EDUC 5302 Final Exam 1

Final Exam

Kyle Broussard

EDUC 5302 – Educational Psychology

Professor – Dr. Mulky

East Texas Baptist University

7/9/18
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Final Exam

Introduction

In this paper there will be three cases that will be covered and a final question. The first

will deal with self-efficacy in a student who struggles with writing, and decides she cannot do it,

and would rather do something else. Along with how self-regulation can increase self-efficacy.

The second deals with a confrontation between a student and a teacher. It will look at how the

teacher used an assertive style during the confrontation. The third case looks into the criterion-

referenced grading system she uses. The question at the end defines motivation, and gives the

differences between the approaches to it.

Case 1

Annie, a fifth- grade student in Mr. Baer’s class, is being quiet and sullen for the fifth day

in a row. “I just can’t do this writing stuff,” she finally says in an appeal to Mr. Baer. “I’m not a

good student. Give me P.E. or art over this stuff any day!” Albert Bandura's social cognitive

theory dives into the role people serve as teachers and models for others. It includes expecting,

thinking, anticipating, believing, and making comparisons and judgments (Woolfolk, 2016, p

413). Bandura’s theory is a dynamic system that can explain human adaptation, learning and

motivation. The theory address how people self-regulate their lives and what motivates them (p

413). Comparing what Annie is saying about her own writing abilities, and her feeling that she

cannot not do it as well P.E. or art shows me that she has a negative thinking about her writing

abilities. She also does not believe in herself, because she thinks she is a bad student. Annie may

have made comparisons of her writing to others in the class, and this may have led her to believe

that her writing is not as good as the others. In doing this Annie is creating a low self-efficacy for
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herself. In doing this she is making it more difficult for herself to become motivated about

writing, and is losing interest in it all together making it more difficult for her to succeed.

When it comes to self-efficacy, Bandura describes it as the beliefs people have about

their capabilities to produce performance at designated levels that can have influence over events

that affect their lives (Woolfolk, 2016, p 418). If students want to be successful they have to have

a positive self-efficacy. It was mentioned that students with higher self-efficacy going from

middle school to high school had better control of their academics, higher self-confidence in

their learning abilities, were able to earn higher grades, and had a better chance of graduating (p

419). For Annie, it is clear that when it comes to writing her self-efficacy is very low. There are

four sources of self-efficacy: mastery experiences, physiological arousal, vicarious experiences,

and social persuasion (p 420). Based on the small amount of information given on Annie it could

be possible that Annie has experienced all four. Mastery experiences deal with experiences from

the past that were successful or was a failure. Annie may have had a skill in the past she was not

very good at, so instead of trying and failing again she would rather give up and say she cannot

do writing very well. Physiological arousal is the level of excitement and readiness ones has

toward the subject, and also a sense of anxiety toward it. For Annie, it is easy to say her

excitement level is not there toward writing like other subjects. She mentions how she would

rather do P.E. or art over writing. Vicarious experiences are when someone can see the peers

around them being successful on the task that you are struggling with. Annie may have friends in

her class that have exceptional writing skills, while she struggles. Social persuasion can be seen

as a pep talk, or encouragement from someone they trust that helps guide them to attempting new

ideas and giving more effort. Annie could lack that trusted someone in her life that helps her

build confidence, and attempt things when she is struggling (p 420).

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Self-efficacy has the ability to manipulate motivation and performance through goal

setting. The higher one’s self-efficacy is the higher and more challenging the goals they will

have for themselves, and the opposite for those who have a low self-efficacy like Annie in the

case (p 420). Since Annie has low self-efficacy she most likely has very low goals for herself

when it comes to writing. Researchers have found that when students adopt short-term goals, are

taught how to use specific learning strategies, and are rewarded on achievement both their

performance and self-efficacy will increase (p 420-21). Tying that to the social cognitive theory,

which is the impact people can have while serving as teachers and models on others (p 413). In

this case Mr. Baer has the ability to help impact Annie, and be a good social persuasion on her.

He can help Annie by creating short-term goals that are not challenging at first, and teach her

strategies that are interesting to her, and provide rewards for when she achieves a goal. This can

help build confidence for Annie, and as she becomes more comfortable with her writing abilities

he can add raise the difficultly of the goals. However, Mr. Bear has to be careful that he does not

underestimate or overestimate her skills. When student’s skills are underestimated they tend to

put in weaker effort, and will give up easier. While students that are overestimated can lack

motivation to fully understand the material (p 421).

There are three main factors that influence skill and will: knowledge, motivation, and

self-discipline or volition (p 424). These three factors influence self-regulation, so if Annie has

poor knowledge, motivation, and volition toward writing her self-regulation and self-efficacy are

not going to be very good in this subject. If Annie can discover ways to improve those three

areas that will increase her self-regulation, and ultimately increase her self-efficacy. The model

that Winne and Hadwin created believes that learners are agents. Agency is the volume that

someone can coordinate learning skills, motivation, and emotions to reach their goals. Agents
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control how they learn. There are four stages that self-regulating learners cycle through

according to Winne and Hadwin’s model. They are analyzing the task, set goals and devise

plans, enact strategies to accomplish the task, and regulate learning. If Annie can learn to

understand these four stages, and give effort in applying them to her writing she will increase her

self-regulation and self-efficacy ultimately helping her become a better writer.

