{"title":"Unrealistic Optimism in the Pursuit of Academic Success.","authors":"R. Lewine, Alison Sommers","doi":"10.20429/IJSOTL.2016.100204","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Although the ability to evaluate one’s own knowledge and performance is critical to learning, the correlation between students’ self-evaluation and actual performance measures is modest at best. In this study we examine the effect of offering extra credit for students’ accurate prediction (self-accuracy) of their performance on four exams in two semester-long classes on Personality. The courses emphasized the role of self-awareness. Despite these motivational interventions and performance feedback, there was minimal change in accuracy over the semester; a large proportion of students remained unrealistically optimistic about their performance in the face of evidence to the contrary. Moreover, inaccurately inflated confidence was related to poorer academic performance. A small minority of students improved in accuracy and exam performance over the each of the courses, offering a potentially useful source of comparison for addressing unrealistic optimism. We discuss the findings as reflecting the powerful influence of protecting self-esteem and suggest the need for realistic self-appraisal as a factor in academic success","PeriodicalId":332019,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2016-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"12","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.20429/IJSOTL.2016.100204","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 12
Abstract
Although the ability to evaluate one’s own knowledge and performance is critical to learning, the correlation between students’ self-evaluation and actual performance measures is modest at best. In this study we examine the effect of offering extra credit for students’ accurate prediction (self-accuracy) of their performance on four exams in two semester-long classes on Personality. The courses emphasized the role of self-awareness. Despite these motivational interventions and performance feedback, there was minimal change in accuracy over the semester; a large proportion of students remained unrealistically optimistic about their performance in the face of evidence to the contrary. Moreover, inaccurately inflated confidence was related to poorer academic performance. A small minority of students improved in accuracy and exam performance over the each of the courses, offering a potentially useful source of comparison for addressing unrealistic optimism. We discuss the findings as reflecting the powerful influence of protecting self-esteem and suggest the need for realistic self-appraisal as a factor in academic success