Giving Up

CITATION: Willems, P. P., & Gonzalez-DeHass, A. R. (2006). Case 18: Giving up. In Educationalpsychology casebook (pp. 113-116). Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.

It is the sixth week of class and Mrs. Reynolds, the newest addition to the algebra departments at Lakeview Middle, takes a moment from grading papers to look up at her second-period algebra class, busy working on this week's test. She pauses in her perusal when she notices Anne Sedgewick looking hopelessly out the window. Mrs. Reynolds waits to make eye contact with Anne and at that point the student immediately returns to her test. Mrs. Reynolds inwardly sighs in frustration, because this is not the first instance of Anne's lack of attention to her schoolwork.

The next day, Mrs. Reynolds asks the class to quickly make their way to their seats, for they have much to cover before the end of the period. "OK, class, I am going to pass out the test from yesterday..." Mrs. Reynolds begins but is shortly interrupted by William, one of her most boisterous students. "Oh, yeah, let me see my grade, I know all of you punks aren't going to touch my grade this time. I studied my..." Before he can finish his sentence, Mrs. Reynolds cuts him off. She glances pointedly at William to stifle further interruptions. "Needless to say, I am really disappointed in some of you. There are two of you - I have it noted on your tests - I need to see after class because your answers look an awful lot alike." Many students begin to giggle and point fingers in the direction of the likely culprits. "However," Mrs. Reynolds continues, "I don't want to waste class time pointing fingers and complaining about the sorry state of your test scores; we need to keep on schedule and turn to the current lesson today. I don't need to reemphasize how important this lesson is for the final at the end of the year as well as the upcoming SATs." At this point, Mrs. Reynolds has made her way to Anne's desk. As she hands Anne her paper, Anne grabs it and quickly flips it over before anyone can see her grade. Mrs. Reynolds notes that Anne furtively glances around to see if anyone might have noticed her grade.

As Mrs. Reynolds attempts to begin the day's discussion on quadratic equations, she has to make repeated requests for students to put away their tests from the day before. She tries to hide her frustration with two students in the back of the classroom who are busy comparing their grades. Once the two students notice the teacher's attention is on them, they quickly give each other one last friendly "shove" and then straighten in their seats. "Now, class, I am going to give you the opportunity to get into your peer groups to work on today's problems. Each group is going to be responsible for one problem from the worksheet." Mrs. Reynolds begins to pass out the worksheet while students move about into their preassigned groups. "I'll give you a moment to look over these problems", she continues, "and then I'll start recording which problems each group volunteers to work on."

Mrs. Reynolds allows the groups to take a few minutes to discuss the worksheets. She circles around to observe Anne's group. The unofficial group leader, Lilly Mitchells, engages the group

with her usual take-charge attitude, "I think we should do the fourth problem, it is just like the one we learned about last week and I know we can do it." A couple of the group members agree, but Mrs. Reynolds notices the Anne remains uninvolved other than to drop her eyes and nod her head in mute acknowledgment. One of the group members dares to disagree. "Well, what are we going to learn if we do that, what if one of these other problems is on the next test? I don't know about any of you, but I got a lousy C on yesterday's test." At this point, Mrs. Reynolds notices that most of the groups are starting to socialize and realizes they have had enough time to consider their choice of problems. She directs the class to begin solving their problems as she walks to her desk to finish sorting through some cumulative files.

As the period draws to an end, Mrs. Reynolds asks students to make their way back to their original seats. Within moments, the bell rings and most of the students are off like a shot to make the most of their few precious moments in between classes. She notices Anne hesitating as she packs up her books and makes her way over to the student. "Anne, is there something amiss? Don't you have to get to your third-period class?" Anne appears to wrestle with something, but then breaks down and begins to unload her worries over her academic performance and her grades, in Mrs. Reynolds's class in particular. "I just can't get another bad grade or my parents will lock me up and throw away the key. I just can't imagine getting in anymore trouble that I already am!" Mrs. Reynolds responds, "But Anne, you have never once asked for my help and I always notice you staring out the window." At this point, Anne seems to become quite calm, looks out the window as if coming to a conclusion she had been avoiding, and then looks at Mrs. Reynolds. "I try and try, but it just doesn't matter, I am not good at this algebra stuff and there is no getting around that. I should really ask myself why I even bother." "Now hold on a minute, Anne," Mrs. Reynolds interjects, "I know you can do this work. I have faith in you. Plus, look at Loralee, Edith, and Isabelle... they are good friends of yours, right? They get strong grades in this class. If they can do it, so can you." Anne smiles but glances down at her watch, realizing what time it is. "Listen, I appreciate your help, but I don't want to add after-school detention for being tardy to Mr. Lopez's Spanish class to my glorified record." As Anne leaves, Mrs. Reynolds sighs and shakes her head as she realizes the two students asked to stay after class have fled the proverbial scene of the crime.

A month later, Mrs. Reynolds is grading the most recent unit tests. When she gets to Anne Sedgewick's, she skims over the answers and closes her eyes in frustration. Without finishing the grading of the test, she realizes Anne is going to be less than pleased with her score. She had hoped to see an improvement in Anne's score after their little chat a month prior. But, apparently it hadn't made much of a difference. As she looks back on it, she begins to wonder at her naivet in thinking such superficial feedback would have seriously helped Anne. Anne clearly had strong perceived inadequacies where this subject matter was concerned, and Anne's sense of hopelessness over the weeks since their chat had only become more evident. Anne hardly ever volunteered to answer questions in class, asked for no further help, and continued to daydream in class. Even on the few occasions she went to Anne's desk to check up on her work, Anne would make halfhearted attempts in her work without really trying to apply herself to the task. Mrs. Reynolds asks herself, what she is supposed to do now. How can she reach this student and help her see that this situation doesn't have to be as hopeless as it appears?

Once you have read the case study, start a new thread an original post addressing the following questions:

• Explain mastery and performance goal orientations. Identify which goal orientation Mrs. Reynolds is encouraging students to adopt in the case study. Make sure to support your answer with evidence from the case study.
• Discuss Bandura's four sources of self-efficacy beliefs. Identify which kinds of academic behaviors are associated with high self-efficacy beliefs, and who in the case study displayed high self-efficacy. Identify which kinds of academic behaviors are associated with low self-efficacy beliefs and who in this case study displayed low self-efficacy. Lastly, explain how self-efficacy beliefs can be used as a predictive tool for a learner's academic outcomes.
• In the case study, Mrs. Reynolds is surprised that there has been no improvement in Anne's score or willingness to engage in the task one month after their chat. Based on what you know about self-efficacy beliefs, explain whether Mrs. Reynolds should have been surprised by the outcome and why. Discuss practical teacher implications of how a teacher might help Anne increase her self-efficacy beliefs and get out of a learned helplessness state.