"Bad schoolwork ethic"

[Rubin0]

I know a few people that find it comforting to constantly mention how intelligent they think they are even though they don't do well in school. They are the same people that insult people that do well in school by asserting that good grades do not dictate intelligence. I used to be one of those people, but then I realized how stupid and naive I sounded. You can go through life believing you are intelligent, but unless you use that intelligence you are not reaching your full potential anyway, so stop mentioning it. There is nothing smart about getting D's and F's in school and you are not impressing anyone with a low GPA, especially not possible employers in the future.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Rubin0

I know a few people that find it comforting to constantly mention how intelligent they think they are even though they don't do well in school. They are the same people that insult people that do well in school by asserting that good grades do not dictate intelligence. I used to be one of those people, but then I realized how stupid and naive I sounded. You can go through life believing you are intelligent, but unless you use that intelligence you are not reaching your full potential anyway, so stop mentioning it. There is nothing smart about getting D's and F's in school and you are not impressing anyone with a low GPA, especially not possible employers in the future.

Hahahaha, I notice this too.

[Arch0wl]

relevant: http://www.keybeatonline.com/forums/...ead.php?t=3030

[Reach]

An assortment of variables culminate over time in combination with factors that have been there from the beginning to form what becomes a 'bad schoolwork ethic'.

Some people are naturally predisposed to this type of behavior because of personality factors, many of which manifest themselves early in life and remain largely immutable. Studies show, for example, large correlations between GPA and certain personality factors.

Of course, people can learn to overcome many of these factors with hard work, but whether or not they're willing to put in that work in the first place might be related to those immutable personality variables, creating an interesting loop. Can people really overcome factors that have a negative feedback on the ability to overcome those factors? Probably, but it might be harder than simply having the desire to do well in school and trying hard.


To a small degree, how well you do in school is related to your intellectual ability, largely because most tests have psychometric properties associated with them. I know this wasn't the point of the thread, so I'll leave it at that, but this brings up a larger issue Arch0wl mentions in his other thread.

Because of the relationship between school and intelligence and the general recognition of this relationship among students, people that want to protect an intelligent self image probably engage in forms of ego protection. I know I used to be really bad for this, and still am to a degree. Because people perceive themselves as intelligent, and perceive school to be related to intelligence in some way, they don't like to put themselves in a position where their performance in school might reflect negatively on their intelligence.

As such, many people don't try nearly as hard as they could if they wanted to put themselves out on the line. In particular, they don't put forth the necessary work on the basics, such as study techniques and memory heuristics, things that are often the most important factors in academic success. As a tutor, I notice that in the majority of people I'm working with, their problem is fundamental within their general ability to study and memorize the material properly in preparation for the test. Often times they don't have trouble learning the material once it's explained properly, but still do bad on the tests anyway because of these basic factors.


From these factors extends our self perceived abilities, which is also incredibly important in test performance. These expectations come from within, but also from others; expectation of performance from people around us can dramatically change our self perceived abilities.

People might perceive themselves as intelligent, but if they aren't necessarily doing really well in school they might perceive themselves as being 'intelligent but not good at school'. Inevitably this perception causes a feedback that prevents them from doing as well as they could on tests if they changed that perception to being 'intelligent and as good as I want to be at school'. If you go into a test with the mindset of getting as close to 100% as possible, and the confidence to do so, you'll do a lot better than someone that isn't confident in their abilities and is just going to 'see what happens'.

I used to struggle with exactly this problem and got mediocre grades in school until I changed the way I perceived my abilities and actually started working hard at the fundamentals and fully preparing myself to maximize my performance on tests.

[Reincarnate]

"Don't think you are -- know you are."

It's a pretty big first step but it'll make a world of difference. :P