Things I was too frustrated to bring up last class

Just a disclaimer to everyone, I love you all dearly, and I'm not trying to hate, I'm only trying to bring this class back on track, as it has been severely derailed by preconceived theoretical notions. I think I was a tad bit frustrated last class because of the initial arguments we made about the whole 'boys and girls having different efficacy' piece. While Ryan's arguments about Expectancy Value Theory were surely sound, I think he was missing the point by failing to look at the experiential notion of things that Bandura can bring to the table, and by leaving out the consideration that theories need to be compared and not favored.  However, him and Robin did raise some pertinent points about self-regulated learning that almost turned into another war of words, and was conveniently put away for another time. I will admit that Michael isn't always the be all and end all, but that's precisely how he wants us to think. There are many, many different ways of looking at things, if you're brave enough to not treat everything in such a square manner. That's the precise reason why the argument had such a weird vibe last class. Maybe it'll get better as people adapt to the way the class is meant to actually be.

Now, let's go into really deconstructing the whole gender and efficacy piece. We were talking about a female and male undergraduate student, out of which both of them fail to clear the entrance criteria for medical school. However, in our simulated scenario, the male has a higher likelihood to go on and work at a medical center while the female gives up. Now, assuming this in itself, in my opinion, is absolutely absurd. I think it could go either way, depending on the experiences attached to it, when you look at it from Bandura's viewpoint. I do agree that females in STEM do face a lot of sexism, but does this mean that they all don't persist? Sure, it does mean that they have a higher likelihood of dropping out, but is this a function of their expectancies at the outset? Or is it a function of how external influences affect their values? Now, if they persist through all of the external influences, don't you all think it'd create a greater amount of value (for some of them) than in the beginning because of the pleasure created from braving through all the obstacles? While EVT does go to explain how this happens in a different way, it misses out on some things, as does Bandura's cycle, because they are all 'theories'. That's what theories do. There'll never be a perfect one, and claiming that EVT is 'perfect' basically points to the fact that we all need to stop doing research on motivation altogether. I highly doubt that many of us would want to entertain that possibility, in the best interest of our careers. There is always warranted assert ability to any (yes, any) theory and research related to it, and this is what researchers often fail to understand.

Persistence creates value and this leads to higher efficacy. From Bandura's lens, way we persist is not through 'value', it is through the nature of belief. This is why I responded to the arguments about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and tried to bring in Rational Emotive Therapy into the discussion, because I thought we were missing out on it. Maybe if we're all a little more receptive and learn to think together rather than putting each other down, we can actually 'earn' the A for this class, which people seem to think is a free A , or that this class 'isn't graded' because Michael is cool enough to give us all an A. He just wants us to have shared purpose and learn, and I'm terrified seeing how some people don't seem to understand that they can't learn anything by staying within their own theoretical boxes. Maybe if you ventured out of your little box, you'd see something cool on the outside, and actually learn something. I don't blame you all though, you'll probably never figure out the power of shared purpose until you do a class on John Dewey. I guess we'll just have to pull you out from under the rock you've hidden under, even if it means breaking a few of your joints, because it is, I assure you, in your best interests.