Influences on Learning

How do these motivational patterns affect student learning?

Students who have a Performance Avoidance Orientation tend to exhibit self-handicapping behaviors such as procrastination, academic "wooden legs" or creating unattainable goals. These behaviors are meant to protect the student from being perceived in a negative way by their peers. If the student doesn't try, or tries with very low effort, then their peers cannot say that the student "failed".

Procrastination

Procrastination is the most common form of self-handicapping, and it exists to give the student excuses on why they have not started or finished a certain task. It is a way of escaping or putting it off, so that failure or just the chore of doing is delayed. An example of this with Calvin is the comic strip of him wishing he had a time machine so that he could skip to tomorrow and not have to do his homework at all. He views it as a chore and would rather do anything else than his assignment given to him, so he stalls and wishes for soemthing that could take it away.

Unnattainable Goals

Creating unattainable goals means striving for something so high that it is nearly impossible to achieve. This "saves" a student from being negatively percieved by their classmates because the goal is incredibly high and it has a very lo chance of actually happening. That means that the student could (and probaly will) fail the task, and nobody will think less of them. Calvin's example of this is when he takes a test, and he writes his response as formally as possible to hide the fact that he doesn't know the correct answer.

Academic "Wooden Leg"

An academic "wooden leg" is another type of self-handicapping where a person will blame their failures/lack of effort on a weakness or something that they can't control. This lets the student seem like they can't do the task at all, and if it cannot be done then they cannot fail. An example from Calvin and Hobbes is the strip where Calvin tries to blame his bad grades on low self esteem and when that doesn't work, he blames it on his own victimizing.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse