Students’ Images of the Future and Its Implications for Curriculum Practices

Article

Takele Zerihun¹, Mekonnen Dawit^2,*
1PhD. Student, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
²Associate Prof., Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study investigated secondary school students’ future-orientation and images of the future they held on their own personal lives, and national (Ethiopia) and global issues. The study used a survey research method. The data were collected using questionnaires from 443 students. Data were analyzed using percentages, mean, t-test and ANOVA. The results show that students have optimistic future expectations of their own future life, while they have pessimistic images of the future toward national and global issues and problems. This seems to indicate that students’ spatial awareness is not sufficiently developed to understand the interrelationships and interdependencies of national and global issues with their own present and future personal lives. The findings also indicated that students’ optimistic future expectations on their own personal lives decline at the critical adolescence ages. Finally, based on the results of the study, implication for curriculum and classroom instructional practices are drawn.

Keywords

Images of the future; Future-orientation; Curriculum and image, Temporal awareness; Spatial awareness

Introduction

Images of the future can play a significant role in cultural change both at personal and collectively at societal level (Polak, 1974). Rubin and Linturi (2001) argue that images of the future has a powerful influence on individual’s or collectively on group’s behaviors, decision-making, and it is a basis for their actions in the present. This research aimed to investigate Ethiopian secondary school students’ future-orientation, images of the future they hold on their own personal lives, national and global issues and factors that highly influence their future images construction. Paige & Lloyd (2016) suggest that knowing images young students hold about the future is a crucial source to inform the process of curriculum development and for classroom instructional practices.

Nature of images of the future

The natures of images of the future are complex and have many features. The first nature of images of the future is the production of images of the future. An individual or a group in a society can produce images of the future (Rubin and Linturi, 2001 and Boulding, 1973). Images of the future produced at individual or group level could emanate from the mixture of knowledge, values, beliefs, expectations, visions, hopes and fears individuals have or shared by groups (Son, 2013; Demneh and Morgan, 2018; Polak, 1974 & Slaughter, 1991). Moreover, images of the future produced by individuals may come as result of natural disposition and cultural construction within social values. On the one hand, imaging the future is one of the innate capacities of human beings (Slaughter, 1996).On the other hand, imaging the future may develop at high or low level through individuals’ social interactions (Boulding, 1973). Lloyd and Wallace (2004) argue that image of the future could be created through intuitive and learning, and can be improved with training.

The second nature of images of the future is related to contents. Contents of images of the future produced by individual or group may relate to certain values of personal or collective political, social, economic, environmental, technological, legal, and religious issues. Furthermore, the contents of images of the future produced by an individual or groups may vary from person to person and from society to society as a result of difference in past and present experiences, knowledge, technology, current realities, values, hopes, fears, future expectations, culture, geography, socio-economy, ages, sex and so on (Rubin and Linturi, 2001 and Boulding, 1973). In addition, contents of future images of an individual or a group could be related spatially to single person’s lives or collectively to local, national or global issues and problems.

The third nature of images of the future is dissemination of the produced images. Images of the future produced at individual or group level can be share at institutional, group, societal, national or global level (Rubin, 2013). Boulding (1973, p. 64) explains that every public images start in the mind of some or a single individual and only becomes public images after it is transmitted and shared by a group. In the dissemination of images of the future, social interaction and media including school curriculum can play crucial roles (Boulding, 1973 & Polak, 1974). The shared images of the future then become a collective images of the future among shared groups. Boulding (1973) argues that collective image of the future are interlink with personal images of the future, but not every personal images of the future may necessarily be shared at social or group level, and unshared individual’s images have no influence on societal images.

The fourth nature of images of the future is by its influence and function. Polak (1974) claim that most of the time images of the future originate from dominant small elite groups existing within a society, and it become affect and govern societal behavior and actions after it is propagated and shared to larger groups of society. Shared collective images of the future in a society have many features and functions in different ways. One of the characteristics of collective future images in a society is, every society, consciously or unconsciously, participates in the production, transmission and protection of its public image and without these shared images of the future, individuals cannot tie together and participate in the groups (Boulding, 1973, p. 64). Therefore, images of the future can function as glue to tie individual and society together so they can strive to achieve common goals (Morgan, 2015). Moreover, collective images of the future can be shared by a mass of individuals in the group, but not necessary by all, and these may lead to the existence of competing images of the future within a society (Rubin, 2013). Clearly articulated and negotiated collective images of the future may function as agent of cultural change, lead to social consensus, and it can help to overcome cultural obstacles to change (Demneh and Morgan, 2018).

