Learned Helplessness

In your orientations, we mentioned the notion of “learned helplessness.” Seligman (1998) defines the latter as follows: “Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter. Explanatory style is the manner in which you habitually explain to yourself why bad or good events happen. It is the great modulator of learned helplessness. An optimistic explanatory style stops helplessness, whereas a pessimistic explanatory style spreads helplessness. Your way of explaining events to yourself determines how helpless you can become, or how energized, when you encounter the everyday setbacks as well as momentous defeats” (p.15).

How is the learned helplessness related to how long students remain engaged in the course? Observe how they explain course setbacks or achievements. Do they explain their bad grades as “permanent, pervasive, and personal?” How about the good grades? Interestingly, the optimistic explanatory style assumes that you explain your failures as temporary, local, and impersonal, whereas successes - as permanent, pervasive, and personal.

On the other hand, can continuously relying on other sources of support promote learned helplessness? Observe how much your students are reliant on you for answers, and “rate” their “helplessness” patterns. As the semester progresses, work on breaking these patterns.

Breaking learned helplessness & developing the optimistic explanatory style go hand in hand with the growth mindset – viewing successes as products of effort vs. ability. Learning that responding matters prevents learned helplessness. In Seligman’s study, dogs that were taught this mastery as puppies were immunized to learned helplessness all their lives. Individuals taught that what you do matters can change their success patterns. 

More on the topic: Seligman M. (1998) Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. 

Key Take-Aways from Orientations

Thank you for being active member of orientations and providing your feedback! Just to recap, here are the main take-aways from the orientations:

-       Start all your beginnings with an open mind and positive attitude. I know it is hard to focus on multiple topics during an hour of orientation, but if you come with the right attitude, you will learn something.

-       Stay engaged, not only through your orientation, but throughout the semester. Your feedback is important for the development of the program, and your personal growth as an academic mentor.

-       Continue reflecting on what the term “academic mentor” means to you, and how you can continue growing into it. Think of the ways in which academic mentoring relationship goes beyond just tutoring the subject. Observe your own behavior and the actions you are role-modeling. Model behaviors rather than tell.

-       Help your students re-discover the joy in learning.  If one skill they take away from you is the love of learning, and the joy in discovering new things – that means you have done your job.

-       In your workings with students, break the “learned helplessness” and the dependency cycle: get them to tell you. Use strategies from your manual and strategy cards!

-       Think of your goals for the semester, and at the end evaluate your progress.

I will post separately on stereotype threat as I hope this topic will generate some discussion throughout the semester, with examples from your interactions with students. As promised, I will also post your own tips on reducing test anxiety and conducting sessions.

Academically adrift

Hello everyone, and welcome back to CAE!

I've wanted to start off the semester by sharing some of my reflections on the book "Academically Adrift" by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. In the book, the authors described the study of over 2300 students in twenty-four four-year institutions across the US. The researchers have measured the students' critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills through the tool called Collegiate Learning assessment (CLA) in the beginning of the students' freshman year and at the end of their sophomore year. The outcomes of the study suggest that there weren't any statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills for at least 45 percent of students. In other words, the students’ academic pathways adrift.

Although the findings of this study may sound disheartening, there were some important take-away ideas from the book. Importantly, the factors were mentioned that influence students' development of the above-mentioned skills. Most certainly, the prior academic preparation play the dominant role in how well the students develop critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills after they enter college. The better prepared the students are when they enter college - the more they develop during their college years. But most important, what students do in college also matters. Students’ college experiences and institutions attended make almost as much of a difference as prior academic preparation. For instance, equalizing academic preparation between African-American and white students would substantially reduce but not eliminate the gap between them. That means that some of the white – African-American student gap might be due to differential higher education experiences.  

The following is the list of factors that the authors found contributing to the improvement of critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills of students on college campuses:

-          Studying on one’s own. The study reports that the average students studies less than two hours a day, and about twelve hours a week. African-American students reported studying two hours less per week than white students.

-          Hours spent in a fraternity/sorority are negatively correlated with student development outcomes.

-          Working with faculty that has high expectations for their students.

-          Reading/writing course requirements. Half of students in the study have not taken a single course that required more than 20 pages of writing, and one-third have not taken a course that required more than 40 pages of reading per week. Note that the more academic work and higher academic demands are associated with the development of a sense of academic purpose or academic commitment.

Interestingly, the study has not found the positive relationship between the number of hours students spend studying with peers and improvement in CLA scores. To my opinion, this has to do with time on task – which is what students struggle with when they study with peers.
Moreover, the achievement gap between white – African-American students is influenced by the subtle cultural factors. The fear of “stereotype threat” leads to a lower performance. For instance, even subtle cues such as being asked to identify one’s race before a GRE-like verbal test can lead African-American students to perform less well.

More on the topic: Arum R., Roksa, J. (2011). Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses