I was reading Bandura’s article, “Negative Self-Efficacy and Goal Effects Revisited” 2003, and am contemplating the role of perceived personal control in stress and anxiety. The management of stressors and taxing environmental demands is important in a learning environment. According to Bandura, self-efficacy enhancement surpassed relaxation and sedation drugs in reducing self-rated anxiety as well as anxiety reactions and behavioral agitation during surgery. The more a person's efficacy beliefs are raised by preparatory treatments, the lower the anxious agitation. While I have found that there is a significant impact of perceived ability to exercise control on stress and anxiety in my own life, I am learning how to encourage my children to exercise control on their own stress and anxiety. I wonder if I could use the results of Bandura’s experiment with agoraphobics. When they were led to believe, they were exercising control over the amount of CO2 they were inhaling, they remained unperturbed and free of catastrophic thinking and relatively few experienced panic attacks. As an educator, if I want to help a student to decrease stress and anxiety, HOW could I create a situation which would lead the student to believe they are in control?
An additional comment in the article: “A resilient sense of efficacy provides the necessary staying power in the arduous pursuit of innovation and excellence.” I thought of famous inventors such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison… and all the individuals who appear in Goalcast videos that pop up on in my social media, delivering motivational, inspirational quotes. What type of personal experiences motivated men such as Michael Jordan and Abraham Lincoln, to repeatedly “get up again” after numerous defeats, and helped them keep their eye on a longer-term, end goal? Conversely, Bandura discusses the need to better understand the cost of insecurity and self-doubt in innovativeness, creativity, and personal and social change. I would enjoy further investigation of the functional value of a strong self-efficacy in opposition to the self-handicapping costs of distressing self-doubts about one’s abilities.
----------------
During Thursday’s class, we briefly discussed the Dunning Kruger Effect, a form of cognitive bias produced by overestimating one’s abilities. We would say they are experiencing an illusionary superiority. Unfortunately, when we compare ourselves to others, we risk inaccurate judgment of our own abilities. I was considering a classroom full of students, with varying levels of math efficacy; specifically, considering students with lower math skill, who overestimate their abilities, working alongside students with higher math abilities. The “expert” math students would presumably have higher efficacy and perhaps not perceive difficulty with a given the math assignment. If the “experts” were grouped with the “novice” students (lower skill level), I would imagine that the novice math students might compare their work with their peers, and quickly lose efficacy in their abilities… or would they? According to the Dunning Kruger Effect, the lower skilled students would continue to have false efficacy in their abilities and lack the expertise to recognize their poor performance. When students compare themselves to other students, they risk inaccurate judgment of their own abilities. As we have discussed in class, a comparison will happen, and it begins at an early age. When educators group students heterogeneously (high and low ability students working together), do we risk damaging efficacy in the lower ability students? Or are we helping the lower ability students by giving them a “reality check” on their actual abilities?
When researching the Dunning Kruger Effect, I found several suggestions for avoiding personal deception, including, 1. Reject the use of peer comparison; only compare yourself against your personal, previous performance. 2. Evaluate your own specific abilities, instead of evaluating general abilities. 3. Seek mentors for feedback and as a resource to accelerate your learning. I suggest a practical application for the classroom would be to encourage each student to avoid peer comparison, teach them to set attainable personal goals, and remind them to focus on personal growth throughout the school year. Does anyone have thoughts/suggestions for helping students accurately evaluate their own abilities? Accurate self-evaluation is important for educators as well. How might an administration help educators accurately assess their teaching abilities?
“True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we know about life, ourselves and the world around us.” -Socrates
No comments:
Post a Comment