Furthermore, images of the future hold by individuals or a group could influence their psychological state of optimistic and pessimistic emotions (Heinajarvi, 2018; Holden, 1997 & Lloyd and Wallace 2004). Generally, positive and optimistic image of the future hold by individuals or group has significant functions in promoting hopeful thinking, a potential source for motivation, and guide their present behavior to the desired actions (Ahvenharju, 2022). In contrast, those individuals that focused on pessimistic and negative images of the future may lead them to narrow down their thinking, show poor psychological wellbeing, develop hopelessness, disempowerment, and lose confidence in their capacity to affect the future change (Arnaldi, 2008 and O’Connor & Cassidy, 2007).

The fifth nature of images of the future is by its temporal dynamism. Polak (1974) argues that images of the future in a society is dynamic, and images produced at one occasion does not exist forever as it is, it is continuously evaluated, renewed and changed based on its outcome, and change in the images of the future lead to change in social culture. Similarly, Boulding (1973) argues that while images of the future shape a society, a society continually reshapes the images of the future. Thus, images of the future held by individuals could constantly be shaped and reorganized as consequences of new messages they received and feedback they gained for their choices, decisions and actions made (Rubin and Linturi, 2001 & Paju, 2021).

Previous empirical studies of young students’ images of the future

The main purposes of the field of Futures Studies are not to predict the future because the future does not exist but it is studies about ideas of individuals have about the future or their images of the future (Dator 2019). Significant researches have conducted to identify how young students imagine about the future in developed countries. However, there are limited researches that show images of the future held by young people in developing countries including Ethiopia. For example, Anguera and Santisteban (2016); Hutchinson (1999); Eckersley (1999) and Hicks (1996) examined images of the future young students have in Barcelona, Australia and UK. The results of these studies indicated that most of the young students showed pessimistic images of the future toward national and global issues and problems, whereas, they were optimistic about their personal future lives issues. In addition, the studies revealed that most of the student respondents expected the worst futures related to the problems of pollution, environmental destruction, the gap between rich and poor, high unemployment, conflicts, crime and economic difficulties at national and global levels. Hicks & Holden (2007); Hutchinson (1994); Tepperman & Curtis (1995); Hicks (2002) and Gidley et al., (2004) reported that the dissonance of students’ optimistic future expectations to their own personal futures lives and pessimistic expectations to national and global issues and problems may be a result of continual bombardment of their imagination through media’s presentation of negative and fearful collective futures. In addition, the researchers found that there were disempowerments among young students to influence the creation of better future. From the above researches results one can understand that there are a problem in positive future images constructions among young students. However, these researches reflected the realities of images of the future held by the young students in the developed countries, and they could not reflect the context of Ethiopia. Bell and Mau (1971) argue that images of the future individuals have could affected by geographies, current realities of their nation, politics, culture, values, age, sex and experiences.

In the Ethiopian context, there is dearth of empirical studies that show how young students image the future. Most of the existing studies mainly focused on identifying young students’ psychological problems. For example, Reta et al (2020); Shishigu (2018); Anely (2020) conducted a descriptive correlation research to examine the relationship between test anxiety and academic achievement of secondary school students. The result of these studies revealed that anxiety is one of the factors for students’ underachievement and low performance. In addition, Amare, et al., (2018) and Shiferaw et al., (2006) conducted studies on psychosocial problems of secondary schools students using a comparative cross-sectional study. The findings of these studies indicated that psychosocial problems including depressive symptoms, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts among students were high. However, the results of these studies did not relate students’ psychological problems of anxiety, depressions, suicide ideation, low self-esteem and underachievement with images they held to their own future lives. In addition, it is useful to understand the sources or factors that shape students’ image of the future so that appropriate interventions can be designed. While the above few studies examined some psychological constructs related to students’ image of the future, both the concept of image of the future and the factors that shaped students image of the future are unstudied in Ethiopia. Several researches conducted in other countries show that different psychological problems observed in adolescents are highly related with future threats of unknown results in their lives and as results’ of negative images they held about the future (Hammad, 2016; Rabei et al., 2020; Miloyan et al., 2014 and Zaleski, 1996). Based on the above assumptions of images of the future and the indicated gaps in the previous empirical researches, this study examined secondary schools students’ (grade 11^th and 12^th) future orientation, images of the future they hold on their personal lives, national and global issues, and factors that highly influence their future image formations. This study attempted to answer the following three basic research questions.

1. How are grade 11^th and 12^th students future-oriented?
2. What are grade 11^th and 12^th students’ images of the future (future expectations on personal, national and global issues)?
3. What factors highly influence students’ future images formations?

Theoretical Frameworks in the process of future images formations

Images of the future are human mental tool that enable us to deal with possible future states (Rubin et al., 2001), and it is knowledge and the learning process (Polak, 1974). Images of the future are learned and formed entities through various ways in a society like family, religious institution, societal cultures, media and school curriculum (Bell et al., 1971 and Boulding, 1973). In the process of future images formations, Polak (1974) and Bell & Mau (1971) indentified three basic tools that can shape the creation of images of the future. These basic elements that serve as casual force in future images formations are temporal awareness, spatial awareness and values awareness.

Fig. 1: The basic cognitive tools that can help human in the formation of images of the future

The first element of future images formation is the temporal awareness of human across past, present and future events. It is a human’s ability to conceptualize time in terms of cognitive, affective and emotional domain (Nurmi, 1991 and Trommsdorff, 1986). The second element that can help human for future images formation is spatial awareness. It is a set of individual’s abilities to understand the relationships between self, social and physical world (Anthamatten, 2010 and Shin et al., 2019). The third element that serves human in future image formations is the value dimension that can help to evaluate and judge desirable and undesirable human actions.

Methodology

Methods and Samples

This study employed survey method in five secondary schools of West Hararghe Zone in Oromia regional state of Ethiopia. The schools were selected using simple random sampling techniques from the secondary schools found in the Zone. The study selected 500 students as a sample from the population of 24,732 students. The samples of the study were determined using Krejcie and Morgan (1970) sample size determination tables. Non-proportionate stratified sampling (equal distributions) was used to determine the number of respondents drawn from the sampled schools. The respondents are grouped based on sex, grade and departments. Finally, the questionnaires were distributed to respondents and 443 (88.6%) of questionnaires were correctly answered.

Students’ Questionnaires

The questionnaires included items on demographic information of the respondents such as age, sex, grade level and department, religion and birthplaces to identify the characteristics of respondents. Second, the questionnaires included items that can measure students’ future-orientation using 5-point likert scales on which the respondents specify their level of agreement or disagreement for a series of items (Example: I just live for today than worry about tomorrow, I do not think I can control my own future, :….). Third, the questionnaires included a 5-point likert scale items to measure students’ personal images of the future to identify their optimistic/pessimistic future expectations on their future lives (Example: My future seems dark to me, I can look forward to more good times than bad times in my life,…). Fourth, items that can measure optimistic/pessimistic future expectations of students’ on national and global issues are included on which the respondents rate their responses on 4-points of ranking scales (see table 7 and 8). Fifth, ranking scales are also designed to identify agencies that highly influenced students’ future images formations.

The questionnaire items that developed by Hideg and Novaky (2010) to measure people’s future orientation was modified and measured students’ future-orientations. Moreover, to measure students’ optimistic/pessimistic future expectations on their personal lives, questionnaire items that developed by Ginevra et al. (2017) modified and used for this study. In addition, students’ future expectations (optimism/pessimism) on national (Ethiopia) and global issues was measured using instruments previously developed by Eckersley (1999). All instruments were developed based on the theories of images of the futures.

Reliability and Validity of the Instruments

A pilot study was conducted to test the reliability and validity of the baseline questionnaires. To ensure the reliability of the questionnaires, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated as shown in table 1.

Table 1: Reliability Test Result of the Instruments

No. Sub-scales		Pilot Study		Main study
		No. of items	Cronbach Alpha	No. of items	Cronbach Alpha
1	Students’ Future Orientation (FO)	7	0.543	5	0.513
2	Students’ Personal Future Life Expectations	8	0.60	7	0.70

Based on the pilot test results, appropriate improvements made to those items that seem vague for respondents by rephrasing the items in the questionnaires. However, changes made on scale of students’ future orientation did not show improvement as scale to measure students’ personal future lives expectations. Hinton et al. (2014, p. 356) and Tjondro et al. (2019, p. 600) indicated that Alpha score values range from 0.5 to 0.75 is generally accepted as moderately reliable scale. Based on this assumption the study used the scales for analysis and interpretations.

Results

Descriptions of Participant Demographic Characteristics

A total of 443 sample secondary schools’ students participated in this study. Table-2 shows the frequency and percentage of the demographic characteristics of the participants.

