critical thinking college failure

The Emerging Crisis in Critical Thinking

Today's college students all too often struggle with real-world problem-solving..

Posted March 21, 2017 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

The mid to late 1990s witnessed the rise of misguided attempts to arti­ficially accelerate brain development in children. Parents began force-feeding infants and toddlers special “educational” DVDs and flashcards in the hopes of taking advantage of unique features of the developing brain to “hardwire genius” by the age of three—or even younger.

Since then, it has become increasingly clear that the brain science of “critical periods” and “neuroplasticity” has been grossly misunderstood and that efforts to artifi­cially harness these important features of brain development by accelerating and distorting real-world learning beyond all reason are not producing the promised results. Recent years have seen only an acceleration of this trend, with parents and teachers adopting rote learning and “baby genius”-style activities.

The first generation of children educated under the “earlier is better,” “wire the brain,” and “baby genius” methodology is now graduating from high school and college, so we can examine the results of these techniques. Unfortunately, rather than creating a generation of “super-geniuses,” there are emerging reports that although modern students are quite adept at memorizing and regurgitating facts presented in class or in reading materials, the ability to reason, think critically, and problem-solve has actually been dramatically reduced in recent years.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal reported: “On average, students make strides in their ability to reason, but because so many start at such a [critical thinking] de­ficit, many still graduate without the ability to read a scatterplot, construct a cohesive argument or identify a logical fallacy” [1]

Similarly, in their book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses , Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa studied 2,400 college students at 24 different universities over a 4-year period [2]. They reported that critical thinking and other skills such as writing were no longer progressing during college as compared to previous generations of students.

In an interview with NPR, Arum sounded the alarm as to why we should be concerned about these findings: “Our country today is part of a global economic system, where we no longer have the luxury to put large numbers of kids through college and university and not demand of them that they are developing these higher-order skills [such as critical thinking] that are necessary not just for them, but for our society as a whole.” [3]

Arum and Roksa describe a number of factors that may be contributing to this decline in critical thinking skills, including pressure on college faculty to make lessons easier in order to get higher course evaluations for their classes.

Why is this happening? What is causing the dearth of thinking ability in young adults, especially after the Herculean efforts parents made during infancy and early childhood to ensure optimal brain development?

One possible explanation is that these college students and recent graduates were at the forefront of the “earlier and earlier education is better” and “rote learning” approaches to teaching preschoolers and even toddlers and babies. Perhaps they—and their developing brains—have been programmed in a way that actually inhibits reasoning, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

In essence, these children—and their developing brains—have been “wired” from an early to memorize and retrieve “facts” on-demand but not to think or reason. Indeed, it is likely that the kind of learning that fosters these skills—namely, intuitive parenting [4]—has been displaced by parenting and teaching styles that overemphasize “teaching to the test,” and treat developing young minds as if they are computer “hard drives” to be inscribed using rote memorization.

Unfortunately, the reported decline in thinking ability is occurring at a time when there are increasing shortages of quali­fied candidates for jobs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Indeed, a young adult whose brain has been “wired” to be innovative, think critically, and problem-solve is at a tremendous competitive advantage in today’s increasingly complex and competitive world.

Because of this, parents should consciously seek to foster independence, problem-solving, critical thinking, and reasoning in their young children. This can be done by implementing an intuitive developmental “dance” between parents and their developing children; which provides everything needed to foster and nurture proper brain development and automatically yields hundreds of thousands of learning opportunities during critical learning periods.

It is vital to bear in mind that the acquisition of problem-solving skills is the direct result of children’s immature, incomplete, and often incorrect attempts to engage with the world that trigger authentic feedback and consequences. Rather than being psychologically damaging events, a child’s unsuccessful attempts are actually opportunities for them to learn persistence and resilience —as well as how to think when things don’t work out quite as they hoped. Indeed, “failure” and overcoming failure are essential events that trigger that neurological development that underpins thinking ability: Opportunities for a child to try—and to fail and then try again—are a crucial part of learning and brain development and should be sought out rather than avoided.

It is time to rethink early childhood priorities—and refocus our efforts as parents and as teachers—to emphasize critical thinking and problem-solving and to abandon misguided attempts to induce pseudo-learning using “baby genius” products and “teaching to the test” educational materials. In the long run, short-term “tricks” that artificially—and temporarily—boost test scores are no match for intuitive parenting and effective teaching; which convey a lifelong competitive advantage by providing a solid foundation for critical thinking and problem-solving.

1. Douglas Belkin, “Test Finds College Graduates Lack Skills for White-Collar Jobs,” Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/test -­ nds-many-students-ill-prepared-to-enter-work-force-1421432744.

2. Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).

3. “A Lack of Rigor Leaves Students ‘Adrift’ in College,” Morning Edition, NPR, February 9, 2011, http://www.npr.org/2011/02/09/133310978/in-college -a-lack-of-rigor-leaves-students-adrift.

4. Stephen M. Camarata (2015). The Intuitive Parent. New York: Current/Penguin/Random House.

Stephen Camarata, Ph.D. is a professor at both the Bill Wilkerson Center and the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and author of The Intuitive Parent: Why the Best Thing for Your Child Is You .

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Degrees of Education

The Economic Price of Colleges’ Failures

By Kevin Carey

• Sept. 2, 2014

Four years ago, the sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa dropped a bomb on American higher education. Their groundbreaking book, “ Academically Adrift ,” found that many students experience “limited or no learning” in college. Today, they released a follow-up study, tracking the same students for two years after graduation, into the workplace, adult relationships and civic life. The results suggest that recent college graduates who are struggling to start careers are being hamstrung by their lack of learning.

“Academically Adrift” studied a sample of students who enrolled at four-year colleges and universities in 2005. As freshmen, they took a test of critical thinking, analytic reasoning and communications skills called the Collegiate Learning Assessment (C.L.A.). Colleges promise to teach these broad intellectual skills to all students, regardless of major. The students took the C.L.A. again at the end of their senior year. On average, they improved less than half of one standard deviation. For many, the results were much worse. One-third improved by less than a single point on a 100-point scale during four years of college.

This wasn’t because some colleges simply enrolled smarter students. The nature of the collegiate academic experience mattered, too. Students who spent more time studying alone learned more, even after controlling for their sociodemographic background, high school grades and entrance exam scores. So did students whose teachers enforced high academic expectations. People who studied the traditional liberal arts and sciences learned more than business, education and communications majors.

Yet despite working little and learning less — a third of students reported studying less than five hours a week and half were assigned no long papers to write — most continued to receive good grades. Students did what colleges asked of them, and for many, that wasn’t very much.

“Academically Adrift” called into question what college students were actually getting for their increasingly expensive educations. But some critics questioned whether collegiate learning could really be measured by a single test. Critical thinking skills are, moreover, only a means to an end. The end itself is making a successful transition to adulthood: getting a good job, finding a partner, engaging with society. The follow-up study, “ Aspiring Adults Adrift ,” found that, in fact, the skills measured by the C.L.A. make a significant difference when it comes to finding and keeping that crucial first job.

The students in the study graduated in the teeth of the post-Great Recession labor market, in mid-2009. Two years later, 7 percent were unemployed, consistent with national studies finding that recession-era college graduates were more likely to be unemployed than recent college grads in better economic times, but much less likely to be jobless than young adults with no college degree. An additional 16 percent were underemployed, working less than 20 hours a week or in an unskilled job such as grocery store cashier.

Even after statistically controlling for students’ sociodemographic characteristics, college majors and college selectivity , those who finished school with high C.L.A. scores were significantly less likely to be unemployed than those who had low C.L.A. scores. The difference was even larger when it came to success in the workplace. Low-C.L.A. graduates were twice as likely as high-C.L.A. graduates to lose their jobs between 2010 and 2011, suggesting that employers can tell who got a good college education and who didn’t. Low-C.L.A. graduates were also 50 percent more likely to end up in an unskilled occupation, and were less likely to be satisfied with their jobs.

Remarkably, the students had almost no awareness of this dynamic. When asked during their senior year in 2009, three-quarters reported gaining high levels of critical thinking skills in college, despite strong C.L.A. evidence to the contrary. When asked again two years later, nearly half reported even higher levels of learning in college. This was true across the spectrum of students, including those who had struggled to find and keep good jobs.

Through diplomas, increasingly inflated grades and the drumbeat of college self-promotion, these students had been told they had received a great education. The fact that the typical student spent three times as much time socializing and recreating in college as studying and going to class didn’t change that belief. Nor did unsteady employment outcomes and, for the large majority of those surveyed, continued financial dependence on their parents.

Students who were interviewed in depth by Mr. Arum and Ms. Roksa put great stock in collegiate social experiences that often came at the expense of academic work, emphasizing the value of the personal relationships they built. But only 20 percent found their most recent job through personal contacts, and of those, less than half came from college friends. And while the recent graduates were gloomy about the state of the nation, they professed strong belief in their own future success. The vast majority thought their lives would be better than that of their parents. “They learned from the experts that they can do well with little effort,” Mr. Arum told me, “so they’re optimistic.”

On average, college graduates continue to fare much better in the job market than people without degrees. But Mr. Arum and Ms. Roksa’s latest research suggests that within the large population of college graduates, those who were poorly taught are paying an economic price. Because they didn’t acquire vital critical thinking skills, they’re less likely to get a job and more likely to lose the jobs they get than students who received a good education.

Yet those same students continue to believe they got a great education, even after two years of struggle. This suggests a fundamental failure in the higher education market — while employers can tell the difference between those who learned in college and those who were left academically adrift, the students themselves cannot.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly used a male courtesy title for Josipa Roksa. She is a woman.

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Re-thinking the way colleges teach critical thinking

By Scott K. Johnson

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

For the past couple years, I’ve been working as a science communicator on two fronts, as a freelance science writer and a community college Earth science instructor. I’ve seen, from many angles, the difficulty people have understanding and assessing scientific issues. With topics that are publicly contentious, those difficulties rarely arise from a simple lack of understanding. Other things get in the way. A student once said to me, “Well, I’m a conservative, so I don’t believe in climate change.” The frankness of that statement opens up a window into the obstacles science faces in the public sphere. (If only those who post internet comments were as honest with themselves…)

The combination of science writing and education has influenced my approach to both, which share a common, overarching goal: to reach out to people and present them with the power, wonder, and relevance of science. Like most educators, one of my central aims is to impart critical thinking skills— to help students make sound decisions in a confusing world of conflicting information, sales pitches, and smooth-talking politicians.

Though critical thinking is universally regarded as a pillar of higher education (including by employers seeking college graduates), results show that students are not developing their critical thinking skills to the extent we expect. For their 2009 book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses , Richard Arum and Josipsa Rocksa followed a little over 2,300 college students through their first two years of school. They found “a barely noticeable impact on students’ skills in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing” and “no statistically significant gains [in these skills] for at least 45 percent of the students.”

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These students may be learning things, but they’re not becoming better thinkers or writers. That’s a remarkable failure to realize the promise of a college education—and that disappointing reality actually appears to have gotten considerably worse over the last few decades. It’s irrelevant how much blame should be placed on the school and how much on the students. We must get better results.

As an educator, I’ve constantly struggled with how to stimulate growth in these skills. In an introductory Earth science course, my first job is to teach my students about plate tectonics, soil formation, oceanic and atmospheric processes, the climate system—all the things that comprise a firm foundation to build on in further classes. But the vast majority of my students will never take another Earth science course, and while this information is still useful in their lives (a point on which they may not particularly agree in the moment), there are more important things to be teaching them. There are larger points, like the nature of science and scientific thinking, and the perspective brought on by an appreciation of the complexity of Earth systems and the mind-numbing scale of the universe.

In the face of this balancing act, the traditional approach is often to simply focus on the details of a particular science (to build that foundation for prospective majors) and assume that all the students will absorb the other stuff in the process. Scientific literacy and critical thinking skills are seen as natural side-effects of studying a science. Critical thinking by osmosis.

I don’t think it reliably works that way, especially for students who expect to struggle with and be bored by science classes from the outset. It’s easy to sit through a class, memorizing some facts and working through assignments with minimal effort, without ever actually engaging with the scientific process that created this knowledge. I fear that too many of my students have done exactly that.

Increasingly, I’ve found myself addressing these big-picture, take-home points explicitly. For example, before the first box of minerals and rocks comes out of the closet, I now dedicate a couple weeks to critical thinking and the scientific method.

This progression of teaching style reached its (perhaps) natural conclusion when I realized that what I really want to do is give these students an entire semester on critical thinking and the nature of science. And why not? Why continue to pound the square peg through a round hole, herding disinterested students through “Physics for Poets” or “Rocks for Jocks” (their calculated paths of least resistance through science requirements), hoping that they’ll pick up these key skills along the way? There are many great reasons for students to experience various fields of science, but why not address critical thinking directly, as well?

This is hardly a radical thought, and I’m far from the first to think it. For decades, there have been pushes to teach these skills formally, which have ebbed and flowed with the educational tides. The Association for Informal Logic & Critical Thinking and the Foundation for Critical Thinking , for example, have long been advocating for better critical thinking instruction. Where standalone critical thinking courses exist, however, they are mostly found within the humanities and social sciences. Those courses often center on argumentation and literary criticism, or instead on the philosophy of logic, but there are opportunities to expand this— particularly by giving science a larger presence. I think there is an enormous amount of untapped value in a broader model.

I envision a course that incorporates many facets of critical thinking. Students should get an introduction to logic. They should learn a bit about cognitive science to understand some of the biases and mental shortcuts we all subconsciously employ. (How can you think at a high level without the awareness that there are wayward tendencies in your thinking machine that sometimes require troubleshooting and maintenance?) They should study some of the tools of rhetoric so they can identify the art of persuasion at work, particularly when they’re being targeted by it. And they should study the scientific method in this context, as a reliable guide through a treacherous terrain full of pitfalls and mirages.

These topics have one big thing going for them—they lend themselves very easily to an active and engaging classroom that fosters the ideal conditions for genuine learning and development. That’s a struggle in many subjects, but here it just comes naturally. Most of these concepts are best taught through application to familiar, real-world case studies. Fortunately, American culture is absolutely saturated with object lessons ( Jersey Shore , anyone?) and sandboxes in which to hone skills. Student discussions absolutely beg to be facilitated—another fantastic learning environment. All students have opinions and perspectives that they bring to these issues, and the sharing and sifting of ideas among classmates should elicit the very critical thinking skills that we’re after. Few things encourage intellectual maturation like recognizing and examining the assumptions behind one’s opinions, and the course would be flush with opportunities to do so.

Take the public conflict over vaccinations, for example. Combing through the arguments of “anti-vaccine” advocates would reveal ways in which complicated information is misinterpreted and would illustrate the persuasive power of anecdotes. Digging deeper into the science strips the issue down to what we do and do not know, and how new knowledge would be acquired. Turning to the arena of public opinion, you can evaluate how others arrive at their opinions through a range of rational and emotional avenues. From there, you’re ready to put the spotlight on your own mind. How did you really form your initial opinion? Does it need to change?

If you can genuinely lead students to ponder their way through those thorny thickets, how can they not come out the other side with new eyes?

Like children who don’t notice the vegetables hidden in their favorite cheesy casserole, I think students would actually really enjoy a class like that, challenging and cognitively nutritious though it would be. It’s not hard to make this a fun and enlightening experience that sticks with students.

Contrary to the criticism that classes like this would merely be weekly exercises in debunking, critical thinking is as much about problem solving and extracting meaning from complexity as it is about not falling for hokum. (Of course, conspiracy theories and sasquatches would certainly make an appearance.) And this is where science fits in so naturally. Practice with a scientific way of thinking—developing conclusions that flow from the data, rather than cherry-picking data to support your pre-existing conclusion—adds such an important tool to the kit.

There is a need for a more inter-disciplinary alliance to bring many elements of critical thinking into one coherent experience for students. While each element is worthy of a semester-long deep-dive of its own, it’s not easy to get even a single semester with students, and I’d argue that a broad survey is the most efficient use of that time.

There are many, many factors contributing to disappointing outcomes in higher education—from changing student attitudes toward academics, to the rising tuition costs that drive students to work more while they’re in school, to problems in the K-12 education system— and there is no silver bullet that can take us were we need to go. But, as Albert Einstein recognized, “The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.” Colleges are not like the Field of Dreams ( if we build it, they will think? ), and it’s high time we rolled up our sleeves and got serious about making that training happen.

Related: Making implicit knowledge and skills more explicit in science education

Colleges Are Struggling to Teach Critical Thinking, Tests Show

A national test shows little growth among students.

At a time when many are debating the value of a college degree, a new test shows that colleges are failing at even the basic task of teaching critical thinking.

The Wall Street Journal analyzed results of the College Learning Assessment Plus (CLA+) test from 100 colleges and universities across the country and found that a large number of students display little or no improvement over four years. It also showed that many seniors were graduating with subpar skills in this crucial area. “At more than half of schools, at least a third of seniors were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document or interpret data in a table,” the Journal reports.

The CLA+ is given to a group of freshman in their first semester and then three years later to another group of seniors from the same class in their final semester. It’s designed to test for things like analytical reasoning and critical thinking and requires students to utilize sources — like scholarly articles or newspaper pieces — to build or critique an argument. In short, it measures the skills that most, even college’s detractors, would likely agree is the primary universal benefit of a college education , regardless of individual discipline. Only it seems that benefit is not so universal.

In the worst cases, like The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the senior score was actually worse than the freshman score. As freshmen, students from the University averaged a score of 994. By the time they were seniors, the score was 962. 48 percent of seniors were measured to have “below basic” skills, and 29 percent were scored at “basic,” hardly what one might expect after four years of college education.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the colleges that have been most powerfully indicted by the tests results are not fans of this method of evaluation. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, for example, says it’s not giving the test anymore because it doesn’t accurately reflect the rigor of its curriculum.

It’s not all doom and gloom for colleges, though. Some, like Plymouth State University, showed significant improvement in students’ abilities. 40 percent of Plymouth freshmen were scored “below basic,” while only 6 percent of seniors were in that category. Even so, Plymouth’s success does seem overshadowed by the overall inefficacy that the CLA+ puts on display.

Also worth noting is the fact that all the schools on this list, whose test results were shared, are public universities. There’s no information on whether prestigious private schools, like Harvard and Yale, or small liberal arts schools, like Williams and Wesleyan, might perform. Proponents of such institutions would likely say that they’d be stronger. For college’s detractors, it’s all one and the same.

Read the full Wall Street Journal report here .

Why Failure Is Good for Learning, and How It Applies to Your Struggling Students

• October 23, 2019

Most of us, if given a choice, want to do things right on the first try; no one wants to fail. But did you know that our mistakes actually breed more success in the long run? As it turns out, mistakes are integral to the learning process. Failure not only improves information recall but critical thinking, too.

Students, however, don’t always understand the full learning potential of their mistakes.[5] When confronted with failure, it’s easy for them to feel ashamed or believe success is too far out of reach. But if we can help students redefine what a mistake is, we can teach them a valuable lesson about improvement and learning.

In this article, we’ll discuss the research behind how failure helps students more in the long-term than success. Then, we’ll go over a few tips and active learning strategies that can help you support struggling learners.

We Learn More from Failure, Not Success: Here’s Why

In 2018, a team of educators in Toronto researched which study methods were linked to the highest levels of academic achievement.[7] They placed students into two groups: those who studied by memorizing information and those who guessed first, then got feedback on their answer. The students who guessed first and got feedback outperformed their peers who just memorized information, despite studying the same concepts. The researchers theorized that this is because the students who guessed first were better able to reflect on their incorrect guesses and study the correct answers for the test.

As it turns out, we may understand things better in the long run when we can learn from our mistakes. Another study, too, found that studying in a way that offers more room for making mistakes and engaging in self-reflection can strengthen critical thinking skills.[10] Not only can this skill help students perform better in class, but it can help them make well-advised choices in all areas of their lives. Even if a student doesn’t get an answer correct on the first try, the act of self-reflection after making a mistake strengthens skills that will help them make well-informed choices in the future.

How To Help Students Overcome Their Fear of Making Mistakes

If you’re looking for ways to help your struggling students, one of the best things you can do is show them how to get the most out of their mistakes. Teach your students that the purpose of school isn’t to have all the answers already. It’s to learn new things and grow as individuals throughout the year. Encourage students to remember that what matters is improvement and trying their hardest, not having it right the first time.[4] This mentality also helps students develop self-confidence.

Students often look to the trusted adults in their lives as a model for their own behavior. In class, studies suggest they often respond to their mistakes based on how their teachers act about them.[9] For that reason, it is useful to apply these thoughts about mistakes to yourself as an educator, too.[2] If you mess up on something in class, don’t let it ruin your or your student’s day. Find a way that you can learn from it to improve your teaching and career.[8]

Mistakes may be inevitable, but so are learning and growth. If we allow ourselves, and our students, the freedom to fail a little, it can lead us to lasting success in the end.[6] As your students go through the school year, don’t strive for perfection. Instead, help each student improve in a way that sets them up to meet their goals in school and beyond.

4 More Teaching Techniques for Struggling Learners

Reframing mistakes as positives instead of negatives is a simple yet effective way to help struggling students move forward. But it’s not the only thing you can do. Keep these four additional strategies in mind so you have plenty of options when determining how to best support a student.

Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated instruction is a strategy that gives students individualized resources, depending on their needs.[11] A student with dyslexia, for example, might have their assignments printed in a different font from other students that is more dyslexia-friendly.

To use differentiated instruction in class, get to know your students as well as you can. Look out for struggling students, and provide them with resources that help them feel more prepared to learn. Additionally, it’s helpful to send out a student information survey to parents at the beginning of the year so you’re aware of any learning disorders or disabilities students have.

Multisensory Learning

Because our brains are designed to gather information from multiple senses at once, multisensory learning can help struggling learners.[12] To use multisensory learning in class, try to add a mix of audio, visual, or other sensory materials to some assignments. Even providing students with an audiobook file or a video of a concept discussed in class can make a big difference.

Mnemonic Devices

A mnemonic device is loosely defined as using rhymes, images, or acronyms to help someone remember a concept. One popular example of a mnemonic device is using “Roy G. Biv” to remember the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Research suggests that mnemonic devices are particularly helpful for students with learning disabilities.[13] If a student has a hard time with memorization, try helping them come up with a mnemonic device.

Growth Mindset

One of the best ways you can help students view their mistakes positively is by teaching kids to have a growth mindset . A growth mindset refers to the belief that our talents, abilities, and intelligence can grow over time. Students with growth mindsets tend to see their mistakes as a valued part of the learning process and not something to be ashamed of.

All of your students will make mistakes at some point, but some might take it harder than others. If a child in your class feels ashamed because they make a mistake, try to turn the experience into a positive. Remind them that their mistake taught them something new and that it only means that they’ll know what to do instead next time.

5 Classroom Management Strategies to Help Students View Mistakes Positively

The poet Nikki Giovanni is often quoted as saying, “Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts.” Every mistake we make is an opportunity for profound growth—if we know how to view it in the right way.

Use these five tips to help your students learn how to get over a mistake and try again:

• After you hand back a graded assignment, give students time to reflect on their mistakes and make a plan for the next assignment through freewriting or class discussion.
• As an extra credit project, give students bonus points for correcting mistakes on past tests. That way, your students can pinpoint which concepts they need to study for next time.[15]
• Teach students to make educated guesses, even if they’re not sure about an answer. Even if they get the answer wrong, guessing can help them learn concepts better through review.
• Incorporate discussion and open-ended questions into your class lessons so students feel comfortable answering without fear that they won’t be correct.[11]
• If a student feels bad about a mistake, remind them that the “failure,” as they see it, doesn’t define them. It just means that they’re human and capable of improvement.[14]
• Yerushalmi, E., and Polingher, C. Guiding Students to Learn from Mistakes . Physics Education, 2006, 41(6), pp. 532-538.
• Pinkerton, K.D. Learning from Mistakes. The Physics Teacher, 2005, 43(8), pp. 581.
• Cherepinsky, V. Self-Reflective Grading: Getting Students to Learn from their Mistakes . PRIMUS Journal, 2011, 21(3), pp. 294-301.
• Jones, L. The Student-Centered Classroom . Retrieved from brettwilkin.com: https://mail.brettwilkin.com/phocadownload/StudentCentredClassroom/jones-student-centered.pdf.
• Henderson, C., and Harper, K.A. Quiz Corrections: Improving Learning by Encouraging Students to Reflect on Their Mistakes . The Physics Teacher, 2009, 47(9), pp. 581-586.
• Wenzel, T.J. Using Mistakes as Learning Opportunities. Analytical Chemistry, 2002, 74(15), pp. 439-440.
• Cyr, A., and Anderson, N.D. Learning from your mistakes: does it matter if you’re out in left foot, I mean field? Memory, 2018, 26(9), pp. 1281-1290.
• Peeters, A., and Robinson, V. A Teacher Educator Learns How to Learn from Mistakes: Single and Double-loop Learning for Facilitators of In-service Teacher Education . Studying Teacher Education, 2015, 11(3), pp. 213-227.
• Tulis, M. Error management behavior in classrooms: Teachers’ responses to student mistakes. Teaching and Teacher Education, July 2013, 33, pp. 56-68.
• Johannessen, L.R. Helping “Struggling” Students Achieve Success. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, May 2004, 47(8), pp. 638-647.
• Cusumano, C., and Mueller, J. How Differentiated Instruction Helps Struggling Students. Leadership, 2007, 36(4), pp. 8-10.
• Shams, L., and Seitz, A.R. Benefits of multisensory learning . Trends in Cognitive Sciences, November 2008, 12(11), pp. 411-417.
• Jangid, N., Swadia, H., and Sharma, D. Effectiveness of Mnemonic Instructions on the Thinking Strategies of Children with Learning Disability. Journal of Disability Management and Rehabilitation, July 2016, 2(1), pp. 22-27.
• Colorado Technical University Staff. How to Learn From Your Mistakes . Retrieved from coloradotech.edu: https://www.coloradotech.edu/blog/2018/september/how-to-learn-from-your-mistakes.
• BYU Center for Teaching and Learning. How Students Can Learn From Their Mistakes . Retrieved from byu.edu: https://ctl.byu.edu/tip/how-students-can-learn-their-mistakes.

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Breaking The Cycle Of College Failure And Regret

I previously wrote an article called The Cycle Of College Failure And Regret to point out that failing college can repeat itself and have lifelong implications. In this companion article I want to talk about what actions can be taken to both break that cycle and to prevent it before it happens.

  The Roots Of College Failure

From directly working with students who have failed, I can say that the roots of college failure often can be traced back to high school. Students may do well in high school, even perfectly, yet do poorly in college. This can happen for a variety of reasons, with some related to academic ability, but academics may not the only factor. Making the transition to the low structure environment of college, having to expand one’s skills very quickly, and needing the discipline to complete tasks independently are only a few of the new challenges students will face. Too often students and families become enamored of the idea of “going college,” especially the possibility of going to a big name school. They forget the reality of it, or are simply not informed: Only about 1/3 of American students graduate with a bachelor’s degree in four years, and trend is toward students taking longer to graduate. This should flag the many dangers of going to college in the U.S., and parents must do whatever they can to minimize the risk of college failure for their student. Prevention of college problems, therefore, begins during the student’s college planning efforts during high school.

Considerations for prevention during high school are:

Think beyond just getting in to college

Getting in to college is only the first step toward earning a degree, which must be set as the ultimate goal for going to college. The natural questions that both parents and students ask during high school include “what college?” and “why?” Most students are worried about getting in to a college of their choice, yet barely consider whether they should actually go to a particular college. It’s up to parents to guide students to good choices, and I’ve worked with many bright students who failed in college because they essentially picked the wrong one, often for the wrong reasons. Each college has their own factors, which can work for or against a student, and create longer graduation times or lead to a student begin the cycle of college failure.

Understand that not all colleges are equal

There are differences between colleges, and these can sometimes be dramatic. Colleges can vary in terms of size, student body composition, academic difficulty, and critical success factors like “ student engagement .” Colleges also vary in terms of graduation rates, which express how many students earn a degree within a set number of years. The U.S. Department of Education formerly measured student graduation rates in terms of whether students took four, five, or six years to earn a bachelor’s degree. They now measure in four, six, and eight year periods for traditional-aged students trying to earn a bachelor’s degree (not part-time adults or graduate degrees). This should tell parents something about how students fare at some colleges in the U.S.

Engage in quality college planning

When it comes to college planning during high school, there are two key issues to consider: Whether a student and family needs to go through a process when planning for college, and if so, what should that process be. As for needing to plan for college, a recent three-part study sponsored by the the Gates Foundation showed that students who did poorly or failed in college had little guidance and practically no planning efforts for college. I’m seeing exactly the same phenomenon in my work. In this same study, students gave their high school guidance counselors poor marks on helping them plan and prepare for college, which leads to the second issue for pre-college planning.

Very often the process that a failing college student went through when there were in high school is what I call entry-only planning. They focused on maximizing their GPA, taking honors courses, and doing well on the SAT or ACT so that they could get in to a “good college.” This approach, of focusing on getting in to a big name college, is advocated by high schools across the U.S., yet it does not consider whether the student will actually graduate or do well at that college. Believe me, I’ve worked with many high school honors students that failed once in college. The ultimate goal of college is to earn a degree, not simply get in, and using this entry-only approach is a common but key mistake that often leads to a student doing poorly. Similarly, many private “college planners” merely help students to find colleges, and may even be high school guidance counselors themselves. They often use the same entry-only thinking that can lead to a student not succeeding. When parents contact me after a student has done poorly, they typically have spent literally tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, room, and board with only a fraction of the credits earned. I always find entry-only planning was the basis for their decisions, or there was no planning at all. Good college planning is based on not only getting in to a college that meets the student’s needs, but also in the known factors that can affect their performance in college. This second body of knowledge, of what causes students to fail, is little known to most “planners,” yet is critical to the student’s success. It is far better for the student, and their parents, to engage in quality planning before college than to face the academic and economic hardships of possible failure.

  Intervention During College

When a student begins to do poorly, colleges will always state that it is up to the student to solve their problems and make improvements, since it is the student’s responsibility to earn the degree. Most colleges do not actively seek out underperforming students and intervene to keep them from failing. Students can become paralyzed or feel hopeless when they begin failing, and will often consider dropping out altogether. At this point, when a student is doing poorly, it is up to their parents to take action as to prevent later regrets from their failing or dropping out of college.

Considerations for intervention during college are:

Parents must take action since student’s usually won’t

Students can often feel reluctant to take action or are too embarrassed to speak with anyone about what happened. It’s a common reaction for a student to try and hide their failure, including from their parents. These are completely expected reactions, so parents must take the initiative to get things started. It’s standard in my work that I speak with parents first, and talk with the student later. Parents must see beyond a student’s current situation, and even past their youthful error of not understanding the need to earn a degree. When a student is failing, parents must remember that they are the adults in the situation, and it is up to them to help the student get back on track.

Intervention must be fast

When a student does begin to do poorly in college, fast action can make the difference between a student remaining in the traditional four-year college system or having to leave. There are two key reasons for fast intervention. First, the more quickly the reasons for the academic problems are identified and addressed, the greater the chance of a student improving during the term. If not, they can be placed on academic probation or suspension and have to leave their school. Once this happens, the “cycle” of failure can start begin, since without intervention the problems will remain and students can fail at a different college as well. Second, I’ve noticed a “critical period” for college success and completion, beyond which students give up. The concept of a critical period is from developmental studies, and means that there is an optimal time period for the development of certain skills, such as language. If a certain ability or task is not completed during that critical period, the individual may have a difficult time developing it later or it may not happen at all. For students who are doing poorly in college, I’ve noticed that if intervention isn’t early and effective, they may not respond to it. They can struggle and finally give up when they are placed on academic suspension and essentially get locked out of the traditional four-year system.

Intervention must be effective

For failing students, there is no substitute for direct and effective intervention. Initial efforts generally take the form of campus services, which may or may not be effective. A student can seek help from their college’s tutoring or writing center, which is often the first recommendation by professors or staff. There is also the college health or counseling center available for students if they are having issues like anxiety, depression, or emotional factors that are affecting their studies. All of these services, however, require that the student take the initiative and approach them . Colleges, in general, do not actively seek out students who need help, and students “must avail themselves of the available resources.” Unfortunately, students have told me that these services can be variable in their effectiveness, with subject-specific tutoring being the most helpful. Some students have related to me their experiences at counseling centers that were so bad that they refused to go back. While campus services have their place, they generally aren’t strong enough to help a student to make the fast and strong improvements needed if they’re failing.

In addition to campus services, there are outside professionals like myself, many of whom are considered experts in their field. One of the key benefits of these professionals is their ability to deal with the “heterogeneous group” of failing college students. In other words, there is no one single “type” of failing student, and therefore no one single course of action. It takes professionals with deep expertise is identify the actual problems in order to devise effective solutions. These professionals include psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, neuropsychologists, psychotherapists, and many others. My background is in clinical psychology, and I’m the former director of a psychiatric center, so I can understand and interface with these experts seamlessly, then translate their recommendations in to direct action with students to improve their academics. They rely on me to implement their recommendations and research-based academic interventions to address areas such as learning skills, memory, reasoning, cognition, problem solving, and many others.

Beyond campus services and high-level professionals are other services like private tutors and “coaches,” with cautions for both. While tutoring can be very useful, it typically has a subject-specific focus and cannot address the broader problems that a student might have. Also, to professionals like myself, “coaching” is merely a method to be used to deliver skills and expertise, and is not an intervention unto itself. Coaching is an interpersonal process, and not a research-based solution. Tutors and “coaches” may not have the right experience and credentials to deal with a student’s specific situation. In more than one instance I’ve seen the wrong actions be taken due to a tutor or coach’s lack of knowledge, both to the detriment and disservice of the student and family.

For the diverse group of failing college students, effective intervention means efforts by knowledgeable, experienced, and credentialed individuals who are using research-based methods and can deal with individualized problems. Not enough can ever be said about the need for effective intervention.

Intervention must be based on the i dentification of the real problems

Any of the high-level professionals that I mentioned can tell you that the guiding principle of effective intervention is that it must be based on an accurate assessment and identification of the problems. A good assessment will then lead to an accurate “diagnosis,” which leads to selecting the methods used. The same is true for academic intervention: Assessing the problems that led to failure will lead to the goals and methods used for the intervention. I spent many years directly assessing the situations of young adults even before working with college students, and have been trained on many of the formal assessments used by my colleagues. At one point I oversaw more than 450 ongoing interventions each year, and each had a thorough assessment that was the foundation of their goal plan. Only credentialed professionals will be able to conduct thorough assessments. Tutors and coaches will not be able to assess appropriately, and may have no experience at designing and conducting interventions that are based on a good assessment of the problem.

There are two general types of assessment, both of which are interdependent and used by a seasoned professional. First, there’s formal assessment, such as a psychological, psychiatric, psychoeducational, or neuropsychological evaluation that covers many areas and results in a lengthy report. These reports may include detailed or even technical recommendations which non-professionals may not understand enough to implement effectively. Then there’s informal assessment, in which an experienced professional uses their knowledge to ask the right questions to identify the problems. The latter is used by most professionals, and a “thorough” assessment generally includes both. I often begin by asking questions to identify what happened with the student identify problems, assess their current academic skills, and to uncover issues that may need specialized referrals to psychologists, psychiatrists, or other professionals. There is always a data basis for my inquiries, just like my colleagues, which helps to pinpoint known issues. There typically is no single reason why a student fails in college, so using both formal and informal assessment is often needed to identify all the problems.

  Breaking The Cycle

The reason for an accurate identification of the problems and effective intervention is that college failure can repeat itself, and ultimately become a trap for the student. A failing student can move quickly from academic probation to suspension, which can then prevent them from not only taking classes but being accepted at another school. If they do go to another school, they can fail again, because the true problems have not been identified and addressed. The standard move by parents when this happens is to send the student to a community college back home, and this can often represent the end of their college career. I’ve written elsewhere about the low level of student engagement at community colleges, and about a study that showed how bright students who attend a community college become 36% less likely to ever earn a four-year degree. While community college may seem like the only option, it may not be, and informed decision making about what to do after failure is extremely important to the long-term outcome of the student.

