Why Won't My Students ....

Why won’t my students read the material or study for exams? Smith speaks to the theory of self-handicapping in academia and the students’ lack of confidence in their abilities. Many students come into the classroom with preconceived ideas of their capabilities, usually not good, and continue to fuel those ideas with a lack of motivation towards success. The answer to self-handicapping in academia was brilliant! If the student has to take the blame for not performing well in class or exams, what are their options? Do they then label themselves as stupid or incompetent, or do they blame their failures on the fact they did not put forth the effort needed for the task? Many of my students procrastinate until the last minute, exhibit poor scheduling behavior and blame their failures on the unfairness of the material, the instructor, or life events. I believe their underlying issue is a severe lack of confidence in their abilities and the lack of tools and resources needed for success (Smith, 2005).

Why do my students believe they have performed so much better than they actually have? “According to the self–serving bias, we have a tendency to attribute our positive outcomes to internal causes (e.g., our traits or characteristics) and our negative outcomes to external causes (e.g., chance, the difficulty of a task)”(Smith, 2005, p. 64). In a fascinating experiment, teachers and students swapped roles in performing a task. When the students acted the role as teachers, they believed they played a large role in the success of their students, and that the student’s failures were the student’s responsibility. When the students received a good grade, they were owning their part in that success; however, if the students performed poorly, they blamed the instructor. I see this all of the time with my students, particularly in their English composition classes. They receive a harsh grade with feedback; yet, they think they should have received a much better grade. I ask them why they think they should not be graded so harshly, and their response is, “I think it was a good paper”. I try to tell them that they are just getting started in the world of scholarly writing and they have much to learn, so take the feedback and continue to improve (Smith, 2005).

Why can’t I change the beliefs my students hold when they come to class? “Research on belief perseverance tells us that people tend to maintain their initial ideas, beliefs, or theories despite disconfirming evidence”(Smith, 2005, p. 65). There are many perpetuated myths about various behaviors that have grown exponentially, particularly since the appearance of the Internet and social media. Just a few examples are, opposites attract, there are major differences in right-brain and left-brain behaviors, there exist three distinctive learning styles for students, and color-coding aids in memory retention. Just attending one psychology course will probably not affect the belief system of students, and research shows that experience takes approximately 70 hours of social science instruction to see a change in belief systems. I do not expect students to abandon the belief systems that they have been taught and reinforced their entire lives after attending one of my social science classes; however, I do hope that their “out of the box” thinking and the expansion of their belief concept have been broadened (Smith, 2005).

Smith, R. A. (2005). The classroom as a social psychology laboratory. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24, 62-71. Retrieved from file:///Users/griggsone/Downloads/Class%20As%20A%20Social%20Psychology%20Lab..pdffile:///Users/griggsone/Downloads/Class%20As%20A%20Social%20Psychology%20Lab..pdf