Table 2: Summary of Demographic Characteristics of the Participants (n=443)

Demographic variables of participants		Frequency of respondents	% of respondents
Grade	Grade 11	233	52.60
	Grade 12	210	47.40
	Total	443	100
Department	Natural	225	50.80
	Social	218	49.20
	Total	443	100
Sex	Male	273	61.63
	Female	170	38.37
	Total	443	100
Religion	Islam	257	58.01
	Christian	183	41.31
	Other	3	0.68
	Total	443	100
Place of Birth	Urban	227	51.24
	Rural	216	47.76
	Total	443	100
Age	16.00	15	3.39
	17.00-19.00	342	77.20
	20.00-22.00	80	18.06
	23.00-25.00	5	1.13
	Above 25.00	1	0.22
	Total	443	100

As depicted in table 2, the samples have similar distributions among department, grade level, place of birth and religious. However, more male 273 (61.63%) students participated as compared to female 170 (38.37%) students. It can also noted that 342 (77.2%) of the participants’ ages were between 17-19 years old. This show most of the participants were at the critical ages of adolescent.

Students’ Future Orientation

Students were asked to respond their degree of agreement or disagreement on 5-point likert scales (5-Strongly Agree, 4-Agree, 3-Undecided, 2-Disagree, and 1-Strongly disagree) items to determine their status of future orientation. The results of descriptive statistics show that most of the students (67%) responded that they do not think it is worth thinking too much about their future lives, 71% of them did not believe they can influence the future by their plan and effort, and 67% of the respondents believed that their future is mostly determine by other external powers. Table 3 shows the summarized inferences related with students’ future orientation. The study examined whether students are future oriented using one-sample t-test by assuming test value at 4.0 (at least students’ mean average score should be 4(agree) and above on the items) which could serve as a test value against the population mean score.

Table 3: One Sample t-test on students’ future orientation

Variable	N	Mean score (X)	SD	Test value	T	P
Future Orientation	443	3.91	0.71	4.0	2.70	0.007

**p<0.05

The inferential analyses show that there is statistically significant difference between the students’ ratings of their level of future orientation and the test value (t = -2.70, df = 442, p < 0.007). Thus, the mean score (X=3.91) of students’ future orientation is lower than test values (4.0), which means that students’ future orientation is not well developed. Moreover, the findings of the study tried to identify if there are differences in future orientation between sex, religions, place of birth and departments of students’ using independent sample t-test.

Table 4: Comparing Means Using Independent T-Test (Gender, Grade, Department, Religion and Place of Birth)

Variables	Categories	N	Mean score (X)	SD	F	Sig.	T	Df	P
Gender	M	273	3.9392	0.68725	0.526	0.469	1.141	441	0.255
	F	170	3.8600	0.74670
Grade	11	233	3.9863	0.67094	5.056	0.025	2.416	422.759	0.016**
	12	210	3.8229	0.74490
Department	Natural	225	4.0044	0.67386	3.046	0.082	2.901	441	0.004**
	Social	218	3.8101	0.73572
Religion	Muslim	257	3.9393	0.72504	0.021	0.884	1.038	438	0.300
	Christian	183	3.8678	0.69519
Place of Birth	Urban	227	3.9692	0.66140	4.965	0.026	1.831	426.881	0.068
	Rural	216	3.8454	0.75574

**p<0.05

As elucidated in table 4, the findings revealed that there are not statistically significant difference observed between gender (p=0.255), religions (p=0.30) and place of birth (p=0.068) and students’ age (p=0.368) using one-way ANOVA. However, statistically significant difference observed between grade (X=3.986 for grade 11 and X=3.82 for grade 12 with significance level p=0.016) with equal variance is not assumed and departments (X=4.004 for natural science and X=3.81 for social science with the significance level p=0.004) with equal variance is assumed. Thus, grade 11^th Natural Science students’ showed more future-oriented than grade 12^th Social Science students’.

Students’ Personal Future Life Expectations

Students were asked to respond on five-point Likert-scale items to give their responses on the level of optimistic/pessimistic future expectation on their own personal lives. The data were analyzed whether students have optimistic or pessimistic future images using one-sample t-test and assuming test value at 4.0 (at least students’ mean average score should be 4 (agree) and above on the items) which could serve as a test value against population average score test to determine whether the students are optimist or pessimist. Table 5 shows summarized results of the data.

Table 5: One Sample t-test on Students’ images of the future on their personal lives

Variable	N	Mean score (X)	SD	Test value	T	P
Personal Future Expectation	443	4.0748	0. 653	4.0	2.41	0.016*

**p<0.05

The findings show that there is statistically significant difference between students’ mean score (X=4.0748) future expectation on their personal lives (t = 2.41, df = 442, p < 0.016) and the test value (4.0). Thus, students’ mean score on personal future lives expectations is higher than test value, which means most of the students showed optimistic future images. This means they expected more of good and bright future on their own personal lives.

Moreover, the investigation identified if there are differences in images of the future among students on their own personal lives in relation to sex, religion, place of birth, grade level and departments using mean comparison of independent t-test. The results of the findings revealed that there are not statistically significant differences observed between sex, religion, place of birth, grade level and departments on personal future expectations. However, statistically significant difference observed between ages (p=0.030) using one-way ANOVA test as shown in table 6.

Table 6: ANOVA test on the future images of personal lives based on the ages of students

	Sum of Squares	Df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Between Groups	8.440	10	.844	2.023	0.030
Within Groups	180.264	432	.417
Total	188.704	442

Students’ optimistic future images are goes to decline at the critical ages of adolescences between 17 to 20 years old as shown in figure 2.

Fig. 2: Mean of students’ future expectations with respect to their ages

Students’ National Future Expectations

Students were asked to respond on a four-ranked scale of series items to identify what images of the future they have in relation to national issues. The responses of students’ analyzed using frequencies and percentages for the given four alternative responses on the items of national (Ethiopia) issues (4-better than now, 3-the same as now, 2-worse than now and 1-I don’t know) as shown in the Table 7.

Table 7: Frequency and percentages of students’ response on national images of the future

No.	National Issues	Better than now	Same as now	Worse than now	I don’t know
1	Economic development in Ethiopia	224(50.6%)	35(7.9%)	101(22.8%)	83(18.7%)
2	The gap between rich and poor in Ethiopia	64(14.4%)	74(16.7%)	161(36.3%)	144(32.5%)
3	Cost of living in Ethiopia	77(17.4%)	41(9.3%)	229(51.7%)	96(21.7%)
4	Ethnic conflict in Ethiopia	95(21.4%)	64(14.4%)	168(37.9%)	116(26.2%)
5	Justice in law, fairness in economy and equality of cultures of peoples in Ethiopia	199(44.9%)	75(16.9%)	92(20.8%)	77(17.4%)
6	Conditions of unemployment in Ethiopia	139 (31.4%)	61(13.8%)	171(38.6%)	72(16.3%)
7	Crime and violence in Ethiopia	111(25.1%)	56(12.6%)	201(45.4%)	75(16.9%)
8	Internal war and conflicts in Ethiopia	101(22.8%)	58(13.1%)	169(38.1%)	115(26.0%)
9	Breakdown of society’s moral values in Ethiopia	100(22.6%)	70(15.8%)	183(41.3%)	90(20.3%)
10	Corruption of politicians/officials in Ethiopia	93(21.0%)	62(14.0%)	215(48.5%)	73(16.5%)
11	Effects of pollution of air and water in Ethiopia	105((23.7%)	62(14.0%)	195(44.0%)	81(18.3%)
12	Political stability and democratic values in our society	161(36.3%)	75(16.9%)	134(30.2%)	73(16.5%)
13	Impact of climate change in Ethiopia	88(19.9%)	68(15.3%)	197(44.5%)	90(20.3%)
14	Problems of food shortage, famine, and poverty with respect to population growth in Ethiopia	119(26.9%)	51(11.5%)	198(44.7%)	75(16.9%)
15	Terrorist attacks in Ethiopia	86(19.4%)	59(13.3%)	203(45.8%)	95(21.4%)
16	Technological and industrial changes in Ethiopia	246(55.5%)	62(14.0%)	73(16.5%)	62(14.0%)
17	Religious and ethnic tolerance in Ethiopia	204(46.0%)	73(16.5%)	114(25.7%)	52(11.7%)
18	Spread of pandemics/endemics and other types of diseases in Ethiopia	92(20.8%)	69(15.6%)	160(36.1%)	122(27.5%)
Total %		28.89%	13.99%	37.17%	19.95%

Table 7 presented the calculated cumulative averages of students’ responses on the four alternative options of national issues. The results revealed that 28.89% of the students responded that they expected a better future, 13.99% of them expected the future to be same as now, 37.17% of them expect the future to get worse, and 19.95% of them responded that “I do not know” what the future holds. From the results of these findings, one can understand that relatively most of the students (37.17%) have pessimistic images of the future on national issues. The students were highly concerned with the national (Ethiopia) issues like cost of living (51.7%), crime and violence (45.4%), breakdown of moral values in the society (41.3%), corruption of the officials (48.5%), effects of pollutions (44.0%), impact of climate change (44.5%), problems of food shortage, famine, and poverty with respect to population growth (44.7%) and terrorist attacks in Ethiopia (45.8%). On the other hand, students showed relatively optimistic images of the future on national (Ethiopia) issues such as economic development (50.6%), justice in law, fairness in economy and equality of cultures of peoples (44.9%), technological and industrial changes (55.5%) and religious and ethnic tolerance in Ethiopia.

Moreover, the results of the study identified whether optimistic images of the future on national issues varied among departments of Natural and Social Science students using cross tabulation within departments. The findings indicated that students’ optimistic future images on national issues varied among Social and Natural Science students. Figure 8 depicted that Social Science students (53.20%) showed more optimistic images of the future than Natural Science students (48.0%) on national issues of economic development; whereas, Natural Science students (56.0%) were little bit more optimistic on the future of technological progress in Ethiopia than the Social Science students (55.0%)

Fig. 3: Students’ optimistic future expectations on some of national (Ethiopia) issues

Students’ Global Future Expectations

Students were asked to respond on a four scale ranked series items to identify what images of the future they have related to global issues. The responses of the students’ analyzed using frequencies and percentages for the given four alternative options of global issues (4-better than now, 3-the same as now, 2-worse than now, and 1-I don’t know) as shown in table 8.

Table 8: Frequency and percentages of students’ response on global images of the future

No.	Global Issues	Better than now	Same as now	Worse than now	I don’t know
1	The gap between population growth and food security on the world	116(26.2%)	60(13.5%)	192(43.3%)	75(16.9%)
2	The impact of rapid population growth on the environments around the world	57(12.9%)	57(12.9%)	259(58.5%)	70(15.8%)
3	The increase of migration of people from poor country to rich countries	72(16.3%)	71(16%)	223(50.3%)	77(17.4%)
4	Spread of unstoppable pandemics diseases on the world	73(16.5%)	72(16.3%)	193(43.6%)	105(23.7%)
5	Religious extremism in various countries	78(17.6%)	66(14.9%)	203(45.8%)	96(21.7%)
6	Economic competitions between countries may lead to 3rd world war	85(19.2%)	67(15.1%)	170(38.4%)	121(27.3%)
7	Global warming and climate change across the World	79(17.8%)	67(15.1%)	211(47.6%)	80(19.4%)
8	Population growth and availability of land for agriculture on the world	70(15.8%)	69(15.6%)	225(50.8%)	79(17.8%)
9	Environmental pollution such as soil toxic, water and air contamination by chemicals on the world	74(16.7%)	60(13.5%)	253(57.1%)	56(12.6%)
10	The negative impact of the richest countries on the development of poor countries	73(16.5%)	68(15.3%)	226(51.0%)	76(17.2%)
Total %		17.55%	13.31%	48.64%	18.98%

Table 8 presented the calculated cumulative average of students’ responses on the four alternative options of global issues items. The results revealed that 17.55% of the students responded that they expected better future than now, 13.931% of them responded that they expected no any future changes, 48.647% of them responded that they expected the worst future than now on global problems, and 18.98% of them responded that they cannot expected any future changes for good or bad.

From these findings, one can understand that relatively most of the students (48.647%) showed pessimistic images toward global issues and problems. The students were highly concerned with global issues like the impact of rapid population growth on environments (58.5%), migration of people from poor countries to the rich (50.3%), reduce in agricultural production (50.8%), global warming and climate change (47.6%), pollutions (57.1%) and the negative impact of the richest countries on the development of poor countries (51.0%). On the other hand, students showed relatively little optimistic future of global issues like improvement in the gap between population growth and food security (26.20%) in the future.

Moreover, the findings identified whether pessimistic images of the future on global issues varied among departments of natural and social science students using cross tabulation. The results indicate that students’ concerns for global issues were varied among Social and Natural science students. As represented in Figure 4, Social Science students (54.1%) show more pessimistic than Natural Science students (47.6%) on problem of reduce in agriculture-food production, whereas, Natural Science students (59.6%) were more concerned on the impact of population growth on environment than Social Science (57.3%).

Fig. 4: Students’ pessimistic future expectations on some of global issues

Factors that Highly Influenced Students’ Future Images Formation

Students were asked to respond on four-rating scale items (4-very influential, 3-somewhat influential, 2-slightly influential, and 1-not influential at all) how different agencies are influenced their future images formations. Table 9 shows the summarized mean averages of students’ responses for the given four alternatives.

Table 9: Mean score of students’ response on the agencies

Factors	Mean score (X)	Std. Deviation (µ)	N
Bible/Quran Teachings	3.56	0.89	443
Curriculum Textbooks	3.39	0.85
Family	3.26	0.93
Media	3.24	0.91
Society	3.15	0.95
Classroom teaching	3.11	0.96
Personal Experiences	3.10	0.96
Fictions books and Magazines	3.09	0.96

As shown in table 9, Bible/Quran teachings (x=3.56, µ=0.89) and curriculum textbooks (x=3.39, µ=0.85) are factors that highly affected students’ future images respectively, and students’ personal experiences (x=3.10, µ=0.96) and fictions books and magazines (x=3.10, µ=0.96) are the least factors that influences students future images formations. Figure 5 shows the levels of all agencies in influencing students’ future images formation.

