Topic 5: School and Work
The discussion question for this topic is: how might being aware of attributions you make for your students' behaviour/explanations help me be a better teacher?
One idea discussed in lecture was Attribution theory; the process by which people, including teens and teachers, rationalize events by attempting to explain a result with possible causes (Weiner, 1971). For example, if a particularly lazy student fails a test, he will attempt to justify his poor result by thinking it was acceptable since he knew he did not study very hard. Similarly, as a teacher, I would attempt to rationalize this student's mark by thinking that he lacked effort, so he deserved what he got.
It is important to realize that we have certain emotions about an event based on the cognitions and attributions we assign with it; it is easy to think that a lazy student does not deserve my help while a student who puts in effort -- despite his poor grades -- should.
This can create a self-fulfilling prophecy where the student continues to decline in self-esteem and academic performance because I as a teacher refuse to help him. For example, students who deflect their poor grades with statements like, "just like my older brother, I am bad at math" may be percieved as lazy, when really they lack proper motivation. Therefore, attributional retraining -- the process of reversing student perceptions of self-ability (Försterling, 1985) -- is crucial in being an effective teacher. To improve my teaching, I must consciously try to overcome my preconceived biases about my students in order to treat them fairly.
Additional Resources
1.YouTube video about attribution theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJgTSgleIb8
2. YouTube video about social thinking and how it ties into attribution theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6HLDV0T5Q8
3. Journal of Personality article about attribution theory and motivational bias: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1979.tb00202.x/abstract
4. American Psychological Association article about attribution and appraisal: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/apl/66/2/127/
References
Försterling, F. (1985). Attributional retraining: A review. Psychological Bulletin,98(3), 495.
Weiner, B. (1972). Theories of motivation: From mechanism to cognition.