Repeated failures or being relegated to a community college for these students can lead to not finishing college, which carries it’s own regrets. Not only will the student have to face the world without a degree, they will suffer all the correlates of not having a degree. These include not only lower lifetime earnings, but also some counterintuitive outcomes, such as a lower likelihood of getting and staying married, as well as reduced health status. Studies over the past 30 years have shown that earning a college degree can indeed be life changing, and not only in terms of how much one earns. Fast and effective intervention must be taken for students to prevent the cycle of repeated failure, especially those who have progressed to academic probation, to head off a possible lifetime of negative consequences from not earning a college degree.

Considerations for breaking the cycle are:

As I said above, parents must take action not only at the first signs of student failure, but also after they have failed. I’ve had many parents contact me after the student has been placed on academic suspension and has given up hope of being in a traditional four-year college. Is their college career over? Not necessarily. The reality is that it depends on their situation. I’ve helped students who were academically suspended get back in to the four-year system, and have discovered that it really does “depend,” which is an answer that I don’t like to give. What is certain is that students will not get back into the four-year college system with no action, and initial reactions like going to a community college or sending them to the military generally won’t attain the goal of earning a college degree.

Developing a plan of action

Understanding that there is a known progression of events for failing students, including the possibility of repeated failures, is a key step toward breaking the cycle of college failure. The next step is finding out exactly what happened which should lead to a plan of action. A plan of action must be developed that is based on the assessment of the problems and what areas must be worked on in order to help the student improve. This plan must be individualized to each student, and one-size-fits-all interventions that are offered by non-professionals must be avoided. I’ve had parents and students bring to me the “obvious” problems and assumptions, like the student needed study skills, when that wasn’t the true problem at all. Both informal and formal assessment by qualified professionals, as well as effective intervention, must be part of the plan of action. Yes, this might include the obvious like study skills, but there might also be problems in motivation, problem conceptualization and solving, test taking, writing, or even hidden areas. A multi-faceted and sometimes multi-modal plan must be developed by a professional who is experienced in designing and conducting such interventions will be critical for the student’s success.

Mitigating and controlling the risk of further failure

Non-professionals at intervention with college students get an initial response and then say “problem solved.” Professionals know that after an initial response, there is something called relapse . In fact, the issue is so well known there are specific strategies entirely set up for “ relapse prevention .” Interventions with students who have failed in college must be ongoing and conducted by experienced professionals who can recognize the signs of possible relapse and act accordingly. Relapse and other factors pose risks for continued failure or a recurrence. In more than one instance, I worked with a student who went from below a 2.0 GPA to above a 3.0 GPA, only later to relapse and have a repeat of bad grades. There can be many reasons for relapse, not the least being that they didn’t follow professional advice then encountered a situation that was predictable from the onset. Even after a student has made apparent gains, the multi-faceted aspects of the plan must be worked on, since relapse can occur.

For students who are failing in college, swift and effective intervention is needed to prevent them from entering the “trap” or cycle of college failure that only leads to regret. When students begin to do poorly, they are often too embarrassed or lost to seek help on their own, so parents must act to begin the process of intervention. Ideally, good college planning during high school can help to minimize the risks of college problems, since poor college planning has been shown to correlate with students not finishing college. When students begin to fail, fast and effective professional intervention is the only way to help them to turn-around their situation. Even after they initially improve, it’s possible to have a recurrence of failure, and having multiple-failures is normally the result of not accurately identifying and solving the real problems. Finally, ongoing intervention from credentialed and well-qualified professionals is the only way to prevent successive failures and the regrets that come from a lifetime of not having earned a college degree.

Have questions for Jeff?  Feel free to use the contact page to reach him.

Jeffrey Ludovici, M.A., is a national level Higher Education Consultant based in Pittsburgh, PA. He’s worked with students and parents across the U.S. about college issues since 2001, and is a member of CSRDE that focuses on best practices in helping students. He is also a member of NACADA, the national college advising association in the U.S. Please see the program page for services Jeff offers.

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College and University Students

Why Critical Thinking?

"As grads look to the future, they're all thinking one thing: Hire us...In general, students in fields that require critical thinking skills, problem-solving, and face-to-face contact will fare best in this new economy, no matter where they look for jobs", said Jim Kurre, associate professor of economics at Penn State Behrend and director of the Economic Research Institute of Erie. Erie Times News, PA  - May 20, 2008 "Employers report that such applied skills as critical thinking, teamwork, and effective communication are essential to the preparation for today’s workplace"... Tom Pauken East Texas Review, TX - Jun 11, 2008

Studying the following articles and pages will help you build a stronger understanding of the core concepts in critical thinking

• Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking
• Glossary of Critical Thinking Terms
• Universal Intellectual Standards
• Valuable Intellectual Traits
• Distinguishing Between Inferences and Assumptions
• Thinking With Concepts

In addition to the basic review of the definition and concept of critical thinking , the following pages and articles are recommended reading for the college, university or pre-collegiate student.

7.4 Critical Thinking

Questions to Consider:

• How can determining the situation help you think critically?
• How do you present informed, unbiased thinking?
• What is the difference between factual arguments and opinions?

Critical thinking has become a buzz phrase in education and corporate environments in recent years. The definitions vary slightly, but most agree that thinking critically includes some form of judgement that thinkers generate after careful analysis of the perspectives, opinions, or experimental results present for a particular problem or situation. Before you wonder if you’re even capable of critical thinking, consider that you think critically every day. When you grab an unwashed T-shirt off the top of the pile on the floor of your bedroom to wear into class but then suddenly remember that you may see the person of your dreams on that route, you may change into something a bit less disheveled. That’s thinking critically—you used data (the memory that your potential soul mate walks the same route you use on that day on campus) to change a sartorial decision (dirty shirt for clean shirt), and you will validate your thinking if and when you do have a successful encounter with said soul mate.

Likewise, when you decide to make your lunch rather than just grabbing a bag of chips, you’re thinking critically. You have to plan ahead, buy the food, possibly prepare it, arrange to and carry the lunch with you, and you may have various reasons for doing that—making healthier eating choices, saving money for an upcoming trip, or wanting more quiet time to unwind instead of waiting in a crowded lunch line. You are constantly weighing options, consulting data, gathering opinions, making choices, and then evaluating those decisions, which is a general definition of critical thinking.

Consider the following situations and how each one demands your thinking attention. Which do you find most demanding of critical thinking? Why?

• Participating in competitive athletic events
• Watching competitive athletic events
• Reading a novel for pleasure
• Reading a textbook passage in science

Critical thinking forces you to determine the actual situation under question and to determine your thoughts and actions around that situation.

Determining the Problem

One component to keep in mind to guide your critical thinking is to determine the situation. What problem are you solving? When problems become complex and multifaceted, it is easy to be distracted by the simple parts that may not need as much thinking to resolve but also may not contribute as much to the ultimate problem resolution. What aspect of the situation truly needs your attention and your critical thinking?

Imagine you’re planning a fantasy vacation as a group assignment in a class you’re taking where each person is allowed only $200. The group doles out specific preliminary tasks to each member to decide where to go, what sort of trip to take, and how to keep costs low, all in the name of a fun fantasy vacation. In this scenario, whose plan demonstrates the most effective critical thinking?

• DeRhonda creates an elaborate invitation for a dinner party she’ll coordinate at an exclusive mountain cabin.
• Patrick researches cruises, cabin rentals, and staycation options, considering costs for various trip lengths.
• Rodrigio puts down a deposit for a private dining room for 25 at an expensive local restaurant for a date six weeks from the end of the semester.

Write out what each person’s thinking reflects about their expectations for this trip and why their actions may or may not help the group at this stage of the planning.

Critical thinking differs according to the subject you’re thinking about, and as such it can be difficult to pin down any sort of formula to make sure you are doing a good job of thinking critically in all situations. While you may need to adapt this list of critical thinking components, you can get started if you do the following:

• Question everything
• Conduct legitimate research
• Limit your assumptions
• Recognize your own biases
• Gather and weigh all options

Additionally, you must recognize that changes will occur and may alter your conclusions now and in the future. You may eventually have to revisit an issue you effectively resolved previously and adapt to changing conditions. Knowing when to do that is another example of critical thinking. Informed flexibility, or knowing that parts of the plan may need to change and how those changes can work into the overall goal, is also a recognized element of thinking critically.

For example, early in the 20th century, many people considered cigarette smoking a relaxing social pastime that didn’t have many negative consequences. Some people may still consider smoking a way to relax; however, years of medical research have proven with mounting evidence that smoking causes cancer and exacerbates numerous other medical conditions. Researchers asked questions about the impact of smoking on people’s overall health, conducted regulated experiments, tracked smokers’ reactions, and concluded that smoking did impact health. Over time, attitudes, evidence, and opinions change, and as a critical thinker, you must continue to research, synthesize newly discovered evidence, and adapt to that new information.

Defending against Bias

Once you have all your information gathered and you have checked your sources for currency and validity, you need to direct your attention to how you’re going to present your now well-informed analysis. Be careful on this step to recognize your own possible biases. Facts are verifiable; opinions are beliefs without supporting evidence. Stating an opinion is just that. You could say “Blue is the best color,” and that’s your opinion. If you were to conduct research and find evidence to support this claim, you could say, “Researchers at Oxford University recognize that the use of blue paint in mental hospitals reduces heart rates by 25% and contributes to fewer angry outbursts from patients.” This would be an informed analysis with credible evidence to support the claim.

Not everyone will accept your analysis, which can be frustrating. Most people resist change and have firm beliefs on both important issues and less significant preferences. With all the competing information surfacing online, on the news, and in general conversation, you can understand how confusing it can be to make any decisions. Look at all the reliable, valid sources that claim different approaches to be the best diet for healthy living: ketogenic, low-carb, vegan, vegetarian, high fat, raw foods, paleo, Mediterranean, etc. All you can do in this sort of situation is conduct your own serious research, check your sources, and write clearly and concisely to provide your analysis of the information for consideration. You cannot force others to accept your stance, but you can show your evidence in support of your thinking, being as persuasive as possible without lapsing into your own personal biases. Then the rest is up to the person reading or viewing your analysis.

Factual Arguments vs. Opinions

Thinking and constructing analyses based on your thinking will bring you in contact with a great deal of information. Some of that information will be factual, and some will not be. You need to be able to distinguish between facts and opinions so you know how to support your arguments. Begin with basic definitions:

• Fact: a statement that is true and backed up with evidence; facts can be verified through observation or research
• Opinion: a statement someone holds to be true without supporting evidence; opinions express beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, or judgements

Of course, the tricky part is that most people do not label statements as fact and opinion, so you need to be aware and recognize the difference as you go about honing your critical thinking skills.

You probably have heard the old saying “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions,” which may be true, but conversely, not everyone is entitled to their own facts. Facts are true for everyone, not just those who want to believe in them. For example, mice are animals is a fact; mice make the best pets is an opinion.

Determine if the following statements are facts or opinions based on just the information provided here, referring to the basic definitions above. Some people consider scientific findings to be opinions even when they are convincingly backed by reputable evidence and experimentation. However, remember the definition of fact —verifiable by research or observation. Think about what other research you may have to conduct to make an informed decision.

• Oregon is a state in the United States. (How would this be proven?)
• Beef is made from cattle. (See current legislation concerning vegetarian “burgers.”)
• Increased street lighting decreases criminal behavior. (What information would you need to validate this claim?)
• In 1952, Elizabeth became Queen of England. (What documents could validate this?)
• Oatmeal tastes plain. (What factors might play into this claim?)
• Acne is an embarrassing skin condition. (Who might verify this claim?)
• Kindergarten decreases student dropout rates. (Think of different interest groups that may take sides on this issue.)
• Carbohydrates promote weight gain. (Can you determine if this is a valid statement?)
• Cell phones cause brain tumors. (What research considers this claim?)
• Immigration is good for the US economy. (What research would help you make an informed decision on this topic?)

Many people become very attached to their opinions, even stating them as facts despite the lack of verifiable evidence. Think about political campaigns, sporting rivalries, musical preferences, and religious or philosophical beliefs. When you are reading, writing, and thinking critically, you must be on the lookout for sophisticated opinions others may present as factual information. While it’s possible to be polite when questioning another person's opinions when engaging in intellectual debate, thinking critically requires that you do conduct this questioning.

For instance, someone may say or write that a particular political party should move its offices to different cities every year—that’s an opinion regardless of whether you side with one party or the other. If, on the other hand, the same person said that one political party is headquartered in a specific city, that is a fact you can verify. You could find sources that can validate or discredit the statement. Even if the city the person lists as the party headquarters is incorrect, the statement itself is still a fact—just an erroneous one. If you use biased and opinionated information or even incorrect facts as your evidence to support your factual arguments, then you have not validated your sources or checked your facts well enough. At this point, you would need to keep researching.

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• Publication date: Mar 27, 2020
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FAIL Is Not a Four-Letter Word: A Theoretical Framework for Exploring Undergraduate Students’ Approaches to Academic Challenge and Responses to Failure in STEM Learning Environments

Meredith a. henry.

† Department of Chemistry, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322

Shayla Shorter

Louise charkoudian.

‡ Department of Chemistry, Haverford College, Haverford, PA 19041

Jennifer M. Heemstra

Lisa a. corwin.

§ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder CO 80309

Associated Data

Navigating scientific challenges, persevering through difficulties, and coping with failure are considered hallmarks of a successful scientist. However, relatively few studies investigate how undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students develop these skills and dispositions or how instructors can facilitate this development in undergraduate STEM learning contexts. This is a critical gap, because the unique cultures and practices found in STEM classrooms are likely to influence how students approach challenges and deal with failures, both during their STEM education and in the years that follow. To guide research aimed at understanding how STEM students develop a challenge-engaging disposition and the ability to adaptively cope with failure, we generate a model representing hypotheses of how students might approach challenges and respond to failures in undergraduate STEM learning contexts. We draw from theory and studies investigating mindset, goal orientations, attributions, fear of failure, and coping to inform our model. We offer this model as a tool for the community to test, revise, elaborate, or refute. Finally, we urge researchers and educators to consider the development, implementation, and rigorous testing of interventions aimed at helping students develop a persevering and challenge-engaging disposition within STEM contexts.

INTRODUCTION

Introduction of students to the “world of science” is usually marked by prototypical “cookbook” scientific demonstrations in which students follow step-by-step instructions that typically yield guaranteed results. While these experiences may help students learn tools and techniques in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), they provide an incomplete experience of the process. Between these early academic experiences and Hollywood portrayals of instant scientific success, students are not made privy to the reality that struggles, ambiguity, and failure are inevitable hallmarks of the scientific process. In fact, navigating challenges, persevering through difficulties, and coping with failure are cited as some of the most important dispositions distinguishing outstanding scientists ( Lopatto et al. , 2008 ; Laursen et al. , 2010 ; Harsh et al. , 2011 ; Thiry et al. , 2012 ; Andrews and Lemons, 2015 ; Simpson and Maltese, 2017 ). Yet, research on this issue, as well as instructor and student narratives, suggests that STEM students enter college ill-equipped to view failures and challenges as learning experiences ( Marra et al. , 2012 ; Bennett, 2017 ; Simpson and Maltese, 2017 ), and this is rarely an explicit area of instruction or development emphasized in STEM classrooms ( Traphagen, 2015 ; Simpson and Maltese, 2017 ). This gap between skills and instruction may leave students inadequately prepared to approach the challenges present in the broader landscape of scientific innovation and advancement, especially as today’s scientific problems become increasingly complex and interdisciplinary ( National Science Foundation, 2016 ; Friedman, 2017 ; National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017 ; Simpson and Maltese, 2017 ). Advancing STEM will require not only a large, highly skilled workforce, but also one composed of challenge-engaging individuals who have the ability to persevere and cope productively with failure.

Therefore, we ask, “How and when do scientists develop dispositions that allow them to productively tackle challenges and learn from failure?” and “What can we, as researchers and educators, do to help build the next generation of perseverant, challenge-engaging scientists?” In this essay, we explore vetted psychological constructs and theories to build a model of how noncognitive factors may influence STEM undergraduates’ engagement with challenges and ability to cope with failures in STEM learning contexts. We define “noncognitive factors” as “skills or dispositions not associated with development of knowledge or cognitive functioning,” such as students’ affective and motivational dispositions. Based on past research and theory, we describe five constructs that we believe affect STEM students’ achievement both directly and indirectly through their responses to failure: mindset, goal orientation, fear of failure, attributions, and coping responses. Briefly, this essay addresses how mindset, or the beliefs a student holds about whether intelligence is malleable or fixed ( Dweck, 2000 , 2006 ), can influence a student’s goal orientation, or their purpose when engaging in academic tasks ( Pintrich, 2000a , b ). Mindset and goal orientation are likely to influence a student’s fear of failure, or concerns regarding the consequences of failure ( Conroy et al. , 2001 ). These prefailure dispositions and beliefs affect postfailure attributions, what a student sees as the cause of a failure ( Weiner, 1985 ), and the corresponding coping behaviors they employ in response to the threat of failure or an actual failure event ( Skinner et al. , 2003 ).

Before we describe each factor in detail, it is important to define what we mean by “failures” and “challenges.” In the broadest sense, a failure is the gap between an expected or desired result and what one ultimately experiences ( Cannon and Edmondson, 2005 ). More specifically, we define “failure” as the inability to meet the demands of an achievement context, with the result of not achieving a specific goal . Achievement contexts 1) consist of some task(s) to be performed, 2) involve evaluating the performance of said task(s) against standards or expectations that indicate goal achievement, and 3) require certain competencies to carry out the task(s) to defined standards ( Cacciotti, 2015 ). When an individual does not successfully carry out the task, they have failed . For example, not getting meaningful results from a scientific experiment when the expectation is that the results will have meaning constitutes a failure of that experiment, even if future experiments can be performed to rectify that failure. Importantly, our conceptualization of failure drawn from Cacciotti (2015) differs from that of some who argue that failure only occurs when one disengages and completely stops iterating or trying (e.g., Thomas, 2014 ). However, we also see failures as different from errors (e.g., Tulis et al. , 2016 ), in that failures are marked by not accomplishing a goal within an achievement context, while errors do not necessarily preclude accomplishment of a goal (i.e., errors can be corrected relatively quickly without failing). In this paper, “challenges” are achievement contexts that carry with them the risk of failure—that is, they push a student’s skills and knowledge to a level at which the student risks a failure by engaging with them.

Even with these formalized definitions, what constitutes a challenge or a failure is influenced by one’s personal goals, values, socialization, and so on. In other words, failure lies both in the eye of the beholder and in the expectations set forth by the context. So, while the typical grading scale and other standardized academic achievements certainly represent achievement contexts, individual students will also be influenced by other personal achievement contexts. A student who has been told that they must get all “A’s” to achieve a future goal (e.g., medical school acceptance) may see receiving a “B” on an exam as failing. Alternatively, a student who regularly receives “C’s” and “D’s” and has the goal of passing the class may see a “B” as a success!

Students’ views of failure interact with academic STEM contexts, manifesting in certain dispositions toward STEM challenges and behaviors in response to failure—in other words, students’ mindsets, goal orientations, fear of failure, attributions, and coping responses. Herein, we synthesize research and theory on these five factors and aim to:

• define each factor and discuss its underlying structures,
• explain the likely influence of each factor on STEM undergraduates’ approaches toward academic challenges and responses to failure,
• present a model framework integrating all factors to explain how students might approach academic challenges and respond to failure within undergraduate STEM contexts, and
• suggest next steps in discipline-based education research (DBER) and instruction to test this framework.

During this trajectory, we present four minimodels ( Figures 1 – 4 ) that predict how each factor interacts with others to influence STEM students’ abilities to navigate academic challenges. We also present theoretical and empirical support for these models in the Supplemental Material (Supplemental Figures 1–4). These minimodels build toward our larger model framework (aim 3; Figure 5 ). Thus, we aim to build understanding of each factor within the larger STEM challenge and failure context as we go. We have elected to present the constructs within our framework in a largely dichotomous way to help clarify connections between constructs. However, it is important to note that there is a great deal of complexity within any of the factors presented here (see Considering Nuance ). It is our aim that this work will contribute to future DBER efforts to understand students’ behaviors and outcomes in challenge and failure contexts and spark change in how we think about STEM curricular design and instruction to help students better navigate challenges and failures.

Minimodel 1: mindset and goal orientations. Predicted relationships between mindset (green), goal orientation (blue), and prefailure disposition (orange) for undergraduate STEM contexts. Solid lines represent relationships with empirical support in the literature, primarily drawn from contexts outside undergraduate STEM learning (Supplemental Figure 1). Dashed lines represent relationships without empirical support. Growth mindset leads to a challenge-engaging prefailure disposition; fixed mindset, by contrast, leads to a challenge-avoiding prefailure disposition. Growth mindset leads to mastery goal orientations, while fixed mindset leads to performance goal orientations. Performance goals lead to a challenge-avoiding disposition. Mastery-approach goals lead to a challenge-engaging disposition and mastery-­avoidance goals tend to lead to challenge-avoiding dispositions. We predict, however, that some individuals with mastery-­avoidance goals may express challenge-engaging disposition (dashed line).

Minimodel 4 - Prefailure dispositions, Coping, and Long Term Outcomes: Predicted relationships between prefailure dispositions (orange), attributions (brown), coping responses (red), and long term outcomes (turquoise) for undergraduate STEM contexts. Solid lines represent relationships with empirical support in the literature primarily drawn from contexts outside undergraduate STEM learning (Supplemental Figure 3). Individuals with challenge-engaging dispositions are likely to attribute failure to unstable and controllable causes and engage in adaptive coping. These students are likely to experience academic success. Individuals with challenge-avoiding dispositions are likely to attribute failure to stable and uncontrollable causes and engage in maladaptive coping. This likely leads to loss of interest in the STEM discipline, burnout, and often attrition.

The failure mindset coping model. All connections from previous minimodels are modeled simultaneously, leading to the emergence of two pathways. On the right, growth mindset and mastery goal orientations are linked to more positive long-term outcomes through a challenge-engaging disposition, controllable attributions, and adaptive coping. On the left, a fixed mindset and performance goal orientations are related to more negative long-term outcomes via interaction with fear of failure, challenge avoidance, uncontrollable attributions, and maladaptive coping. All relationships (solid arrows) represent predicted relationships between constructs in undergraduate STEM contexts. However, all relationships are supported by previous work outside undergraduate STEM contexts (see Supplemental Figures).

HOW STUDENTS APPROACH CHALLENGE

To start, we discuss the likely influence of STEM undergraduates’ dispositions and goals on their engagement with a challenge before a failure occurs. We begin our discussion with the construct of mindset, which is likely to affect all subsequent factors either directly or indirectly.

“Mindset,” more formally known as “the implicit theory of intelligence,” is a term introduced by researcher Carol Dweck in 1999. It gained worldwide fame in 2006 with the publication of her best seller Mindset: The New Psychology of Success . Through decades of research studying achievement and success, Dweck repeatedly noticed that individuals with similar skills and abilities experienced drastically different outcomes: some achieving great success, and others fading into obscurity. In some cases, individuals lacking basic skills and abilities rose to great heights through perseverance and hard work, while those with “raw talent” never reached their full potential. These patterns are visible across a wide variety of domains—in the classroom ( Dweck, 2006 , chap. 3, 2009), in the boardroom ( McCall, 1998 ; Collins, 2001 ; Dweck, 2006 , chap. 5), and on multiple sports fields ( Wooden and Jamison, 1997 ; Lewis, 2005 ; Dweck, 2006 , chap. 4). Dweck’s ultimate conclusion is that success is less a result of one’s abilities than of one’s beliefs about one’s abilities and the work put forth in improving those abilities.

At the heart of mindset theory is the idea that some individuals have a fixed mindset— they believe that intelligence and capacity for specific abilities are unchangeable traits—while others have a growth mindset— believing that these qualities are malleable and that the brain and our abilities can grow over time and through effort ( Dweck, 2000 , 2006 ). As an example of these dispositions in STEM contexts, we can look to our vignettes ( Box 1 ). These vignettes represent fictional students constructed from the experiences of the authors and are meant to illustrate constructs. Names are pseudonyms. In the vignettes, we see that both Deirdre (vignette 1) and Nick (vignette 3) have fixed mindsets. Deirdre is “just not a numbers person,” Nick “has always been a smart kid,” and neither of them believes those facts to be changeable. In contrast, Riley (vignette 2) knows “they would have a lot to learn” but does not doubt that they will be able to improve their research skills over time, exemplifying a growth mindset. Notably, individuals can have a fixed mindset regarding some challenges and a growth mindset about others; one might have a fixed mindset about sports and a growth mindset about math, for example ( Gross-Loh, 2015 ). Also, students can hold aspects of both a fixed and growth mindset at the same time ( Dweck, 2006 ; Atwood, 2010 ; Claro et al. , 2016 ). Thus, mindsets depend on context, and one individual can hold fixed and growth mindsets about different things simultaneously.

BOX 1. Vignettes demonstrating students’ approach to challenges and response to failure

Vignette 1: deirdre.

Deirdre waited until she was a senior to take the required math course for her biology degree. When asked why, she would say it was because she is “just not a numbers person,” so she knew the course would be challenging and wanted to avoid it as long as possible. After receiving a “D” on the first exam, Deirdre tells her friends that she’s not surprised she did so poorly, because she was “so totally sick” on the day of the exam. Deirdre attends the first review session for the next exam, but after the TA (teaching assistant) calls on her to work through a problem and then points out a flaw in her logical reasoning and suggests some changes to her study methods, Deirdre decides that the TA just likes embarrassing students, so the sessions are “worthless.” She does not attend any more sessions and thinks: “It is not my fault if I fail. The system is built to make me look dumb. It’s not me that’s a failure.” After failing the second exam, she drops the class to avoid having an “F” on her transcript.

Vignette 2: Riley

Riley was excited to start working in their first laboratory position. They knew they would have a lot to learn, because they had never worked in a lab before, but they also knew that practical experience was the best way to gain the skills needed for their future career. As such, Riley was determined to truly understand each skill and become a proficient scientist. After gaining competence in basic laboratory skills, Riley is given their first lab project. For several weeks, Riley tries to get the first step in the process to work without success. They are disappointed, but try to think of the experience as an opportunity to learn, grow, and become a better scientist: “If I keep it up, I will get better. I know I have it in me.”  Riley knows that if they put in more effort, they will eventually succeed. They continue trying different solutions, incorporating feedback from the advisor, and even asking for additional help from lab mates. Eventually, Riley is successful and feels the thrill of having solved a challenging problem.

Vignette 3: Nick

Nick was the high school valedictorian. He has always enjoyed school, and academic success has always come fairly easily. He is very excited to be starting college, and he takes on a very ambitious course load for his first semester as a physics major, excited to prove his talent. But college courses are different than expected, and when midterms are over, Nick is shocked to find that he has “C’s” in most of his courses. Nick schedules meetings with all his professors, and several of them suggest different ways that he might change his approach to note-taking and studying the course material. But Nick is confused by that. He has always been a smart kid, and smart kids do not have to study. If he must start studying now that he is in college, does that mean he is not actually smart? He starts to believe that he does not have the ability to grasp the material. The thought makes Nick anxious and upset, and whenever he sits down to study, he becomes distracted by negative thoughts. He spends hours in the library, but most of this “study time” is actually spent worrying and thinking “I have to do good on this next exam. I need to get an ‘A.’ I’ll never become an astrophysicist if I don’t get an ‘A.’ They’re all naturally smart. If I can’t get an ‘A,’ maybe I’m just not good enough. What will people think of me!?”

The Impact of Mindset during Academic Challenge and Failure

One’s mindset affects one in profound ways, influencing self-­perception (e.g., Ehrlinger et al. , 2016 ), overall goals for learning (e.g., Haimovitz and Dweck, 2017 ; Lou and Noels, 2017 ), approaches to challenges and new opportunities (e.g., Dweck, 2007 ), and responses to criticisms and failures (e.g., Forsythe and Johnson, 2017 ). Individuals with a fixed mindset are more likely to see learning as an opportunity to prove their talent and intelligence, or “win,” and may see academic challenges as things to be avoided (a challenge-avoiding disposition). They will likely quit easily in the face of challenges and become defensive under criticism, as they see it as a personal attack on fixed traits and personal worth ( Forsythe and Johnson, 2017 ). For example, Deirdre (vignette 1) was unable to use her TA’s constructive criticism to help her improve her math study skills. Instead, her fixed mindset contributed to her conclusion that the TA was picking on her. Likewise, Nick (vignette 3) began to question his personal worth when his identity as a “smart kid” was threatened by his poor performance in physics, and his resulting anxiety led to rumination. In contrast, those having a growth mindset see learning as a chance to improve and actively seek out challenges, regardless of the risk of “looking silly” (a challenge-engaging disposition). They are more likely to be optimistic, to persevere in the face of setbacks, and to feel energized in the face of failures ( Forsythe and Johnson, 2017 ). Under criticism, those with a growth mindset tend not to attach the feedback to their self-worth and focus instead on improving the target skill ( Dweck, 2000 , 2007 ; Ehrlinger et al. , 2016 ; Forsythe and Johnson, 2017 ). Accordingly, when Riley’s (vignette 2) experiment did not succeed right away, they were able to use the advisor’s feedback to work toward improving their research skills. The challenges they faced motivated them to continue putting forth effort, which ultimately led to success. Table 1 contains common phrases that students holding each of the two mindsets might think or say when approaching a challenge or confronting a failure.

A comparison of fixed versus growth mindset using hypothetical student voices

While a fixed mindset is most often conceptualized as holding a fixed negative perception of one’s abilities (e.g., vignette 1: Deirdre is “just not a numbers person”), individuals can hold fixed positive perceptions of their abilities as well (e.g., vignette 3: Nick “has always been a smart kid”). Individuals having fixed positive perceptions can succeed, at least for a while, with a fixed mindset. The problem is that this success, in large part, depends on their ability to avoid failure, often by avoiding challenges ( Dweck, 2007 ). When such individuals do inevitably encounter struggle or failure, they often respond in an unproductive manner. So, when Nick was unable to avoid challenges and failures in his physics classes, he was ill-equipped to deal with these obstacles, which distracted him from productive action.

Although mindset studies in K–12 contexts are relatively common, there continues to be very little published research that specifically investigates mindset’s effects on noncognitive factors in college-level STEM environments. Dweck (2006) did find that undergraduate students in introductory chemistry courses with growth mindsets demonstrated similar adaptive behaviors to those previously discussed (e.g., changing study strategies, seeing failures as opportunities for growth), while those with fixed mindsets used ineffective study methods, avoided challenges, and were more likely to lose interest in further pursuing chemistry. This suggests that mindset might have similar impacts in undergraduate STEM contexts as in previously studied contexts. Considering the potential of mindset interventions to shift how students approach challenges and respond to failures, it is worthwhile to further examine this construct in STEM-­specific undergraduate contexts, as we propose in this essay.

Despite the strong focus on noncognitive factors as outcomes in this essay, it is worth noting that a majority of mindset studies have investigated academic success as an outcome of holding a growth mindset. Several studies, including correlational, quasi-experimental, and pre–post intervention designs, have found that a growth mindset is associated with higher academic achievement for students (e.g., Blackwell et al. , 2007 ; Paunesku et al. , 2015 ; Nichols, 2017 ). In contrast, fixed mindsets are often associated with low achievement (e.g., Dweck, 2000 , 2007 ). However, in recent years, researchers have questioned the benefit of mindset interventions to improve academic success. Sisk and colleagues conducted two meta-analyses on this topic ( Sisk et al. , 2018 ). In the first, they examined the link between mindset and academic achievement as well as possible moderators of that relationship. In the second, they looked at the relationship between mindset interventions and academic outcomes. After investigating the results of 129 studies in the first meta-analysis, Sisk and colleagues found only a weak relationship between mindset and academic achievement with very small effects. After analyzing the results of 29 studies for the second meta-analysis, they found very few significant relationships between interventions and academic outcomes. These results raise the question: “Does mindset actually improve academic success, and if so, for whom and in what contexts?” Notably, interventions that were found to be most successful improved performance for “at-risk” students (i.e., groups underserved in STEM) who were facing challenges (e.g., Aronson et al. , 2002 ; Yeager et al. , 2016 ). This nuance is acknowledged in the meta-analyses ( Sisk et al. , 2018 ). Given that many studies did not find significant effects but that some studies did, researchers have called for additional studies to shed light on how mindset affects academic achievement in specific contexts (e.g., STEM contexts) and for specific groups, such as underserved groups in STEM ( Sisk et al. , 2018 ).

While these meta-analyses bring into question the efficacy of mindset interventions to improve academic success specifically, they do not constitute an argument against our proposed framework. Sisk and colleagues (2018 ) did not consider noncognitive factors that may result from mindset interventions (e.g., goal orientation, positive coping). We focus specifically on these factors in this essay, because they contribute to students’ overall positive development (e.g., their ability to cope adaptively with failures and obstacles) and are arguably critical to success as students progress into their future careers.

Goal Orientation

A distinct construct, but one closely related to mindset, is goal orientation ( Table 2 ), which describes the goals and aims students tend to hold when approaching a new task. These goals fall into two main orientations: 1) mastery or 2) performance ( Pintrich, 2000a , b ). Individuals with mastery goal orientations are motivated by a desire to achieve competence in a task. Riley (vignette 2) is an example of someone driven by mastery goals. Their aim in doing the work is to become a proficient scientist, and they seek to truly understand what they are doing. Alternatively, for those with a performance goal orientation, appearing competent to those around them is the central motivating factor. Nick (vignette 3) holds a clear performance goal orientation, placing high value on appearing smart to others. Another way of conceptualizing this is that mastery goals are internally driven by self-appointed standards, while performance goals are externally driven by normative standards (i.e., evaluation criteria agreed on by people of a certain group; Kassin et al. , 2017 ).

A comparison of goal orientations using hypothetical student voices

Further exploration shows that each type of goal orientation can be broken into two subtypes: approach and avoidance. Individuals with an approach orientation are driven by a desire to gain (or approach) success, much like Riley’s (vignette 2) desire to gain competence. Those with an avoidance orientation, on the other hand, are driven to prevent (or avoid) failure, much like Deirdre’s (vignette 1) desire to avoid failing her course or looking dumb. By crossing the two goal orientations with these subtypes, we arrive at four categories of motivations, represented in Table 2 ( Elliot and Church, 1997 ; Elliot and McGregor, 2001 ). A student with a mastery-approach orientation is driven by a desire to succeed at some internally-held standard. By contrast, a student with a mastery-avoidance orientation seeks to avoid failing to meet an internally held standard. One with a performance-approach orientation wishes to attain success on some normative standard; someone with a performance-avoidance orientation wishes to avoid failing to meet a normative standard ( Elliot and Church, 1997 ; Moller and Elliot, 2006 ; Chen et al. , 2009 ). Because of this 2 × 2 nature of goal orientations, we could assess two individuals as both having a mastery orientation. Yet, depending on whether their orientation is mastery-approach or mastery-avoidance, we would expect different approaches to challenge and responses to failure.

The Impact of Goal Orientation during Academic Challenge and Failure

Based on theory, we expect those who hold a performance orientation, regardless of whether it is approach or avoidance oriented, to exhibit the challenge-avoiding behaviors we previously discussed as being typical of a fixed mindset (seeking easy as opposed to challenging tasks, making excuses, etc.; Elliot and Dweck, 1988 ; Elliot and Church, 1997 ; Elliot and McGregor, 2001 ; Moller and Elliot, 2006 ). Empirical work supports this hypothesis. Individuals with performance orientations tend to show reduced effort, less creative thinking, and compromised problem-solving in challenging situations ( Elliot and Dweck, 1988 ; Harackiewicz et al. , 2000 ; Doménech-Betoret and Gómez-Artiga, 2014 ; Mikail et al. , 2017 ). Furthermore, evidence from physics and chemistry graduates suggests that individuals with performance orientations tend to be less productive over the course of their career than individuals with mastery orientations ( Hazari et al. , 2010 ). On the other hand, studies observe conflicting patterns of behavior among students with mastery orientations. Those with mastery-approach orientations consistently exhibit challenge-engaging behaviors (staying motivated, being optimistic, etc.; Elliot and Church, 1997 ; Elliot and McGregor, 2001 ; Chen et al. , 2009 ). The behavior of individuals with mastery-avoidance orientations is more ambiguous; they may exhibit either challenge-avoiding or challenge-approaching behaviors. Recall that mastery-avoidance students want to avoid failing to meet some internally held standard. This motivation may cause them to be extremely motivated to achieve, seeking out challenges to enhance their knowledge (challenge-approach). However, should they begin to experience obstacles and the specter of failure be raised, their behavior may change. They may begin to offer excuses or reduce effort, cushioning their self-worth by offering other reasons, beside personal ability, for why they may not succeed (challenge-avoiding; Chen et al. , 2009 ).

While certain behaviors might often indicate the presence of a specific goal orientation, this is not always the case, and we must consider this interaction with more nuance. For example, if Deirdre (vignette 1) and Nick (vignette 3) were both in your class, you might notice that neither of them completed an optional study guide for an upcoming exam. While their actions were the same, their behaviors were motivated by different goal orientations. Deirdre likely assumed that the study guide, like the TA in the study session, would be “worthless,” because she perceives that the “system” is designed for her to fail. This would allow her to justify her failure and avoid attributing the failure to her own shortcomings, thus avoiding embarrassment or shame (performance-avoidance). Nick, however, was probably so distracted by his negative thoughts and his need to perform at the highest level that he could not focus enough to complete the study guide (performance-approach). Although outwardly these two students appear similar, they are in fact motivated by different factors, and their internal processes are different. Similarly, two students with high grades might be motivated by two very different underlying goal orientations; one may have a mastery-approach orientation, while the other may have a performance-approach orientation. Although both students may typically be high achievers, they respond quite differently when a challenge results in failure, especially because students with mastery-approach orientations are buffered against the negative impact of failure on self-worth ( Niiya et al. , 2004 ). This is something we should consider as instructors when helping students navigate challenges and failures. To help visualize the interconnectedness between these themes in the literature of mindset, goal orientations, and prefailure dispositions for STEM undergraduates, we created minimodel 1 ( Figure 1 ).

Fear of Failure

Yet another noncognitive factor at play within this paradigm is fear of failure (FF), which has a strong influence on how students might approach an academic challenge. FF has been explained by aspects that are emotional/affective (i.e., a temporary negative emotional state; Martin and Marsh, 2003 ), related to personality (i.e., a stable trait oriented toward avoiding situations in which failure is likely; Noguera et al. , 2013 ), and cognitive (i.e., perceptions of achievement contexts as threats to success; Conroy, 2001 ). Modern studies recognize that all three components contribute to one complete definition of FF ( Cacciotti, 2015 ; Conroy et al. , 2001 ). Namely, FF is a “temporary cognitive and emotional reaction towards environmental stimuli that are apprehended as threats in achievement contexts” ( Cacciotti, 2015 , p. 39). It is also important to acknowledge that the effect of any one factor on FF depends on the particular achievement context an individual is facing ( Conroy et al. , 2001 ).

The Impact of FF during Academic Challenge and Failure

In general, FF has a negative influence on challenge engagement (e.g., Bledsoe and Baskin, 2014 ). Perhaps the most negative outcome of FF is that it leads to self-handicapping , the creation or assertion of obstacles that might “explain away” poor performance on a task ( Elliot and Church, 2003 ; Elliot and Thrash, 2004 ; Bartels and Herman, 2011 ). Self-handicapping commonly involves 1) making excuses either before or after failure occurs and 2) reducing effort ( Berglas and Jones, 1978 ; Chen et al. , 2009 ; del Mar Ferradás et al. , 2016 ). As an example, Deirdre (vignette 1) engaged in both of these behaviors. She excused her poor performance by asserting she was “totally sick,” and she reduced effort by not attending study sessions. Now, after future failures, Deirdre can console herself: “Well, of course I didn’t do that well; I didn’t even go to the study sessions!” Self-handicapping is a defense mechanism that protects one’s sense of self-worth in the short term by alleviating threats, but it has high long-term costs ( Zuckerman and Tsai, 2005 ; Chen et al. , 2009 ; Cox, 2009 ). In Deirdre’s case, not going to the study sessions and excusing her poor performance might protect her from immediate failure or feeling “stupid,” but it ultimately had negative effects on her class performance. This result is typical of such behavior ( Zuckerman and Tsai, 2005 ; Chen et al. , 2009 ). Collectively, the two forms of self-handicapping may be thought of as contributing to a challenge-avoiding prefailure disposition.

As we have already discussed, individuals are likely to enter challenges with different goal orientations. These goal orientations interact with FF to predict which prefailure disposition an individual is likely to exhibit ( Figure 2 ). Because individuals with a mastery-approach orientation are driven by a desire to achieve internal standards, they are less likely to view challenges as threats ( Elliot and Church, 1997 ; Chen et al. , 2009 ). FF is therefore unlikely to influence, or be influenced by, the mastery-approach orientation. FF is, however, related to the other three goal orientations ( Moller and Elliot, 2006 ). Those with avoidance orientations (both performance and mastery) wish to prevent some real or perceived incompetence, making them more likely to interpret challenges as threatening and leading to higher FF ( Elliot and Church, 1997 ; Elliot and Thrash, 2004 ). People with avoidance orientations are thus likely to increase self-handicapping behaviors, resulting in an overall challenge-avoiding disposition ( Elliot and McGregor, 2001 ; Conroy and Elliot, 2004 ; Chen et al. , 2009 ). Fear of failure is also related to performance-approach orientations, as some individuals seek achievement as a way to avoid failure ( Elliot and Church, 1997 ; Conroy and Elliot, 2004 ). Notably, individuals with a performance-approach orientation who are also high in FF actually show fewer challenge-avoiding behaviors such as self-handicapping ( Elliot and Church, 1997 ; Elliot and McGregor, 2001 ; Chen et al. , 2009 ). This relationship is likely attributable to these individuals making an effort to achieve to avoid realizing their FF. The concern, then, is how these individuals will respond when struggles and failures become unavoidable, as is often the case in science, where pursuit of novel discoveries requires engagement with situations in which failure is likely. Altogether, the current state of the literature suggests that the interaction of goal orientations and FF in predicting behavior is highly complex.

Minimodel 2: FF and goal orientations. Predicted relationships between fear of failure (purple), goal orientation (blue), and prefailure disposition (orange) for undergraduate STEM contexts. Solid lines represent relationships with empirical support in the literature primarily drawn from contexts outside undergraduate STEM learning (Supplemental Figure 2). Dashed lines represent relationships without empirical support. Reciprocal relationships exist between FF and challenge-avoiding prefailure dispositions and also between FF and three of the four goal orientations: mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance. Goal orientations may directly influence the different prefailure dispositions. Note that performance-approach goal orientations are hypothesized to be related to lower levels of challenge-avoiding behaviors like making excuses and reduced efforts when combined with higher FF (red line), which is different from the predictions in minimodel 1 in the absence of FF.

An understanding of the causes of FF is key to analyzing why we see such variable individual behavior. Conroy and colleagues (2001 ) interviewed elite performers and athletes in depth about 1) how they determine whether or not something is a failure and 2) their perceived consequences of failing. Based on respondents’ answers, those authors assert that FF comes from the influence of five distinct factors: 1) fear of shame or embarrassment (e.g., “When I am not succeeding, I worry about what others think of me.”); 2) fear of devaluing one’s self-estimate (e.g., “When I am failing, I blame my lack of talent.”); 3) fear of having an uncertain future (e.g., “When I am failing, it upsets my ‘plan’ for the future.”); 4) fear of losing social influence (e.g., “When I am not succeeding, some people are not interested in me anymore.”); and 5) fear of upsetting important others (e.g., “When I am failing, I lose the trust of people who are important to me.”). An understanding of which fears are most related to specific goal orientations and, thus, to prechallenge dispositions, could help explain the differences seen in actual rates of self-handicapping behaviors and different prefailure dispositions in STEM. However, there is very little research addressing these questions in undergraduate STEM contexts. More nuanced investigations will be of great importance, because students with high FF might be less likely to pursue STEM degrees or, if they do choose STEM fields, could experience high levels of attrition when confronted with challenges ( Cacciotti, 2015 ). As a starting point for these investigations, we use the research described here to build minimodel 2, which explores FF, goal orientations, and prefailure dispositions ( Figure 2 ).

HOW STUDENTS RESPOND TO FAILURE

Thus far, we have described constructs that primarily influence how STEM students engage with challenges (i.e., antecedents to failure), which in turn affect subsequent responses to failure. In this section, we focus on factors that describe the way students perceive failures and respond after they occur. We explore the relationships between these factors and the constructs discussed earlier.

Attributions

Attributions are the perceived causes of successes or failures that occur in an achievement context ( Weiner, 1985 ). Researchers describe attributions using three qualities. “Locus” refers to whether we see the cause as initiating from within ourselves (e.g., “I was responsible”) or outside ourselves (e.g., “They were responsible”; Rotter, 1966 ; Weiner, 1985 ). “Stability” refers to whether a cause is relatively permanent (i.e., whether the cause is lasting and unchangeable from context to context) or impermanent ( Rotter, 1966 ). “Controllability” refers to whether or not we view a cause as within our control ( Weiner, 1979 ). Different combinations of these three characteristics result in four commonly perceived causes of success and failure: ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck ( Weiner et al. , 1971 ). An ability attribution assigns cause to one’s ability or inability to do a task. Ability was originally described by Weiner as having an internal locus that is stable and uncontrollable (1985). Effort, on the other hand, assigns cause to the effort one exerts during the task and is considered internal, unstable (i.e., the amount of effort one exerts can change from situation to situation), and controllable. Task difficulty and luck have an external locus, meaning that students view the cause of the failure as initiating from a source outside themselves. Task difficulty is considered external, stable, and uncontrollable, while luck is considered external, unstable, and uncontrollable. Other examples of each of these attributions as they might be used by students after experiencing a classroom challenge can be viewed in Table 3 .

An illustration of different failure attributions using student voices

Whether or not an attribution is viewed as stable and controllable determines whether a student will view past failures and future challenges as within their control and respond with productive strategies intended to avoid future failures. Whether an attribution is viewed as internal or external determines how the failure will affect a student’s self-esteem and self-efficacy following the outcome ( Weiner et al. , 1971 ; Clifford et al. , 1988 ; Sukariyah and Assaad, 2015 ; Simpson and Maltese, 2017 ). These characteristics have important implications for how students cope with failures and are also related to the various constructs discussed earlier.

The Impact of Attributions during Academic Challenge and Failure

STEM students’ prefailure dispositions are likely to predict postfailure attributions. These, in turn, are likely to predict how students ultimately cope with failure. Students with a fixed mindset are likely to use ability attributions or external attributions to explain failures ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ; Mueller and Dweck, 1998 ; Robins and Pals, 2002 ). These students see ability as stable and uncontrollable, which often leads them to adopt a helpless response pattern in which they view future failures as inevitable ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ; Elliot and Dweck, 1988 ; Robins and Pals, 2002 ). Thus, they disengage or become preoccupied with fears about failure. This is exemplified by Nick (vignette 3), who views his lack of ability as the obstacle to his success. This is counter to a student with a growth mindset who is likely to view failure as related to a lack of effort ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ; Hong et al. , 1999 ; Robins and Pals, 2002 ; Blackwell et al. , 2007 ; Baird and Harlow, 2012 ; Smiley et al. , 2016 ). Like Riley (vignette 2), such a student is likely to view a failure as something that was within their control (internal locus and controllable), could have been changed, and can be changed in the future (unstable). Growth-minded students are therefore much more likely to use adaptive coping strategies and to tolerate failure to a greater degree ( Clifford et al. , 1988 ; Hong et al. , 1999 ; Smiley et al. , 2016 ).

Similar to mindset, goal orientations show strong relationships with effort and ability attributions. In general, mastery goals predict effort attributions, whereas performance goals predict ability attributions ( Ames and Archer, 1988 ; Robins and Pals, 2002 ; Grant and Dweck, 2003 ; Smiley et al. , 2016 ), although certain contexts (e.g., group vs. individual work settings) and student backgrounds (e.g., hailing from an Asian culture) may change this relationship ( Grant and Dweck, 2003 ). Some work suggests that goal orientations completely mediate the effect of mindset on attributions; that is, mindset only affects attributions via its influence on goal orientations. For example, Smiley et al. (2016) proposed that mindset affects whether one holds mastery or performance orientation goals and that these goals, not mindset , influence postfailure attributions. But more research is needed to investigate whether this is always the case.

While most work has focused on how mindset and goal orientations influence ability and effort, which are internal attributions, it is worth considering predictions regarding external attributions for failure, including luck and task difficulty. As discussed earlier, FF and avoidance goal orientations lead to self-handicapping behaviors, which result in external attributions for failure ( Chen et al. , 2009 ; del Mar Ferradás et al. , 2016 ). This is reflected in vignette 1, when Deirdre blames her failure on being sick and even sets herself up to blame her future failures on the TA before these failures have even occurred. Having external attributions protects against the negative effects that failing may have on one’s self-efficacy ( Weiner et al. , 1971 ; Zuckerman, 1979 ; del Mar Ferradás et al. , 2016 ). At times, this may help scientists to maintain their motivation, and indeed, some professional scientists hold external attributions for failure (e.g., Simpson and Maltese, 2017 ). Yet such external attributions are often seen as uncontrollable, which leads to pessimistic views about future success ( Núñez et al. , 2005 ) and thus maladaptive coping (discussed below).

An interesting exception to this is found in work done with typical college-age (20- to 24-year-old) Navy recruits. This work examined a factor considered external, unstable, and controllable—the strategy one uses to achieve a particular task. Recruits who attributed failure to this cause tended to have as positive or more positive responses to failure than students who attributed the failure to effort ( Clifford et al. , 1988 ). This may be because this attribution is seen as both controllable and external , which might alleviate self-blame associated with failure while also resulting in adaptive coping. This result aligns with much research supporting the claim that attributions viewed as unstable and controllable are likely to elicit adaptive coping responses from students, because they allow students to view failures as temporary and within their control. Therefore, we have incorporated these characteristics into minimodel 3 ( Figure 3 ). Because theory and research on external versus internal loci affecting coping are mixed and indicate both negative and positive responses to failure, we have not included these in our model.

Minimodel 3: attribution. Predicted relationships between mindset (green), goal orientation (blue), attributions (brown), and coping style (red) for undergraduate STEM contexts. Solid lines represent relationships with empirical support in the literature primarily drawn from contexts outside of undergraduate STEM learning (Supplemental Figure 3). Those with a growth mindset and mastery orientations are more likely to attribute the cause of a failure to something within their ability to change. This, in turn, is related to more adaptive coping behaviors. By contrast, those with fixed mindsets and performance goal orientations are likely to judge failures as resulting from something beyond their control, which is related to maladaptive coping.

We define “coping” as individuals’ behavioral responses to stressors (such as failures) that typically serve to allow one to tolerate or minimize the stress ( Skinner et al. , 2003 ). Identifying the specific coping mechanisms STEM students use when dealing with academic challenges and subsequent failures and relating them to the constructs previously discussed can help us better understand how and why our students respond in certain ways, as well as how these responses influence their success and long-term well-being. For example, a student may cope with stress by engaging in problem solving with the intention of figuring out and alleviating the problem causing the stress, as Riley (vignette 2) did when they continued to troubleshoot their research project. Alternatively, they may choose to escape the stress by avoiding the stressful situation or disengaging mentally, as demonstrated when Deirdre (vignette 1) did not attend study sessions and dropped her class ( Skinner et al. , 2003 ). A coping mechanism can be considered adaptive when it helps an individual maintain their well-being and/or move beyond a stressor or maladaptive when it exacerbates threats to the individual’s well-being and prevents resolution or progress beyond the stressor ( Carver et al. , 1989 ; Lazarus, 1993 ; Skinner et al. , 2003 ; Shin et al. , 2014 ). Whether or not a coping mechanism is considered adaptive or maladaptive depends on the specific stressor ( Lazarus, 1993 ; Skinner et al. , 2003 ). For example, it may be maladaptive to avoid a stressor when it can be easily resolved with little effort (e.g., a student may avoid failing an exam simply by studying), but it could be adaptive to avoid a stressor when nothing can be done to resolve it. For example, when a student realizes that they cannot do well in a course due to unforeseen personal challenges, the student may choose to avoid course challenges by dropping the course. Thus, to assess whether a coping strategy is adaptive or maladaptive, we must consider context.

Coping can be considered either a stable characteristic of an individual or context dependent, with an individual’s coping strategy depending on the stressor and context at hand (reviewed in Lazarus, 1993 ). We view coping as largely context dependent; that is, the context interacts with the person to determine the kind of coping strategy they will employ. This view aligns with our ideas that coping can be unique to the academic context a student experiences, and the characteristics of that context, such as class supports and instructor actions, influence coping. However, we also draw upon theory that predicts that coping responses to similar situations will become increasingly stable over time ( Spencer et al. , 1997 ). Thus, we expect students to have predispositions toward certain coping styles—perhaps resulting from their mindsets, goal orientations, and past coping experiences—but to be influenced by the context in which they experience a stressor. In keeping with the view of coping as context specific, we define “adaptive academic coping” as coping that both helps students to maintain well-being and moves them productively toward desired academic outcomes and “maladaptive academic coping” as coping that poses a threat to students’ well-being and/or prevents students from achieving desired academic outcomes.

Postfailure Coping and Relationships with Other Constructs

In their extensive review and critique of coping structure, Skinner and colleagues (2003 ) describe multiple distinct categories of coping that are well-supported in the broader coping literature ( Table 4 ). Evidence in the literature suggests that several of these categories are likely to be consistently adaptive or maladaptive in K–12 academic contexts ( Struthers et al. , 2000 ; Brdar et al. , 2006 ; Alimoglu et al. , 2010 ; Sevinç and Gizir, 2014 ; Shin et al. , 2014 ). We draw on this work to predict whether these strategies might serve as adaptive or maladaptive in undergraduate STEM contexts and present these predictions along with example quotes in Table 4 . Although we anticipate exceptions to our predictions, these generalizations will likely hold in undergraduate STEM contexts based on previous work.

Definitions (adapted from Skinner et al. , 2003 ), examples of coping behaviors in academic contexts using hypothetical student voices, and predicted outcomes of specific coping constructs

As previously discussed, the specific strategies that students use to cope with a problem or stressor matter, because they can either advance students through problems and support their well-being (adaptive) or they can prevent problems from being solved and exacerbate threats to well-being (maladaptive). Furthermore, coping strategies become increasingly stable over time ( Lazarus, 1993 ; Spencer et al. , 1997 ), leading to trends in how students deal with problems in specific contexts. So, STEM students who avoid studying for chemistry once are more likely to avoid studying again later in the semester and in future classes. Similarly, students who blame others for a first research failure may also be more likely to do so as their research careers progress. Practicing maladaptive coping strategies can have lasting consequences. However, as STEM instructors, we have the opportunity to leverage the constructs described earlier to help students adopt and practice adaptive coping strategies and to create a climate in which adaptive coping is a more likely response to failure (see Implications for Research and Instruction ). This can have lasting positive consequences for our students.

We use the research described earlier to build minimodel 4 ( Figure 4 ), which explores our predicted relationships between prefailure dispositions, adaptive and maladaptive coping, and long-term outcomes for STEM undergraduates.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: PREDICTING HOW STEM UNDERGRADUATES APPROACH CHALLENGES AND RESPOND TO FAILURE

Just as prefailure disposition can be predicted based on mindset, goal orientation, and FF, so can students’ postfailure attributions and coping styles. We know from research outside STEM and in K–12 settings that students who hold a growth mindset, are low in FF, and/or approach problems with mastery goal orientations (challenge-approach) tend to attribute failures to controllable, unstable causes (effort attributions) and respond with adaptive problem-focused coping strategies that advance their ability to learn from the problem and make progress ( Clifford et al. , 1988 ; Heine et al. , 2001 ; Brdar et al. , 2006 ; Mortenson, 2006 ; Shin et al. , 2014 ; Snyder et al. , 2014 ; Smiley et al. , 2016 ; Lou and Noels, 2017 ). Likewise, students who hold a fixed mindset, are high in FF, and/or have a performance-based or avoidance-based goal orientation (challenge-avoidance) tend to attribute failures to uncontrollable causes (ability attributions) and cope by venting, avoiding the problem, and distancing themselves mentally from the perceived failure ( Heine et al. , 2001 ; Robins and Pals, 2002 ; Brdar et al. , 2006 ; Mortenson, 2006 ; Shin et al. , 2014 ; Snyder et al. , 2014 ; Smiley et al. , 2016 ; Lou and Noels, 2017 ). Holding with our definition of “maladaptive,” these coping strategies do not further these students’ learning and result in further threats to their well-being.

Based on these findings, we predict that STEM undergraduates who use adaptive coping strategies will tend to demonstrate a greater ability to navigate scientific obstacles, seek out subsequent challenges, and show perseverance and a positive disposition in the face of setbacks. We can also predict that STEM undergraduates who use maladaptive coping to deal with challenges are more likely to lose interest in pursuing STEM education, to suffer burnout, and to leave STEM. In an effort to bring theory to bear on our understanding of how STEM undergraduates develop the ability to navigate failure, and as a starting point for future investigations, we present an integrated complete model predicting how the previously discussed concepts influence STEM undergraduates’ engagement with academic challenges and responses to failures ( Figure 5 ). This model integrates the four previously presented minimodels. In this final model, the lines present predicted relationships, because, as of yet, little empirical support exists for these relationships in STEM undergraduate contexts. However, each relationship is based on empirical evidence present in work from K–12 contexts or higher-education outside STEM (see Supplemental Figures 1–4). It is our hope that this comprehensive model will generate future directions for DBER research and rich discussion aimed at uncovering how undergraduate STEM students develop into perseverant, challenge-engaging individuals. However, we caution our readers that this model is an imperfect representation of reality as described in the following sections.

Considering Nuance

In the previous sections, Figure 5 , and much of the literature addressing these concepts, each concept is distilled to its most defining characteristics, and typical examples are presented in order to construct a clear picture of interactions between constructs. Yet, in reality, these constructs and their interactions are much more complex. Three primary considerations increase this complexity.

First, though these constructs are often presented as dichotomous or discrete, with individuals falling into mutually exclusive units, they in fact represent continuous spectra and are often not mutually exclusive. For example, students may believe that intelligence is malleable to a point but that there is a certain amount of our intelligence that is fixed. These students would fall in the middle of the spectrum from growth to fixed mindset, termed “mixed mindset.” In fact, Dweck’s research has found that around 20% of the general population have mixed mindsets ( Dweck, 2006 ). There are also specific examples of this in K–12 academics and athletics ( Atwood, 2010 ; Claro et al. , 2016 ). Students can also hold multiple goal orientations at once. In fact, many studies describe how students hold a mastery-approach goal orientation at the same time as a performance-approach goal orientation (e.g., Pintrich, 2000a ). Likewise, after a single failure, a student may hold both uncontrollable and controllable attributions ( Weiner, 1985 ). This can make it challenging to tease apart the effects of these dispositions. It can make it even more challenging to consider how to apply knowledge of these constructs in a STEM classroom, as it can be hard to easily discern students’ dispositions.

Second, whether or not a student adopts a growth mindset, mastery orientation, or controllable attribution is highly context dependent. For example, we know that one’s mindset can vary depending on the discipline or achievement context ( Atwood, 2010 ; Claro et al. , 2016 ), and we hypothesize that mindset may also vary among subdisciplines. This has led to studies that highlight how students can hold different mindsets depending on the academic setting ( Quihuis et al. , 2002 ) and the development of instruments to measure mindset in specific academic domains (e.g., I’lhan and Çetin, 2013). Coping responses to failure also vary across disciplines. For example, professionals in math fields were less likely to see embracing failure as a part of their success than those in other STEM disciplines ( Simpson and Maltese, 2017 ). In addition, aspects of the learning context apart from discipline affect these constructs. Grant and Dweck (2003) found that group work was more likely to push students toward a performance goal orientation regardless of their mindset and regardless of whether they attributed their success or failure to effort. They hypothesized that, in a group context, students would be more responsible for the outcomes of the group and thus feel more pressure to perform. This example illustrates that how we structure the learning environment is likely to influence students’ dispositions and also that it can alter expected relationships between constructs. Thus, while the model presented above draws on the most typical relationships between these constructs, these relationships do not always hold.

Third, a student’s background and culture influence these constructs and the degree to which students might respond to interventions targeting each construct. This is important because these differences exist along lines that distinguish historically underserved students from well-served students in STEM. For example, mindset interventions have had a more beneficial effect for disadvantaged students ( Blackwell et al. , 2007 ; Yeager et al. , 2016 ; Fink et al. , 2018 ), leading to increased academic achievement and retention in college courses ( Aronson et al. , 2002 ). Emphasizing a growth mindset has been shown to buffer the negative effects of poverty ( Claro et al. , 2016 ) and stereotype threat among racial minorities ( Good et al. , 2003 ). Mindset interventions have also been shown to be effective in reducing the achievement gap between men and women ( Good et al. , 2003 ). In addition, holding a mastery-­approach goal orientation has a more positive effect on members of underrepresented groups. Due to phenomena including stereotype threat and low belonging, minority groups in majority settings (women, racial/ethnic minorities, low socioeconomic status, etc.) are likely to perform better when they emphasize their individual ability to master the material instead of their performance in front of others ( Darnon et al. , 2018 ). Differences across international lines also play a role, as Korean students who have performance goal orientations often attribute failure to lack of effort ( Grant and Dweck, 2003 ), a relationship that would be uncommon in American culture, which typically associates mastery goal orientations with effort attributions. Responses postfailure are no exception, with gender and culture playing a role in choice of coping strategy. For example, Simpson and Maltese (2017) describe how women are more likely than men to personalize failure, while men use it as a motivator. Additionally, in a study comparing coping responses to academic failure in Chinese versus American university students, American students were more likely to engage in support seeking than their Chinese counterparts ( Mortenson et al. , 2009 ).

We advocate for considering and exploring this nuance in both future research and instruction within undergraduate STEM contexts. Importantly, a more nuanced approach will allow us to consider how each student’s unique characteristics and life experiences influence the interplay of these factors and will allow us to examine instances in which the models above do not apply, which may prove more informative than typical cases.

Implications for Research and Instruction

Across DBER disciplines, there are relatively few studies that examine STEM undergraduates’ dispositions before failure and their reactions postfailure. There are even fewer that consider interactions between three or more of the concepts discussed here. This is an important area of work in which DBER scholars can make a contribution. The model presented in this paper, which draws on theory and research from a variety of fields, is one framework that could guide such investigations. However, there are many other theories and frameworks that could also be used to address these questions (see Limitations, Assumptions and Related Constructs for Consideration ), and we hope to encourage broad exploration of this topic. Given the complexity of the proposed model, it is unlikely that any one study would appropriately and fully test all hypothesized relationships among variables. Rather, we suggest that mixed-methods studies that investigate the potential correlational and causal links among several, but not all, of the variables described in our model would be the most effective means of providing support for this framework. Further convergent evidence could also then be built through the use of meta-analysis and systematic reviews. An accumulation of evidence over time can support, or refute, aspects of the model, much like studies of other complex models described in social psychology (e.g., Lent et al. , 2002 ). More specifically, we feel that this model could help frame studies that aim to 1) examine how prefailure dispositions and responses to failures are unique in the undergraduate STEM learning context—a context in which failures are common and yet students often enter with an expectation of fast success; 2) distinguish between how student-level factors (e.g., preclass dispositions and attitudes as addressed in this essay) and course-level factors (e.g., instructor actions and class design not addressed in this essay) affect how students approach challenges and respond to failure; and 3) design and examine interventions aimed at helping students engage with challenges and respond to failures. This third priority, which is strongly supported by the other two, should be a central focus of future DBER work, considering the widespread goals of student retention in STEM fields and development of the next generation of challenge-engaging, perseverant scientists.

Work on interventions is at the heart of both future research and instruction because interventions are instructor implemented and can be tested and adjusted via DBER research. Each construct in our model is a leverage point at which to employ and test interventions. Fortunately, work done mainly in K–12 contexts can inform intervention design. Prior interventions on mindset have exposed students to this concept through in-­person or online explanations of how intelligence can change with effort (e.g., Hong et al. , 1999 ; Blackwell et al. , 2007 ; Yeager et al. , 2016 ). In general, mindset interventions resulted in more productive problem solving, increased resilience, and use of productive coping strategies ( Hong et al. , 1999 ; Blackwell et al. , 2007 ), and they have been successfully employed in STEM university settings (e.g., Fink et al. , 2018 ). Although questions remain regarding whether these interventions are effective in increasing academic achievement ( Sisk et al. , 2018 ), we hypothesize that they promote other important outcomes for STEM students, such as willingness to confront research challenges and improved ability to cope with failure. Interventions targeting goal orientations have long focused on promoting a collaborative or individualistic, instead of competitive, learning culture in order to help students develop a mastery goal orientation ( Ames, 1984 ; Johnson et al. , 1985 ; Ames and Archer, 1988 ; Roseth et al. , 2008 ). FF interventions have mainly targeted affective components of this construct, such as anxiety before exams, aiming to reduce the negative emotions associated with fear of failure before a challenge (e.g., Neff et al. , 2005 ; Hjeltnes et al. , 2015 ). Finally, attribution retraining, in which instructors use explicit language attributing failures or successes to controllable causes have proved successful in university and STEM K–12 contexts in shifting students attributions (e.g., Chodkiewicz and Boyle, 2014 ). These are only limited examples of what could be done, and much more work exists that addresses interventions targeting these constructs and can be leveraged by undergraduate STEM instructors.

Despite the obvious value of prior intervention development and research, it is important that instructors and researchers implement and test these interventions in STEM undergraduate environments. Individuals undergo many biological, cognitive, social, and personality changes during the transition to college and early adult periods ( Steinberg, 2014 ), which may affect their responses to interventions. In addition, many of the factors are context dependent (see Considering Nuance ). Thus, investigating the efficacy of interventions across STEM will be important. To guide this work, we can draw on research with mindset interventions that has yielded recommendations for best practices likely to be useful for creating interventions on all noncognitive factors included within our model ( Walton, 2014 ). To be most effective, interventions should aim to:

• persuade, not compel, students to adopt a change;
• recognize the importance of students’ subjective experiences;
• target recursive processes ( Fink et al. , 2018 ); and
• not be intended as a “magic bullet” or “one size fits all” fix ( Yeager and Walton, 2011 ).

Ideally, teams of psychologists, education researchers, and instructors can draw upon these best practices to design and test impactful interventions within our proposed framework.

Finally, beyond employing and testing interventions, it is important that undergraduate STEM instructors also consider the questions and constructs presented here when designing curricula and especially when students are likely to encounter significant challenge or failure. Curricular design, pedagogical style, and instructor dispositions are likely to have large effects on how students approach academic challenges, make errors, and respond when they fail. For example, instructors may need to allow adequate time to address challenges, work through failures, or iterate to help students develop their ability to navigate failure and achieve other valued outcomes ( Corwin et al. , 2018 ; Gin et al. , 2018 ). Likewise, a classroom’s overall “error climate” influences how students react to errors that may occur during challenges ( Steuer et al. , 2013 ). Instructors may also want to consider how evidence-based instructional approaches, such as incorporating random call or group work into classes might influence engagement with challenges and response to failure or moderate these through effects on students’ affect or behavior ( Grant and Dweck, 2003 ; England et al. , 2017 ; Cooper et al. , 2018 ). STEM instructors and course designers can draw upon new research in DBER and theory from psychology and K–12 education to inform classroom practice, with the aim of creating environments that assist students in developing persevering, challenge-engaging dispositions. Together with research in STEM education and DBER fields, these actions will bring us all one step closer to facilitating the growth of a next generation of scientists who are capable (and excited) to take on this century’s scientific challenges in innovative ways.

Limitations, Assumptions, and Related Constructs for Consideration

While the previous discussions are starting points from which to consider how broadly explored psychosocial constructs influence how students approach challenges and respond to failures, this is far from a comprehensive exploration of the literature. We must recognize the constraints and assumptions of the model we present. This model 1) includes only student-level noncognitive dispositions, and excludes contextual factors, pedagogical factors, and demographic factors; 2) makes the assumption that success is a desired outcome by students, although this may not always be the case; 3) is limited to an examination of instances in which failure is a possible outcome; 4) draws connections based mainly on quasi-experimental and correlational work (very few of the studies we draw upon are experimental and include randomization; cause cannot be inferred with complete certainty). In addition, other constructs merit mention and recognition due to their potential to influence these processes. Yet these constructs are not included, because they fall outside of scope of our model.

An extensive body of work headed by Manu Kapur (e.g., Kapur, 2010 , 2014a , b , 2016 ) describes how instructors can design classroom activities for “productive failure” by creating challenging tasks that students are unlikely to successfully complete ( Kapur and Bielaczyc, 2012 ). The idea behind productive failure is that students who work on such challenges will, by necessity, consider more of the critical features of a concept in their attempt to complete a task that is just beyond their skill level than they would completing a task at which they would be likely to succeed. This increases their engagement and attention to critical features in subsequent instruction, increasing learning ( Kapur and Bielaczyc, 2012 ). This work is concerned primarily with how the instructors’ deliberate curricular design choices impact student learning of concepts. Alternatively, our model focuses primarily on students’ psychosocial dispositions as they relate to any failure context, planned or not. Thus, this work is beyond the scope of this paper. However, scholars considering students’ psychosocial dispositions during an approach to challenge or response to failure may find this work useful because Kapur and colleagues also consider how students’ psychosocial dispositions may influence their engagement with planned failure activities.

Work on learning from errors ( Tulis et al. , 2016 ) likewise may be useful in consideration of how students approach challenges. Errors are described as an unintended discrepancy between a current and desired state or deviation from a given standard by Maria Tulis, the pre-eminent scholar in this field ( Tulis et al. , 2016 , 2018 ). Notably, they are distinguished from failures, because they do not necessarily preclude accomplishment of a goal; they are at a finer grain size. While our model focuses on the larger grain size of failures that do preclude goal achievement, constructs drawn from the literature on learning from errors may be of use. For example, students’ beliefs about errors as learning opportunities are likely to influence their reaction to errors made while tackling challenges and may ultimately influence success or failure ( Tulis et al. , 2018 ). Also, as for many of the constructs discussed earlier, students holding a mastery goal orientation are more likely to believe that they can learn from errors than students who hold a performance goal orientation ( Tulis et al. , 2018 ). In addition the error climate in a classroom can influence how students address errors and their motivation during a challenge ( Steuer et al. , 2013 ), indicating that this may be a target for classroom interventions. Thus, while the focus of this work is at a finer grain than what we addressed earlier, it is an important body of literature meriting consideration.

Our model assumes that academic achievement is a desired goal, but this assumption is not always true. Fear of success is a construct that can be employed to understand how students approach challenge and respond to failure (or success) when success is not the desired goal. Originally characterized to explain underperformance of otherwise capable men ( Freud, 1957 ; Ogilvie, 1968 ) and women in the workplace ( Horner, 1968 ), fear of success describes a fear that success in an achievement setting will result in a some type of individual loss, negative impact on social standing, and/or undue burden to maintain high standards ( Ogilvie, 1968 ; Metzler and Conroy, 2004 ). Fear of success is a construct related to FF, in that both describe a type of anxiety experienced in achievement contexts, but because fear of success is not attributed to the anticipation or experience of a failure event, it is outside the scope of this discussion.

A large and heavily influential area that we chose not to address in this work is emotions that moderate approach to challenges and responses to failure. The literature on students’ emotional response to failure is extensive and complex. Indeed, there is work on how excitement, enjoyment, pride, shame, anxiety, boredom, anger, and frustration, among others, relate to challenges and failures and how these mediate or moderate coping responses or influence engagement in STEM (e.g., Tulis and Ainley, 2011 ; Smiley et al. , 2016 ; England et al. , 2017 ). However, we chose to focus this article primarily on cognitive and motivational aspects that influence this process. The one exception to this is FF, which has both cognitive and affective components and which we decided to include in our model. A large and longer review would be useful to elaborate on what we know about the role of affect and emotion in this process.

Supplementary Material

Acknowledgments.

We acknowledge members of Failure as a Part of Learning: A Mindset Education Network (FLAMEnet) and the Heemstra lab for their support in reading and commenting on early drafts of this essay. We acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation (DBI 1827160).

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Outside the Beltway

College students lack critical thinking skills, but who’s to blame, a new study suggests college students aren't learning the critical thinking skills they're supposed to learn, but that isn't necessary the fault of the university they're attending..

Doug Mataconis · Tuesday, January 18, 2011 · 74 comments

A new study suggests that American universities are failing in what is supposed to be one of the their core missions:

NEW YORK — An unprecedented study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn’t learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education. Many of the students graduated without knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event, according to New York University sociologist Richard Arum, lead author of the study. The students, for example, couldn’t determine the cause of an increase in neighborhood crime or how best to respond without being swayed by emotional testimony and political spin. Arum, whose book “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses” (University of Chicago Press) comes out this month, followed 2,322 traditional-age students from the fall of 2005 to the spring of 2009 and examined testing data and student surveys at a broad range of 24 U.S. colleges and universities, from the highly selective to the less selective. Forty-five percent of students made no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college, according to the study. After four years, 36 percent showed no significant gains in these so-called “higher order” thinking skills. Combining the hours spent studying and in class, students devoted less than a fifth of their time each week to academic pursuits. By contrast, students spent 51 percent of their time — or 85 hours a week — socializing or in extracurricular activities. The study also showed that students who studied alone made more significant gains in learning than those who studied in groups.

Perhaps most the most interesting thing about the study is the manner in which the results seem skewed by field of study:

Students who majored in the traditional liberal arts — including the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences and mathematics — showed significantly greater gains over time than other students in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills. Students majoring in business, education, social work and communications showed the least gains in learning. However, the authors note that their findings don’t preclude the possibility that such students “are developing subject-specific or occupationally relevant skills.” Greater gains in liberal arts subjects are at least partly the result of faculty requiring higher levels of reading and writing, as well as students spending more time studying, the study’s authors found. Students who took courses heavy on both reading (more than 40 pages a week) and writing (more than 20 pages in a semester) showed higher rates of learning. That’s welcome news to liberal arts advocates.

I would think it would be, but on some level such an analysis would seem to ignore the reasons that students go to college today. Unlike in the past, when a college education was viewed as an opportunity for learning, there seems to be more of a focus today on learning skills that will lead to a high rate of monetary return after college. Majoring in history or political science may help you to learn to think critically, and that is a skill that is valuable in fields like medicine and law, but its unlikely to lead to the same level of monetary reward as someone who pursues, say, a Masters In Business Administration. On some level, colleges have become vocational school almost as much as they are “institutions of higher learning.” I’m not sure whether that is a good or a bad thing, but it’s the world that we live in and it’s unlikely to change.

Ann Althouse, who teaches law at the University of Wisconsin, wonders why the study concentrates so much on the students and not the professors:

I’d like a study analyzing whether the professors know how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument, and objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event.

It strikes me as a fair point considering that it is sort of difficult to teach someone a skill you don’t possess yourself.

Another blogger points out that this isn’t just an indictment of college education in the U.S.:

By the time our kids get to college it is too late to change habits por learn new skills that should have been taught to them in grade k-12 in my opinion. This study does not merely condemn colleges, it throws a harsh light on our primary education system on this country. In general, the US doesn’t pay our teachers well (compared to other professions and other nations), nor do we reward them for excellence, nor do we often provide them with a system that accurately assesses their efforts (i.e., No child left behind ring any bells?).

This is a fair point. Students do not walk into college blank slates, but as products of the education they received for twelve years before that. If colleges are failing at their primary mission, it isn’t necessarily their fault.

About Doug Mataconis

The field of study breakdown is almost precisely what I was going to predict before getting to that point of your post!

The traditional academic fields — math, science, history, philosophy, social sciences, etc. — teach critical thinking skills. That’s pretty much the whole point of those fields: Applied reasoning.

The vocational-technical field, meanwhile, are engaged in training and/or credentialing for the job market. That’s fine insofar as it goes — getting a job after graduation is a laudable goal! — but it’s silly to then complain that you didn’t get a real college education.

And, yes, outside perhaps a few of the least academically oriented fields, professors have these skills. They’re all but essential for getting through a PhD program and writing a dissertation.

One point I didn’t touch on is that some majors — communications comes to mind — seem to require no critical thinking at all

At most universities, education, criminal justice, and communications compete for the title of dumbest major. While there are exceptions (I’ve sure Jay Rosen’s program at NYU is rigorous) they tend to attract the students with the lowest SAT scores. They’re also where scholarship football and basketball players tend to wind up.

Actually, Rosen’s is a department of journalism. They actually tend to be fairly rigorous and theoretical.

In general, the US doesn’t pay our teachers well

Tangential, but gauging teacher pay as a percentage of Per Capita GDP is a pretty flawed way of going about it. Among other things, it’s how North Korea ends up at the top of that list.

This is part and parcel of the visualcy topic I post on from time to time. There’s scholarship pointing to a connection among deriving most of one’s information via reading (as contrasted with listening or watching), abstract reasoning, and critical thinking. I also have observed that younger people seem to have extremely short attention spans.

Orality and visualcy cultivate different skills than literacy does as a primary means of obtaining information. It’s pretty hard to construct a soundly reasoned argument in 140 characters, a 30 second TV spot, or a Flash graphic.

Not surprised. I’ve been saying (and repeating to the point of tedium) that we should be teaching philosophy, particularly logic and epistemology, during the primary school years. Usually this elicits hoots of derision from the number-crunchers, engineers and other applied science guys who tend to be over-represented online. But those guys aren’t the real problem.

We can’t teach critical thinking for one reason above all others: religion. Critical thinking threatens parents who rather stupidly imagine that the point of education is to turn their children into exact duplicates of themselves. Once you start teaching critical thinking it’s entirely possible that a kid will have (gasp!) ideas that diverge from his parents’ way of thinking.

That is unacceptable to most parents. Particularly so when it comes to religion where a superstition-hobbled nation imagines that divergent thinking will actually condemn their child to eternal damnation in the lake of fire.

The engineers (using that as a catch-all term) think philosophy is airy-fairy and that critical thinking is only useful in problem-solving. The bulk of religious parents think philosophy and critical thinking are a threat. So we end up with a nation that has no clear idea why they believe the things they ardently believe, and is incapable of examining any alternative. Epistemic closure, to use that perhaps overused phrase.

Where are you getting data that puts North Korea at the top of the list when teacher salaries are measured against per capita GDP?

Ben, whoops, I pulled a Palin.

(I still think that Per Capita GDP is a lousy measure, but at least it’s not as absurd as I thought a couple minutes ago)

I’m afraid this is comparing apples and oranges. The U. S. spends more on education in total dollars terms and per capita than any other country in the world. If our spending on education is less than other countries as a proportion of GDP, it’s mostly because our GDP per capita is so much higher than most other countries.

Here’s a comparison of teachers’ wages in a number of countries .

Most teachers in the U. S. have bachelors only and have ten month schedules. The median wage for that, around $45,000, is pretty darned good. Comparing them with physicians or lawyers is specious.

Not only does the lack of proper education in the primary and secondary schools inhibit college students from reaching their full potential due to loss opportunity and calcifiying bad habits and study skills, its effect is two fold in that universities now have to teach remedial courses to otherwise intelligent students. I can attest to this both as one who has experienced this (my high school had no chemistry program, which greatly affected my freshman year of college), and one who has taught remedial reading comprehension, writing, and computer proficiency classes to otherwise very intelligent students.

If a student has no true ability to read a long piece, comprehend the central argument of that piece, and then write a basic response, it is very hard for a university to then build on those nonexistent skills. So what happens? Students end up paying $4,000 – $13,000 a semester learning what should have been taught in 9th grade english.

My university was primarily and engineering and agricultural university, so perhaps the experience is different at a more liberal arts-centric school, but the lack of basic language skills in new students was astounding.

@Doug. Depends on the communication program. In general I agree with you, but I have seen some sub-communication degrees that emphasize critical thinking to a great degree. Those are usually few and far between, and are often the creation of like-minded students and professors rather than the school itself.

@Michael. Try teaching engineering majors the importance of poetry, literature, and philosophy. They can build a bridge, but they can’t tell you why the bridge should be built.

One of the primary differences is U.S. teachers have anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 in student loans to pay back. Teachers in Germany or South Korea don’t have potentially life-long overhead to deal with, nor do they pay the high insurance rates necessary for medical coverage for their families.

I will concede teacher pay is not the primary reason for falling student achievement; parents are.

We have computers to do our critical thinking these days…or Chinese and Indian PhDs willing to work for $10/hour.

i don’t think it’s parents alone, it’s a downward spiral of testing-obsession, politically-inspired curricula, educator fossilization, changing employment that allows women and African-Americans alternatives to jobs in the system, ever-increasing pressure on students, largely irrelevant school numbers that become major factors in real estate values.

It’s an absolute clusterf*ck. And its happening at a time when we are barely out of the 19th century in terms of the system and need to make a century-wide leap into a wholly different environment.

There’s no, “Ahah! There’s the problem!” It’s all a problem.

The fact that most people coming out of college today are liberal attests to the lack of critical thinking and complex reasoning skills being taught in our institutions.

How are young men and women supposed to learn in an atmosphere that condemns “deniers” for questioning “settled science”? What type of reasoning training comes from a system that values political correctness and cultural diversity above truth and logic?

****How are young men and women supposed to learn in an atmosphere that condemns “deniers” for questioning “settled science”? What type of reasoning training comes from a system that values political correctness and cultural diversity above truth and logic?****Exactly.

The vocational-technical field, meanwhile, are engaged in training and/or credentialing for the job market. That’s fine insofar as it goes — getting a job after graduation is a laudable goal! — but it’s silly to then complain that you didn’t get a real college education.

It don’t take a boat load of critical thinking to tear that apart.

But for the student, list those “vocational-technical” fields in which critical thinking are integral to domain mastery, and of course critical to career success.

(Why do I even come here. A handful of sub-themes are how to avoid critical thinking at all cost.)

Hmm, let’s see:

– The vast majority of college professors are liberal Democrats.

– The vast majority of public-sector K-12 teachers are liberal Democrats.

– Low and behold, college students today are not developing crucial skill-sets.

Seems to be a fairly simple task to connect the dots and thereby to arrive at the obvious conclusions, although it’s not surprising on the Internet — itself a thick cocoon, largely made up of liberal academics — the obvious conclusion somehow is missed.

Concur with Dave that attention span may be a factor – I know that mine own is not way it was pre-web.

I don’t agree with Dave on attention span. People are just handling data in a parellel processing rather than linear processing way. Instead of ABC and then 123 it’s A1B2C3. In don’t think that’s inherently better or worse, just different. Much less sitting in a quiet room reading a book and taking notes, much more reading, music, taking note, conversing, asking a friend, etc…

The days of quietly reading a text-only book are going away, and the same data will be conveyed as accurately and I think more effectively using more up-to-date communication modes.

The current concept of “schools” is an obsolete idea dating from the medieval period. A centralized place of learning based on a standardized curriculum which, as Michael pointed out, cannot address the shift in thinking required by a highly technological society.

However we must also face the fact that parents increasingly fail to prepare or participate in theirchildren’s education. I’ve been there, and I can tell you that young children come into the classroom with increasingly poor social skills and self-discipline. As a result teachers must spent an inordinate amount of time adressing behavior, cooperation, and development of theory-of-mind (or how ones’s actions affect others).

A staggering number of parents have virtually no involvement with the education process, and I can tell you that in the six years I taught, not once did a parent tell me they hoped their child would opt for a career which would result in anything but making lots of money and becoming famous. Never did a parent say they would like to see their child become a scientist, engineer, historian or philosopher.

By the way jwest,

If a person has no understanding of radiative physics, how trends are established, or the difference in weather and climate then they have no business questioning anything in climatology.

“Try teaching engineering majors the importance of poetry, literature, and philosophy. They can build a bridge, but they can’t tell you why the bridge should be built.”

I dunno. As I said here before, my students who were in engineering, not all, of course, but most, were pretty keen on the humanities. That was about 40 years ago, though. Times may have changed.

Doug – why do you hate Palin so much?

@Tsar Nicholas

“Seems to be a fairly simple task to connect the dots and thereby to arrive at the obvious conclusions”

Only if you’re an inductive moron.

My God, you must be older than me. I didn’t know that was possible.

@ Ben: I think that’s true, although unfortunately my “involvement” in my kid’s school led me to sanction my son dropping out in 7th grade and becoming “unschooled.” (My daughter still attends.) I have a hard time lying to my children and telling my son there’s a really good reason to do four hours of homework to hammer home some point he mastered in ten seconds.

I imagine you’re right about parental desires, it’s what I’ve intuited myself. It’s all about credentialing, preferably by an ivy league school. It’s a competitive sport among parents and does a terrible disservice to kids and to society as a whole.

Meanwhile schools are frantically banning iPhones and the internet because God forbid kids participate in the greatest engine for the dissemination of knowledge since Gutenberg carved his first block.

Do you have a problem with a critical thinking course that among other things would encourage kids to test the precepts of their family’s religious beliefs?

“My God, you must be older than me. I didn’t know that was possible.”

70 in 4 weeks. Now, get off my lawn, sonny…

***70 in 4 weeks. Now, get off my lawn, sonny…***Dang you are old, happy birthday in 4 weeks:)

If I new you was a Crotchety old man I would have cut your more slack. I shall begin now.

I certainly didn’t mean every engineer was disinterested in the humanities, but certainly many of my friends and school mates at my university. There seemed to be a general consensus that anything taught on the liberal arts side of campus was fluff.

That said, a creative writing group I was involved with on campus had more than a few engineers.

This strikes me as being at the heart of a significant number of our class problems. Less well off people often know, in general terms, what they want from life (a comfortable living, albeit often expressed in different and sometimes colorful language) but often don’t have a whole lot in the way of signposts.

I lived in a community with a whole lot of defense contractors and chemical plants. My school was largely populated by the children of engineers. In sociology class, my teacher asked everyone who wanted to be a doctor to raise their hands (maybe one or two), a veterinarian (three or four), and and engineer (half the class). Most of those probably did not become engineers, but it’s often because they found something better (more suited to their talents, more interesting, etc). But engineering was the benchmark and the default path. Even those of us, like myself, that went on to do something else still went on to something technical. All the signposts to a middle class life were there simply by our parents’ example. That kind of thing is really hard for a school to imprint.

I certainly didn’t mean every engineer was disinterested in the humanities, but certainly many of my friends and school mates at my university. There seemed to be a general consensus that anything taught on the liberal arts side of campus was fluff.

Some of that probably related to the liberal arts classes they took being intro-level. I was in the honors college at my U and found the liberal arts classes to be far more interesting than the technical ones (ahh, but for my addiction to food and shelter, I would have majored in philosophy). But if I had just gone by my non-honors intro classes, I would probably have thought all of it was like that.

At my university, an engineer generally couldn’t graduate in four years with any significant liberal arts studies. Those that were interested accepted that they were in a five year program.

It was a bit different at my university. Liberal Arts classes were built in to their curriculum (I believe that had to take 2 semesters of foreign language, and 4 semesters of one liberal arts subject, or 4 seperate subject classes–but my memory iss a bit rusty).

I think what Trumwill says is true, but its that lack of interest that is at the heart of it. If my only experience in LA was an intro writing class–in all its horribleness–I would still seek out higher level LA classes. As an LA major, I still sought out physics, mathematics, and biology classes as I had a natural curiosity.

At this point I realize the scotch has kicked in and I’ve lost the point I was trying to make…so I’m going to let it stand as it is.

“We have computers to do our critical thinking these days…or Chinese and Indian PhDs willing to work for $10/hour.”

Beware of those PhDs…most of these universities in China and India are handing out PhD’s that amount to a 6 week certificate course.

“Beware of those PhDs…most of these universities in China and India are handing out PhD’s that amount to a 6 week certificate course.”

Thank goodness Americans don’t have very many critical problems to figure out.

Sam, my wise elder, what are you finding in Milton’s poetry?

“Sam, my wise elder, what are you finding in Milton’s poetry?”

Haven’t started that course yet, Janice. I’ve downloaded all the lectures in mp3 format, and hope to get to it the beginning of next month. Did you visit the Yale site? ( http://oyc.yale.edu/ )

Sam, I certainly didn’t mean every engineer was disinterested in the humanities, but certainly many of my friends and school mates at my university. There seemed to be a general consensus that anything taught on the liberal arts side of campus was fluff.

Heh, They wouldn’t have thought that after taking my philosophy course, “Having Your Head Handed to You 101.”

Seriously, though, to recap, It was MIT and I taught in what was then called the “Sophmore Core”. The kids in the first two years at MIT just got the shit kicked out them in their technical courses. I think they looked at the humanities as an escape from that — I got the feeling that a lot of them were afraid they were being turned into inhuman, technical robots; afraid of being turned into technically educated barbarians. I don’t think they considered the humanities classes fluff. They encountered a different kind of rigor than they were getting in the technical courses, and they enjoyed the challenge. In the humanities, you’re on your own in way you’re not in, say, physics. It was startling for them to have someone say, “Well, what do you think about this?”

Was reading Tom Holt’s very funny Blonde Bombshell yesterday. Chapter 30 is a short case study in attention span and education. Funny and on target*.

The best thing is that chapter is only 2 pages long. It’s possible a teen could read it all.

* – visualize archery competition

Speaking as an engineer, I’d agree that the majority of engineering students haven’t much use for liberal arts classes – they don’t further their degree. That changes as you get into the work world, as so much of engineering involves team work and interpersonal skills. Moreover, there’s a difference between disliking liberal arts classes and disliking the liberal arts … even in college, most engineering students partake in the normal arts activities (reading, listening or playing music, watching good films).

The problem with liberal arts classes in terms of engineering students is that the marking seems to be fairly arbitrary (compared to the more mathematical engineering/science classes) – its much more open to the professor’s interpretation than is usual in engineering. In this respect, I’ve noticed that the liberal arts that engineers tend to like the most are history, because it feels more ‘concrete’, and philosophy, because it tends to be based on logic.

