John is a 13 year old in middle school struggling with his academic performance. His parents have had multiple parent-teacher conferences trying to figure out where the poor academic performance comes from. John has the resources like staying during after-school hours with his teacher reviewing the school days material, an outside of school tutor, and his parents help him out with school work as soon as they get out of work. John’s parents have hit a wall and don’t know where to go from here. What his parents haven’t heard about yet are other factors and social psychological theories that can impact academic performance positively or negatively (Gruman, et al., 2016).
Something that John’s parents have noticed about John is that he does believe he needs to pass algebra to pass the eighth grade, however the behavior he is displaying is that he would rather hang out with his friends at the park than study. This shows how John’s behavior is contradicting his attitudes. The theory of planned behavior can explain this phenomenon as it considers many reasons for a behavior that conclude an individual’s motive to behave in a way that the behavior predicts the future behavior (Gruman, et al., 2016). In John’s situation, he is putting the subjective norm of hanging out with his friends ahead of his work. This puts him in a sticky situation where his academic performance can be negatively affected.
Another factor that could be potentially affecting John’s academic performance in school is the academic self-concept. The academic self-concept refers to the emotions, attitudes, and perspective that individuals hold against themselves when it comes to academic ability and comparing themselves with other students (Gruman, et al., 2016). This could be a predictor of the situation occurring with John because his parents remembered that he has brought up that the other students just “get it” right away and John has to put in the extra work.
Lastly, procrastination is most likely the most familiar concept people are with. This is another factor that could be affecting John’s academic abilities. Procrastination as defined in the textbook is known as putting off finishing an assignment that can be a flexible or non flexible coping mechanism reliant on an individual’s reasoning for doing it and the type of student it is (Gruman, et al., 2016). Procrastination can potentially be seen in John’s situation because he does tend to push away his school work until the last minute. When John’s parents ask him questions on why he waits until the last minute, he does not come forward and say its a coping mechanism, however he does admit that he likes working under pressure because he feels like he does better on that assignment. Although it may seem counterintuitive some individuals brains do work this way. Overall, John has a couple of factors that have been affecting his academic performance negatively. Maybe there are some adjustments that need to be made to fix how he learns and completes his work!
Reference:
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology :
Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE Publications,
Incorporated.
Your example about John gave me a deeper understanding of the topic of this lesson. As I read John’s story, I thought, as other students have commented, that he may be using a self-handicapping strategy. In that case, I wondered if he might be using that strategy because he was exposed to competition for grades with other students in his class (Gruman, et al., 2016).
It is great that his parents and teachers are considering different ways to deal with his grades. What else they can do might be to take another look at how parents and teachers are responding to his grades. According to Skipper and Douglas (2012), objective feedback is sufficient to promote students’ academic achievement and growth. For example, they state that praising a student for his ability and effort may rather have a negative impact on him, so an objective comment such as “you scored 100 out of 100” should suffice.
Therefore, are his teachers and parents making too much of a personal evaluation? Are they giving feedback that overemphasizes ability and effort? Are they putting too much pressure on him? Reflecting and thinking in this way may help create an even better learning environment for him.
References
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.
Skipper, Y., & Douglas, K. (2011). Is no praise good praise? effects of positive feedback on children’s and university students’ responses to subsequent failures. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(2), 327–339. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.2011.02028.x
Hello, I enjoyed reading your post! I think that you did a wonderful job detailing the different social psychological theories that may help explain a student’s behavior and academic career. I too wrote about academic self-concept and think that you gave a great example of this. As we read in our textbook, academic self-concept can be heavily influenced by our comparisons to ourselves with our peers (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts). If we are struggling in a class and our friend goes on and on about how easy the last exam was, then we are likely to develop an attitude of inadequacy which in turn, lowers academic self-concept. It really seems as though this is a horrendous cycle to find yourself stuck in!
I wanted to add another self-defeating strategy that may be applied to your example of John. Reading through your post it looks as though John is choosing to hangout with friends rather than complete his school work and he has a habit of procrastinating his tasks, often completing them at the last minute. Given these details, I believe the strategy of self-handicapping may be at play here. These two self-defeating strategies, procrastination, and self-handicapping are often linked to one another resulting in poor academic achievement (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts).
Reference
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.