Fig. 5: Ranks of agencies that influenced students’ future images formation

Discussion

The findings of the study indicate that students’ future orientations are not well developed (i.e., population mean score (3.91) is lower than mean of test values (4.0), at t = -2.70, df = 442, p < 0.007). Most of the students (67%) responded that they do not think it is worth thinking too much about their future, 71% of them do not believed that they could influence the future and 67% of them felt that their future was not determined by their plans and effort but by other external factors. These findings are similar with the previous findings of Eurobarometer (2015) and Hicks (1996) reported that most young students have shown shortages in imaginations and abilities to project themselves into the future, feel the future is not controllable and their ability to think about the future do not well developed. The findings of the study also revealed that there are no statistically significant difference observed in future orientation between gender, age, religions and birthplaces of the students. However, statistically significant difference observed between students’ grade levels and departments. Thus, grade 11 students were more future-oriented than the grade 12 and Natural Science students were more future-oriented than the Social Science. The observed difference among students future orientation might be arising from differences in exposure to time concept through school curriculum (example: in physics subjects) in Natural Science than Social Science and may be increasing in anxiety among grade 12 students than grade 11.

Findings of the study also revealed that students showed more optimistic expectations to their future lives. Most of students’ respondents (81.7%) show positive expectations and they think more of good things than bad things will happen in their lives. Stoddard & Pierce (2015) explain that future expectation refers to individual’s positive views of the future and anticipate specific positive outcomes in the future (e.g., having a happy life). In addition, Hamvai and Piko (2011) explain that generalized positive expectancy of the future highly related with better health outcomes and adaptive coping behaviors. Therefore, this finding has implication to inform the status of secondary schools’ students’ psychological wellbeing. Significant previous research results showed that young students’ positive future expectations are highly related to their good achievement and success, high motivation, pro-social behaviors and ability to set future life goals (Braojos, 2015; Nurmi, 1991; Poole et al., 1986; Trommsdorff, 1986 & Zimbardo et al., 1999). Moreover, Stoddard & Pierce (2015) argue that adolescents who have positive future expectations can facilitate optimal development and a successful transition into adulthood.

However, 18.3% of students’ respondents showed pessimistic future expectations on their future life. This has negative implication on young students’ psychological and social wellbeing. Several research results revealed that adolescents who are showing negative future expectations may tend to develop anxiety and depression, emotional disorder and aggressive behaviors, feeling of hopelessness, involve in criminal and ant-social behaviors, addiction to alcohol, loneliness, low motivation and academic success and suicide thought (Kovac et al., 2007; Seginer et al., 2004; Seijts, 1998; & Wills et al., 2001). In addition, several studies in Ethiopia show that significant number of secondary schools’ students faced psychological problems of anxiety that is one of the causes for underachievement and low performance, depressions and suicidal attempts (Amare et al., 2018; Anely, 2020; Reta et al., 2020; Shiferaw et al., 2006 & Shishigu, 2018). These psychological problems of students’ perhaps related with pessimistic future expectations of the students’ toward their future lives.

Furthermore, the study shows that the students’ optimistic future expectations on their personal lives decline at the critical age of adolescence between 17 to 20 years (see fig. 2). Other previous researches show similar findings, for example, Eckersley (1997) and Hicks (1996) found that young people’s optimistic future expectation to their personal lives during late adolescence stage show decreases with increase in ages. There are different reasons given among researchers for the decline of optimistic future expectations during late adolescence with increase in ages. Zou et al. (2016) argue that the rapid biological, social and psychological changes during adolescent may bring youths into stress and erode their optimistic future personal life expectations. Moreover, Klaczynski (2017) claim that decline in optimistic expectations from early to late adolescence is due to decline in unrealistic optimism or decrease in optimism bias as older adolescents may develop cognitive abilities that can enable them to make a realistic anticipation of the future. This finding has implication to suggest the need for interventions to promote students’ positive images of possible future selves on different personal life domains.

