Students' sense of entitlement
Betsy's Page
I guess it should be no surprise that people all expect the government to bail them out if they made bad choices in taking out a mortgage they can't afford or if they're an auto company who made labor contracts that they can't afford. The sense of entitlement for getting benefits just because your intentions are good starts early. Professors are finding that students expect good grades just because they showed up and put in some effort. Quality itself should not be the determining factor in grades; effort should.
<<< A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.
“I noticed an increased sense of entitlement in my students and wanted to discover what was causing it,” said Ellen Greenberger, the lead author of the study, called “Self-Entitled College Students: Contributions of Personality, Parenting, and Motivational Factors,” which appeared last year in The Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
Professor Greenberger said that the sense of entitlement could be related to increased parental pressure, competition among peers and family members and a heightened sense of achievement anxiety.
Aaron M. Brower, the vice provost for teaching and learning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offered another theory.
“I think that it stems from their K-12 experiences,” Professor Brower said. “They have become ultra-efficient in test preparation. And this hyper-efficiency has led them to look for a magic formula to get high scores.”
James Hogge, associate dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University, said: “Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work. There is a mentality in students that ‘if I work hard, I deserve a high grade.’ “
In line with Dean Hogge’s observation are Professor Greenberger’s test results. Nearly two-thirds of the students surveyed said that if they explained to a professor that they were trying hard, that should be taken into account in their grade.
Jason Greenwood, a senior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.
“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”
“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”
Sarah Kinn, a junior English major at the University of Vermont, agreed, saying, “I feel that if I do all of the readings and attend class regularly that I should be able to achieve a grade of at least a B.” >>>
I often see this attitude from students and parents. How can it be that a student studied hard and did all the homework, yet didn't get a good grade on a test? The input of effort should balance out whatever defects there are in their output. I always remember a student we knew in graduate school who measured her level of effort by how much of the book she'd highlighted in yellow.
This sense of entitlement is dangerous. And it will translate to other elements of life. As I tell my students, they need to learn that all the preparation that they made before a test is only 50% of the job. The other 50% comes from the intellectual effort that they put forth on the actual test. I can't grade their effort; only what they write down on the paper. It's tough love, but it's a necessary lesson.
UPDATE: Michelle Cottle of TNR is even more scathing in the attitude of some of these students who seem to think that just showing up should entitle them to a default grade of a B.
<<< No, Jason. What would be wrong is if a university trained its students to believe that they were excellent simply for getting up off their futons and doing what was expected of them. Did the reading? Attended class? Stayed up late working on a paper? Good for you, puppy! Sure, you did a craptastic job on that paper--not to mention the final--suggesting that you have no more than a fourth-grader's grasp of the material. But what the hell!? You worked hard. You showed up--even when you had that reallllly bad hangover. You may not have learned much, but you sure did try. Have a nice fat A. And here's hoping it comes in handy when your first employer fires you for not being able to tell your ass from your elbow when it comes to doing your job.
Sweet Jesus, where did such dizzying nonsense come from? Sure, it's easy to blame today's youth for being whiny, spoiled, and entitled. But the kids had to get these delusional ideas from somewhere. I suspect at least part of the blame lies with all those well-intentioned self-esteem-boosting messages that anxious parents, educators, and coaches feel compelled to spout in this era of making every child feel like a winner all the time. You know, the cheery, you-can-do-it mantras along the lines of, "All that matters is that you tried," "The only way to fail is not to try at all." >>>
I fear that this attitude of entitlement has extended to more of our society, for example in the idea that we should get bonuses based on just having been on the job rather than on merit. Or in the idea that we should get the government to bail us out of a mortgage that we can't afford because, hey, that house is so important to us and we've been working hard. We're entitled to that government aid.
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