Some of what you’ll hear on campus is just the normal rivalry between colleges – arts students and engineering students tend to make extreme statements as part of this. This also goes on between science and engineering students; mathematicians for instance will say engineering consists of “proof by example” … and its not a compliment.

The problem of critical thinking doesn’t have much of a religious background; in Canada the same thing arises, and religion plays almost no role at all.

My thought, after completing a science major (with an engineering minor, more or less) was that there was plenty of time to read the great books after you bought your beach condo.

I recall sitting next to a middle-aged woman in an English class. Her children had grown up and were themselves off to college, and her finances were such that she could take classes at the U. I remember her saying to me, “You kids don’t know how lucky to you are to have this opportunity. When you have to work and raise a family, you just don’t have the time for any of this.”

“Another blogger”? Why not identify them by name? Yes, you linked, but it’s odd to just refer to someone as “another blogger” in the process of linking.

Maybe your culture is a bit stupid? You could get along on industrial power, IT booms and thrift, but despite your hard work you have accumulated many complicated problems that require solidarity, overseeing and mental discipline that you sorely lack. This is because you are a very diverse and large nation in every sense.

Also, we have all the religion. Religion is a veto against philosophy and higher thought. Homophobes, anti-climate idiots, anti-secular scum – they are all lower people but your patetic deference to religion keeps you from ostracizing the extremely stupid and low.

We have a state politician who doesn’t understand why CO2 should be regulated by the EPA, because CO2 comes from humans. We have millions of Americans who think Palin would be a better president than Obama.

I have to blame the excessive democracy. The lowest common denominator is, well, LOW. America is based on the idea of equality, but the day we are all equal, we will all be *worthless*.

A homophobe, racist, climate denier or anti-secularist can never be anything but inferior to people like me. If you don’t keep them down and away from power, you cannot have a succesful, modern nation.

You can’t be serious.

jwest, the reason we all have one vote and are submitted as equal in the founding judicial and official documents of the nations of the West is not because we are actually metaphysically equal, but simply because no one likes the idea of living with barbarism.

For example, do you have gorgeous red hair and is your name Axel? No? then you and I are not equal *because we are not identical*.

A poacher, animal abuser or someone who thinks climate change is a hoax because there was a cold winter in one region of the planet CANNOT be equal to me, and I cannot be equal to an olympic athlete or an accomplished painter/videogame designer etc.

The idea that someone like Palin or Angle could ever be anything but inferior to me is as laughable an idea as having special sports categories for women so they don’t have to compete with men (why not have a special category for men with hereditary lung problems so they don’t have to compete with Armstrong?).

Heck, I can point out several people on this board whose retention of voting rights is a philosophical aberration and sick joke brought about only because barbarism is (as of now) a less tenable idea than dealing with their voting power.

I have to admit, you do sound like the quintessential liberal.

Referring back to the theme of this article, one endowed with the power of critical thinking would recognize that the theory of CO2 creating a “hockey stick” rise in average global temperatures has been called into question and is not “settled science”. Real science isn’t conducted by destroying the raw data others could use to verify results or by “hiding the decline”. Blind acceptance of politically correct theories put forth by people who “elites” declare to be authorities is the opposite of critical thinking. Overly educated dullards who follow this path lead to debacles such as the anti-vaccination hoax.

For centuries bloodletting was “settled science”, taught by the best and brightest at the most prestigious institutes of higher learning. People of courage – deniers – challenged the premise and discovered the truth, but it is impossible to know how many thousands suffered and died under this mistaken notion.

Personally, I don’t think of liberals as evil. Most are simply well-meaning idiot savants who don’t realize how their ideas and actions to “help” people end up causing untold misery, poverty, suffering and death. If they had the ability to apply critical thinking and complex reasoning to the problems and programs they focus on, the extent of their destructive force would be evident to them.

“Personally, I don’t think of liberals as evil. Most are simply well-meaning idiot savants who don’t realize how their ideas and actions to “help” people end up causing untold misery, poverty, suffering and death.”

That’s pure bullshit. We can argue about the financing of such programs, but Social Security and Medicare have decidedly not caused untold misery, poverty, suffering and death. To suppose otherwise is delusional.

“To suppose otherwise is delusional.”

Welcome to the world of jwest, G.A., Zels, Juneau, Maggie Mama, and on and on.

“I have to admit, you do sound like the quintessential liberal.”

Yeah sure, I am a big supporter of the UN, I totally respect the muslim faith and I am a stickler for equality, democracy and ideas of fraternity! You know – the notions conceived by the classical liberals.

Actually, if you sent me to a common dinner party in San Fran or any of the liberal strongholds I would look very out of place. I like to keep myself out of the political spectrum because I believe most people in it are philosophical degenerates.

“one endowed with the power of critical thinking would recognize that the theory of CO2 creating a “hockey stick” rise in average global temperatures has been called into question and is not “settled science”.”

Passive-aggressive, petulant pissiness. You are obviously a Christian since childhood. Please report to a sex-change clinic and get some testicles attached.

“Real science isn’t conducted by destroying the raw data others could use to verify results or by “hiding the decline””

That data is available elsewhere, you lazy bum. You look for it yourself and check up on the accused to see if they can defend themselves and help you find the data.

You are such an underhanded little coward it is baffling. Rather than actually go to the accused and dare to see if they can defend themselves you regurgitate something from your hysterical RSS feed. Once again you make my case for me – a cowardly little boy like you can never be a man. It is not in your blood.

“Blind acceptance of politically correct theories put forth by people who “elites” declare to be authorities is the opposite of critical thinking”

Ah yes, let us invite Cletus, Mayner and people like you to the universities! And the let us give affirmative action to the black people so they can compete on the job market as well! And let us go into K-garten and force the boys to wear dresses! You are a plebeian fool.

“For centuries bloodletting was “settled science”, taught by the best and brightest at the most prestigious institutes of higher learning. ”

Not a single “work” or “thought” on blood-letting would have passed high-school today. Utterly different dynamics are in play – the sieve is much less lenient and the result of accumulated thinking built on rationalism and the enlightenment. The foundations of climate science begin after important revalations have been made.

Stop being a passive-aggressive monotheist and say what you want to say, you baseline fool.

There’s nothing particularly new or philosophically daring about wanting to restrict voting rights to those who agree with you – that’s been the standard opinion of a large portion of the population since the idea of voting first came up thousands of years ago.

“Welcome to the world of jwest, G.A., Zels, Juneau, Maggie Mama, and on and on.”

Notice that these people (with all rights!) decry stupid ideas like affirmative action or excessive welfare programs that counter-act meritocratic ideals, but the only reason they are not shunted off this website and forced to join the circle-jerk over at freerepublic is because the owners of this websire are too afraid to ban the objectively and absolutely stupid and ignorant.

Those responsible for OTB know that none of those you mention have any place at this website, and that they never could contribute anything of value or raise any bar, present any challenge for anyone or add anything but ugliness. But you can’t just ban them! That would be a scary and horrible act! In fact, they might be suspected of (gasp) ‘stifling debate’ and ‘silencing dissent’!

“There’s nothing particularly new or philosophically daring about wanting to restrict voting rights to those who agree with you”

Oh your wit and snark is so impressive and not petulant at all. Yeah, you hit it right on the head. You should take over after Jon Swift.

I *don’t* want to do that , actually – I wouldn’t survive in a barbaric or aristocratic society. I am too weak. I recognize that my intelligence and quality is a *relative* phenomenon, not an *absolute* one.

I am just saying that our legal equality is nothing but a convenience and a historically temporary arrangement. You could pick us apart atom by atom and you would find no mystical essence that is equal between us.

Just say it to yourself and liberate your mind a little – “Maniacs like Zel and jwest are inferior to people like Axel, which says more about them than him.” Go on, say it – you’ll be better for it.

jwest, does it worry you that so many people make this argument without understanding it:

For centuries bloodletting was “settled science”, taught by the best and brightest at the most prestigious institutes of higher learning.

If you accept the implied conclusion, no idea can be held with confidence. They might all be overturned in a few years, so why worry?

Your doctor gives you advice … don’t worry, bloodletting!

Actually, it would be pretty surprising if you had a doctor at all, wouldn’t it?

I fear that someday, Sarah Palin will be blamed for something you do.

Isn’t bloodletting the best example for not demonizing people who question what others consider “settled science”?

Exactly, jp.

Blood-letting became “settled science” in an entirely different setting than ACC did. The “scientists” back then did not, for example, GO TO COLLEGE and the centuries-long tradition of colleges and acadamical and scientific standards WERE NOT CONCEIVED. It’s like comparing Malthus with Krugman – Malthus was wrong once so Krugman’s slowly accumulated intuition is meaningless on all matters!

I am dealing with desert-dwellers here. I am dealing with believers of virgin birth or the splicing of the Red Sea. This is not happening. This can not be happening.

“Isn’t bloodletting the best example for not demonizing people who question what others consider “settled science”?”

You do realize that back when blood-letting was the norm almost everyone were as ignorant as you are, right?

Climate science is based on physics. Blood-letting was built on nothing but accidental fancy and superstition. In fact, blood-letting could only be a medical practice in a society dominated by Christian “common-sense” of the kind you espouse.

Your analogy is not only so bad it is not right. It is so bad that it isn’t even wrong. Every second of education you’ve undergone has been a waste, if that is the best defense of your thinking you can muster.

Bloodletting had nothing to do with the scientific method, which is entirely a product of the modern era. Your argument has no merit.

“The “scientists” back then did not, for example, GO TO COLLEGE and the centuries-long tradition of colleges and acadamical and scientific standards WERE NOT CONCEIVED.”

Had you applied a bit of critical thinking to your comment, you would have realized that a great many bloodletting physicians were trained at Harvard Medical School (which some consider a college) over a period of 100 years.

In order to compare two objects in terms of A SINGLE quality (in this case: in terms of scientific validity and usefulness to societal and individual decisions), ALL OTHER FACTORS MUST BE EQUAL.

I am 22 years old and I am informing an older man of this basic fact. I wish I had a bigger stomach so I could PUKE in amounts sufficiently illustrating how disgusted I am by this latest example of utter Western decadence. There is no god!

“Had you applied a bit of critical thinking to your comment, you would have realized that a great many bloodletting physicians were trained at Harvard Medical School (which some consider a college) over a period of 100 years.”

Scientific method. Compare the work done by *those* idiots from *that* period – compare it to the studies done by the climate scientists today.

SEE IF THERE IS MAYBE A DIFFERENCE. Do some comparisons. Make an effort. Otherwise, stop talking to me.

jwest, you’ve seen the stories of modern doctors using leeches, right?

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/bloodysuckers/leech.html

Now whether they were over prescribed , that might be another issue.

If you consider the “modern era” to have begun around 1600 BC, I will agree with you totally. That’s when the first evidence of empirical methodology appeared.

But jp, bloodletting was used for one “reason” and leeches are used for another.

Bloodletting was based on the ideas of the “humors” and the gall fluids and other such idiotic ideas.

Leeches genuinely help with the flow of blood after a sliced-off finger or somesuch has been reattached.

Anyway, that is an honest mistake. Unlike the mistake of jwest, which is one of bad faith – since his life depends on misunderstanding and misrepresenting ideas created by superior minds, he will never stop coming up with grievances against climate scientists.

That explains it.

At 22 years old, I could bend iron bars with my mind. Not only did I know everything, I knew everything that I knew was absolute. It was physically painful for me to carry on conversations with others because they were so woefully inadequate in their knowledge and abilities to grasp the incredible concepts I laid forth.

Then a funny thing happened. As I aged, I grew dumber and the people around me got smarter.

Hold on to your superiority as long as possible. It tends to be fleeting.

A lot of the early science we laugh at had a toe-hold on the future. Consider phrenology. What is it but bran scan without the brain scanner?

I live this line on bloodletting from wikipedia. And I quote:

“The practice has been abandoned for all except a few very specific conditions.

s/live/love/

BTW, the way this relates to Anthropomorphic Global Warming is IMO that we should have a flexible and continuously adaptable view of scientific truth.

There are whole rafts of things we should take as conditional beliefs, yielding some of our actions to the possibility that they be true, while holding the possibility that they may be overturned.

AGW has a good case right now, so go with it … until such time as it actually is overthrown.

“AGW has a good case right now, so go with it … until such time as it actually is overthrown.”

That sums it up actually. Like any science, there are holes in its theories and predictions. There are problems with turbulence in the models, in cloud formation, in parameterising biological systems, in the interaction between ice, ocean, land and atmosphere. We don’t understand all the physics, let alone the chemistry and biology.

Nothing unusual about that. Currently quantum mechanics and relativity are mutually exclusive as written – they can’t both be correct. But practically they can (and are) used in conjunction by making approximations (the Spherical Cow phenomena) – which is why we have computers.

But our current climate science is the best understanding of the climate we currently have. Moreover, its good to err on the side of caution when dealing with irreversible systems. This is taken for granted in other areas. Why are conservatives alarmed that Iran is acquiring nuclear weapons? There’s certainly no proof that Iran would use them. But they feel the risk of being wrong outweighs the benefits of doing nothing. Same thing with climate predictions – the benefits of doing nothing is outweighed by the risks if the climate predictions turn out to be correct.

I will, for the record, add to george’s fair summary of the situation that not a single of the “alarmist” models account for the seeping of methane from the plains of Siberia, which are being thawed from permafrost. If that is allowed to go unchecked, a Roland Emmerich movie will seem understated and subtle in comparison with reality.

You’ve made it very clear you have little understanding of the scientific method. No, it does not just include empirical observation. By that standard if a cat realizes he can reach the couch seat by jumping, he’s conducting science.

I’m only going to say this once, because you choose to live in ignorance so repeating myself won’t do any good: Reality does not conform to your biases and preconceptions, and you do not get to redefine science to mean whatever you want it to mean.

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What Are Critical Thinking Skills and Why Are They Important?

Learn what critical thinking skills are, why they’re important, and how to develop and apply them in your workplace and everyday life.

We often use critical thinking skills without even realizing it. When you make a decision, such as which cereal to eat for breakfast, you're using critical thinking to determine the best option for you that day.

Critical thinking is like a muscle that can be exercised and built over time. It is a skill that can help propel your career to new heights. You'll be able to solve workplace issues, use trial and error to troubleshoot ideas, and more.

We'll take you through what it is and some examples so you can begin your journey in mastering this skill.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to interpret, evaluate, and analyze facts and information that are available, to form a judgment or decide if something is right or wrong.

More than just being curious about the world around you, critical thinkers make connections between logical ideas to see the bigger picture. Building your critical thinking skills means being able to advocate your ideas and opinions, present them in a logical fashion, and make decisions for improvement.

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Why is critical thinking important?

Critical thinking is useful in many areas of your life, including your career. It makes you a well-rounded individual, one who has looked at all of their options and possible solutions before making a choice.

According to the University of the People in California, having critical thinking skills is important because they are [ 1 ]:

Crucial for the economy

Essential for improving language and presentation skills

Very helpful in promoting creativity

Important for self-reflection

The basis of science and democracy 

Critical thinking skills are used every day in a myriad of ways and can be applied to situations such as a CEO approaching a group project or a nurse deciding in which order to treat their patients.

Examples of common critical thinking skills

Critical thinking skills differ from individual to individual and are utilized in various ways. Examples of common critical thinking skills include:

Identification of biases: Identifying biases means knowing there are certain people or things that may have an unfair prejudice or influence on the situation at hand. Pointing out these biases helps to remove them from contention when it comes to solving the problem and allows you to see things from a different perspective.

Research: Researching details and facts allows you to be prepared when presenting your information to people. You’ll know exactly what you’re talking about due to the time you’ve spent with the subject material, and you’ll be well-spoken and know what questions to ask to gain more knowledge. When researching, always use credible sources and factual information.

Open-mindedness: Being open-minded when having a conversation or participating in a group activity is crucial to success. Dismissing someone else’s ideas before you’ve heard them will inhibit you from progressing to a solution, and will often create animosity. If you truly want to solve a problem, you need to be willing to hear everyone’s opinions and ideas if you want them to hear yours.

Analysis: Analyzing your research will lead to you having a better understanding of the things you’ve heard and read. As a true critical thinker, you’ll want to seek out the truth and get to the source of issues. It’s important to avoid taking things at face value and always dig deeper.

Problem-solving: Problem-solving is perhaps the most important skill that critical thinkers can possess. The ability to solve issues and bounce back from conflict is what helps you succeed, be a leader, and effect change. One way to properly solve problems is to first recognize there’s a problem that needs solving. By determining the issue at hand, you can then analyze it and come up with several potential solutions.

How to develop critical thinking skills

You can develop critical thinking skills every day if you approach problems in a logical manner. Here are a few ways you can start your path to improvement:

1. Ask questions.

Be inquisitive about everything. Maintain a neutral perspective and develop a natural curiosity, so you can ask questions that develop your understanding of the situation or task at hand. The more details, facts, and information you have, the better informed you are to make decisions.

2. Practice active listening.

Utilize active listening techniques, which are founded in empathy, to really listen to what the other person is saying. Critical thinking, in part, is the cognitive process of reading the situation: the words coming out of their mouth, their body language, their reactions to your own words. Then, you might paraphrase to clarify what they're saying, so both of you agree you're on the same page.

3. Develop your logic and reasoning.

This is perhaps a more abstract task that requires practice and long-term development. However, think of a schoolteacher assessing the classroom to determine how to energize the lesson. There's options such as playing a game, watching a video, or challenging the students with a reward system. Using logic, you might decide that the reward system will take up too much time and is not an immediate fix. A video is not exactly relevant at this time. So, the teacher decides to play a simple word association game.

Scenarios like this happen every day, so next time, you can be more aware of what will work and what won't. Over time, developing your logic and reasoning will strengthen your critical thinking skills.

Learn tips and tricks on how to become a better critical thinker and problem solver through online courses from notable educational institutions on Coursera. Start with Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking from Duke University or Mindware: Critical Thinking for the Information Age from the University of Michigan.

Article sources

University of the People, “ Why is Critical Thinking Important?: A Survival Guide , https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/why-is-critical-thinking-important/.” Accessed May 18, 2023.

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