The study also revealed that most of the students (37.17%) for national and (48.647%) for global issues, expected the current conditions and problems will worsen in the future. Thus, it can be concluded that students have a less optimistic images of the future on the national (Ethiopia) and global issues and problems than to their personal future lives. Therefore, the current findings are similar with previous findings of Hicks (1996), Eckersley (1997), Oscarsson (1996), Holden (2006) and McElwee & Brittain (2009) discovered that young students are more optimistic on their personal lives and less optimistic to national and global issues and problems. Poole and Cooney (1986) argue that the dissonance of students’ more optimistic on their personal future lives and pessimistic future images for national and global issues and problems is due inability to perceive themselves in relation to the outside world (i.e., lack of perceived interconnectedness).From the findings, it can be driven then that students’ spatial awareness did not sufficiently develop to understand the interrelatedness and interdependence of the world systems which would have enable themd to think problems of national and global issues could also affect their present and future personal lives.

Finally, the findings of this study indicate that Bible/Quran teachings and school curriculum ranked first and second as agencies which highly affected students’ future images constructions. The findings of this study contradicted with the previous empirical results of Anguera (2016) found that students’ images of the future are mainly influenced by the information gained through mass media (Television) than in school curriculum. However, the current study found that religious (Bible/Quran) teaching has ranked the first agency by the students in shaping their images of the future. Several empirical studies show that eschatological images of the future have both positive and negative implications in individuals’ future images formations. For example, Holmes and Kim-Spoon (2017) reported that positive correlation between religiousness and positive future-orientation, and eschatological images could promote individuals’ high self-esteem, positive emotionality and agreeableness. On the other hand, eschatological images could develop attitudes of disability, disempowerments and unmotivated individuals’ efforts to influence the future events (Gidley, 2017 and Vieira, 2010). The students ranked curriculum textbooks as the second agency that influenced their future images construction. In contrast to religious teaching, school curriculum teaching are mainly embedded in the secular thinking which aims to promote students’ visions and ambitions to create the imagined good person/citizen and good society (Halpin, 2003 and Morgan, 2015).

Neblett & Cortina (2006) and Seginer & Shoyer (2012) found that parents support has important in developing adolescents’ positive future images formations. The findings of this study show that family, media and society (peers) ranked as third, fourth and fifth agencies respectively that influenced students’ future images constructions next to religious teaching and school curriculum textbooks. This finding is somewhat similar with the previous research results of Malmberg (2001) as cited in Crespo et al. (2013) found that adolescents ranked their family as the most frequent source of information about future planning, followed by peers, mass media and school. The study indicated that teachers’ classroom instructional practices played less than other agencies like religious teaching, messages in curriculum textbooks, family and media.

Furthermore, the study found that fiction books and magazines ranked the least agencies that influenced students’ future images construction. This shows that the students have limited exposure to fictions and magazines. However, significant research show that fictions, specially, science fictions play a crucial role in promoting students’ imagination, critical thinking, creative skills, fantasy, temporal consciousness, understanding of social changes and imagining alternative images of the futures (Hollenbeck, 2020; Lombardo, 2015; Moraes et al., 2021 & Surmeli, 2012). Moreover, Moraes et al. (2021); Hollenbeck (2020) and Raham (2004) argue that integrating science fictions into school curriculum could use as a powerful instructional tool to create students’ futuristic images of utopian and dystopian expectations, and increase their ability to explore alternative futures and empower them to influence desirable futures.

Implications

The findings of this study show that students’ future orientations are not well developed. This may bring multiple problems on their psychological and social developments unless interventions should take to develop their future orientations. The findings of the study indicated that most of the students showed optimistic future expectations to their future lives and pessimistic images of the future towards national (Ethiopia) and global issues and problems. These show that students’ spatial awareness remains to be sufficiently developed. In addition, the findings show that students’ optimistic future expectations on their personal future decline at the critical adolescence ages and this may be due to increase in anxiety among young students during these ages. These findings could imply that spatial awareness and positive future images constructions of young students should need considerations. Moreover, the findings of this study indicated that religious (Bible/Quran) teaching has ranked first by the students as agency that highly influenced their future images formations. This may negatively affect students’ future images construction that religious/eschatological teaching could develop deterministic future images, disempowerments and unmotivated individuals’ efforts to influence the future events.

These findings have multiple implications to inform curriculum designers, textbooks developers and teachers’ classroom instructional practices how to approach education of young students’ through school curriculum and instruction in order to promote their positive future images construction. Several authors such as Lombardo (2016); Bishop et al. (2007); Borjeson et al. (2006); Lloyd & Wallace (2004) and Rubin (2013) claim that students’ future-orientation could be enhanced through education. Based on the findings of this study, it is suggested that school curriculum and instruction should integrate future-oriented contents, and future-focused and open-ended activities (in the dimensions of temporal, spatial and values) in order to cultivate young students’ future consciousness and positive future images constructions.

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