Summary: David Burns

Teachers’ most common way of evaluating their students is by testing. So, it is important to know which factors may influence test’s final scores. Recent studies have seen students’ expectations as one these main factors; although, there are few researches on this topic.
David Burns, in his work published in 2008 called ‘Will I do as well on the final exam as I expect? An examination of students’ expectations’ tried to prove the relationship between students’ expectation and their final marks.
Considering students’ time and effort on what they do previous to an examination, this study focuses on the previous experiences and expectations that students have about their performance on tests. This study took based its results in variables such as 353 students, a single teacher, the same course and different performances.
The study showed that there is not relationship between students’ expectations and their final scores as a final conclusion. However, Burns gives some explanations of which may have happened to obtain these results. People may infer from this study that the author believes in this relationship, although he could not prove it statistically.