Hannah's outlook on her school shows signs of the attribution theory. This theory states that people interpret their events based on past performance and social norms. In this theory, students are motivated by three dimensions, locus, stability and controllability. A locus describes were we place the cause of outcome. This means whether or not we are in control of our situations. Hannah believes that no matter the effort put into her work, she will not be successful. She believes failure is going to happen regardless of what she does or tries. Stability is whether we perceive the cause as being stable or unstable over time. Hannah believes that all the problems she has to do will be too hard for her to do on her own. The third dimension, controllability, refers to the personal responsibility of the success or failure. Hannah believes that her failure is out of her hands, and that she has no chance of success. She believes that anything she does or tries will not change her ability and this affects her motivation to learn in a negative sense.
To improve this situation, a teacher could try to show Hannah that her failure is not stemming from her ability but rather stemming from her lack of effort. If the teacher tries to come up with strategies to improve Hannah's effort, and the way she approaches the questions or problems, maybe Hannah can work on her ability from this. Hannah's teacher can also work on providing goals for Hannah to achieve, short-term ones, and come up with rewards with each goal she meets. This will help Hannah to feel some positivity and encourage her to do well, without failing.
I really like your explanation and your solutions to help Hannah try the math problems and realize failure is not her only option. Do you have any specific strategies on how to improve Hannah's effort? For instance, would you suggest the teacher spend one-on-one time with her, or try to help her during class time? The teacher might teach Hannah different methods to solve a problem, or different study techniques such as taking notes.
ReplyDeleteI like your solution for Hannah about coming up with goals and rewards. I think that this step by step approach to gradually getting her to not give into failure will be very successful. Children respond well to making small steps and also to recieving rewards.
ReplyDeleteKatie--since working one-on-one with a student is time-consuming and difficult for teachers do to since they have many other students to worry about as well. They best option for Hannah's teacher is to have them work in small groups. This way, when she can't help Hannah, the other students in the group can (assuming that they are in heterogenous groups). Also, being in groups will help Hannah with her self-efficacy if she can see that she is not the only one having difficulty with the topics.
ReplyDeleteI think your hypothesis and suggestions here are great. The key to getting her to start to attribute things to controllable sources would be getting feedback from changing a strategy (seeing a difference in her own performance after she puts in more effort).
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