspiring to Postsecondary (dummy)|**0.204*****|||**-0.337*****|||
||(0.01)|||(0.03)|||
|Expecting Postsecondary (dummy)||**0.086*****<br>(0.01)|||**-0.167*****<br>(0.02)||
|There is a difference between aspired and|||**0.087*****|||**-0.069*****|
|expected educational level(dummy)*|||(0.01)|||(0.02)|
|Self-esteem|-0.004|-0.006|-0.001|-0.051***|-0.047***||
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)||
|Sense of belonging|0.064***|0.067***|0.067***|-0.103***|-0.107***|-0.053***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Perseverance|0.042***|0.045***|0.048***|-0.029**|-0.032***|-0.108***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Growth mindset|0.146***|0.151***|0.154***|-0.091***|-0.098***|-0.038***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Effort beliefs|<br>0.053***|<br>0.055***|<br>0.055***|<br>0.002|<br>-0.001|<br>-0.105***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Learning orientation|0.124***|0.131***|0.132***|-0.096***|-0.106***|-0.002|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Performance-avoidance orientation|-0.058***|-0.060***|-0.060***|0.038***|0.041***|-0.112***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Age (with decimals)|-0.101***|-0.105***|-0.111***|0.146***|0.152***|0.043***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Being a girl (dummy)|0.580***|0.602***|0.600***|-0.361***|-0.395***|0.163***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.02)|(0.02)|(0.01)|
|Living in urban area (vs. rural)|<br>-0.113***|<br>-0.107***|<br>-0.089***|<br>-0.113***|<br>-0.118***|<br>-0.401***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.02)|
|Living in Java (vs. in Sumatra)|0.039***|0.032***|0.022***|0.011|0.019|-0.152***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Constant|0.997***|1.164***|1.238***|-0.342|-0.593***|0.039|
||(0.08)|(0.08)|(0.07)|(0.21)|(0.21)|(0.21)|
|Observations|54,639|54,615|54,610|55,039|55,014|55,009|
|R-squared|0.24|0.23|0.23|0.04|0.04|0.04|

_Source_ : Authors’ calculations based on the 2018 survey “Getting to Know 8th Grade Students.” _Note_ : *2,024 students (5 percent of the sample) have higher expectations than aspirations. Conditional correlations are Ordinary Least Squares regressions. Yellow and blue highlights show significant correlations at least at the 95 percent level for the variables of interest and covariates, respectively. Grades are standardized at the school level, with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. Measures of socioemotional skills are standardized for the entire sample. Standard errors are clustered at the school level.

_*p < 0.1 **p < 0.05 ***p < 0.01_ 35
# **Table A.3.2. Conditional correlations of educational outcomes with aspired and expected education with levels as categorical variables**

||**Standardized**|**average grades**|**Number of sch**<br>**in the pa**|**ool days missed**<br>**st month**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|
|**Aspired education***|||||
|<br>Middle school (complete or incomplete)|**-0.066****||**0.373*****||
||(0.03)||(0.09)||
|Vocational high school|0.022<br>||**-0.102****<br>||
||(0.02)||(0.05)||
|Vocational Tertiary|**0.081*****<br>||**-0.184****<br>||
||(0.03)||(0.08)||
|Bachelor|**0.180*****||**-0.395*****||
||(0.02)||(0.05)||
|Magister|**0.218*****||**-0.359*****||
||(0.02)||(0.05)||
|Doctorate|<br>**0.228*****||<br>**-0.365*****||
||(0.02)||(0.05)||
|**Expected education***|||||
|Middle school (complete or incomplete)||**-0.158*****||**0.506*****|
|||(0.02)||(0.07)|
|Vocational high school||**-0.025****||0.003|
|||(0.01)||(0.03)|
|Vocational Tertiary||**0.052****||**-0.207*****|
|||(0.02)||(0.04)|
|Bachelor||**0.117*****<br>||**-0.192*****<br>|
|||(0.01)||(0.03)|
|Magister||<br>**0.069*****||<br>**-0.102*****|
|||(0.02)||(0.04)|
|Doctorate||-0008||-0057*|
|||.<br>(0.01)||.<br>(0.03)|
|Self-esteem|-0.004|-0.005|-0.050***|-0.047***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Sense of belonging|0.063***|0.066***|-0.101***|-0.104***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Perseverance|0.042***|0.046***|-0.029**|-0.033***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Growth mindset|0.145***|0.150***|-0.090***|-0.095***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Effort beliefs|<br>0.053***|<br>0.056***|<br>0.002|<br>-0.003|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Learning orientation|0.122***|0.129***|-0.095***|-0.102***|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Performance-avoidance orientation|-0.058***<br>|-0.059***<br>|0.039***<br>|0.039***<br>|
||(0.00)|(0.00)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Age (with decimals)|-0.100***|-0.103***|0.144***|0.146***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.01)|
|Being a girl (dummy)|<br>0.578***|<br>0.599***|<br>-0.362***|<br>-0.393***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.02)|(0.02)|
|Living in urban area (vs. rural)|<br>-0.115***|<br>-0.111***|<br>-0.109***|<br>-0.108***|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Living in Java (vs. in Sumatra)|<br>0.040***|<br>0.034***|<br>0.011|<br>0.015|
||(0.01)|(0.01)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Constant|0.979***|1.160***|-0.294|-0.553***|
||(0.08)|(0.08)|(0.21)|(0.21)|
|Observations|54,639|54,615|55,039|55,014|
|R-squared|0.24|0.23|0.05|0.04|

_Source_ : Authors’ calculations based on the 2018 survey “Getting to Know 8th Grade Students.” _Note_ : *The omitted category in aspired and expected education is general high school. Conditional correlations are Ordinary Least Squares regressions. Yellow and blue highlights show significant correlations at least at the 95 percent level for the variables of interest and covariates, respectively. Grades are standardized at the school level, with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. Measures of socioemotional skills are standardized for the entire sample. Standard errors are clustered at the school level.

_*p < 0.1 **p < 0.05 ***p < 0.01_ 36
# **Table A.3.3. Conditional correlations of absenteeism with aspired and expected education under a Tobit model**

||**Number of**<br>|**school days**<br>|**missed in the**<br>|**past month**<br>|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|
|Aspired education in years<br>|**-0.524*****<br>(0.07)||||
|Aspired education in years<sup>2</sup>|**0.014*****<br>||||
||(0.00)||||
|Expected education in years||**-0.701*****<br>(0.07)|||
|Expected education in years<sup>2</sup>||<br>**0.021*****|||
|||(0.00)|||
|Diff. in years between aspirations and expectations|||**-0.085*****<br>(0.01)||
|Diff. in years between aspired and expected edu.<sup>2</sup>|||**0.007*****<br>||
||||(0.00)||
|Have lower expectations than aspirations (dummy)||||**-0.298*****<br>(0.05)|
|Self-esteem|-0.127***|-0.120***|-0.136***|-0.137***|
||(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Sense of belonging|-0.241***|-0.251***|-0.252***|-0.256***|
||(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Perseverance|-0.068**|-0.076***|-0.088***|-0.089***|
||(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Growth mindset|-0.243***|-0.258***|-0.272***|-0.276***|
||(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Effort beliefs|-0.003|-0.014|-0.013|-0.013|
||(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Learning orientation|-0.249***|-0.267***|-0.284***|-0.284***|
||(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Performance-avoidance orientation|0.112***|0.114***|0.120***|0.120***|
||(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Age (with decimals)|0.340***|0.345***|0.377***|0.381***|
||(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|(0.03)|
|Being a girl (dummy)|<br>-0.919***|<br>-0.995***|<br>-0.995***|<br>-0.996***|
||(0.05)|(0.05)|(0.05)|(0.05)|
|Living in urban area (vs. rural)|-0.278***|-0.273***|-0.368***|-0.377***|
||(0.08)|(0.08)|(0.08)|(0.08)|
|Living in Java (vs. in Sumatra)|-0.002|0.013|0.071|0.068|
||(0.08)|(0.08)|(0.08)|(0.08)|
|Constant|-0.511|0.179|-5.730***|-5.704***|
||(0.70)|(0.70)|(0.47)|(0.47)|
|Observations|55,039|55,014|55,009|55,009|

_Source_ : Authors’ calculations based on the 2018 survey “Getting to Know 8th Grade Students.” _Note_ : The Tobit model estimates linear relationships when there is either left- or right-censoring in the dependent variable. We use censoring from below 1 to that around half of students are never absent (0 days of absence). Yellow and blue highlights show significant correlations at least at the 95 percent level for the variables of interest and covariates, respectively. Grades are standardized at the school level, with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. Measures of socioemotional skills are standardized for the entire sample. Standard errors are clustered at the school level.

_*p < 0.1 **p < 0.05 ***p < 0.01_ 37