In sports self-efficacy plays a huge role. Especially at the college level. Players come in

as freshman after being start seniors in high school, and are asked to do things they are not

comfortable doing, and are not interested in doing. It is important for me to keep an eye out for

those things, and help guide the player back to where he needs to be using short-term goals to get

there.

Case 2

Ellen’s face is twisted in an angry sneer and her body is visibly shaking. “I’m not going

back to my seat!” she screams at Mr. Fournier (the ninth-grade Spanish teacher). “You’re

always picking on me. I’ve had it with being the one who’s told to do everything.” Mr. Fournier

is taken aback but stands his ground, and says, “Ellen, return to your seat right now.” “I’m not

going to,” Ellen replies, “No way, no how.”

If I was in Mr. Fournier’s situation, I would use a few of the seven steps that Emmer and

Everson (2009) and Levin and Nolan (2000) came up with. The seven steps are to make eye

contact, give verbal hints like name dropping, ask students if they are aware of the negative

effect that may occur due to their actions, remind the student of the procedure. In unhostile way

ask the student to state the correct procedure, tell the student in a clear, assertive, unhostile way

to stop, and offer a choice (Woolfolk, 2016, p 506). Out of those seven I would make eye
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contact, use the students name in an assertive clear voice to return to her chair, and offer her a

choice. I would offer her the choice of returning to her chair, or allowing her to stand in an area

where she can cause no disruptions.

The response that Mr. Fournier gave would be classified as an assertive one. According

to Woolfolk (2016) assertive teachers state what they expect in a clear tone, while looking into

the student’s eyes. Their voices remain calm, firm, and confident (p 517). In this case I feel that

is how Mr. Fournier handled the situation.

The Gordon no-lose method is a six-step problem-solving strategy. The no-lose method

takes in account both the needs of the teacher and of the student. Creating a method that does not

mean one person has to completely give in (p 518). The six-steps are defining the problem,

generate many possible solutions, evaluate each solution, make a decision, determine how to

implement the solution, and evaluate the success of the solution (p 518). In this case they need to

define the problem which was stated. She feels he always picks on her, and does not want to go

back to her seat. They need to come up with possible solutions. Like her going back to her seat,

and they talk after class about why she feels picked on, or allowing her to stand in an area until

she is ready to calm down as long as she is not disruptive. Then they need to evaluate the

solutions, and determine which one works best for the both of them.

As a coach I will run into situation where I will have a confrontation with a player. It is

important to me that I do not lose my mind, and go off on the kid, but it is also important that I

am not passive. Being passive can lead to the players trying to take advantage of you especially

as a young coach. It is also important I handle every player the same, so they do not think I am

playing favorites, because of the level of abilities some have. I think it is important for me to
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have an assertive, non-hostile tone with the players when a confrontation takes place. Unless

they are completely in the wrong doing then I need to work with them to discover the problem

and find a solution to it.

Case 3

Ms. Rogers uses a grading system in her high school Spanish class in which students who

average 60-69 percent receive a D, 70-79 percent a C, 80-89 percent a B, and 90-100 percent an

A. Ms. Rogers has the reputation of being an excellent “expert” teacher. This year, 18 of her 24

students earned a final grade of A and other six students earned a B. Her new principal criticizes

Ms. Rogers for using “an apparently invalid grading system that fails to provide adequate

differentiation between students.”

It would seem that Ms. Rogers is using a criterion-referenced grading system. In this type

of system, the criteria for each grade is given in advance along with what it will take to achieve

that grade. Also in a criterion-referenced system all students can receive an A if they are able to

meet the criteria (Woolfolk, 2016, p 587). This system measures specific objectives and the

mastery the students were able to show on the objectives. This system does not compare the

scores of the students to each other, but rather but rather to the standard criteria that was laid out

by the teacher.

Based on the information given her grading system would not be considered a norm-

referenced. The reason being is that norm-referenced systems compare the grade a student

makes, to the grades of the other students in the classroom (p 587). It seems as Ms. Rogers is

basing the scores of the students on the criteria she created, and not against the other students’

scores. A common type of grading in norm-referenced is called grading on the curve. This type
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of grading usually has negative impacts on relationships among students and between the teacher

and the students, and it can even cause students to lose motivation. Ultimately the grading on a

curve limits the number of good grades, and majority of the students will be losers when it comes

to their grades (p 587). Ms. Rogers does not have this problem, her students all had good grades.

Seeing that Ms. Rogers is known to be an expert teacher. One can believe that she created

goals and objectives that were well defined. One can even assume that Ms. Rogers found way to

get the objectives home to the students’ parents, allowing them to see how their child received

the grade they did. I believe that her style of grading is rational, as long as she has good goals

and objectives, and explains them to the students in a clear manner. This allows her to create

standards on the criteria and compare the students to the criteria allowing her to see what they

need work on. Instead of comparing them to the other grades in the class.

As a coach I feel I use both criterion-reference grading and norm-referenced grading. The

reason being is that I set objective and goals for individual players that they must improve at or

reach. I compare how they are processing to where they were previously, not to other players.

However, when it comes to making the travel roster or writing the lineup I have to compare the

players to each other, and see who has been performing better. Who it is will be the one playing

or traveling, and the other will be left behind even if they have been putting in the same amount

of work and effort as the other player.

Question 1

Define motivation, and differentiate between behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, and

sociocultural approaches to the interpretation of motivation.

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Motivation can be defined “as an internal state that arouses, directs, and maintains

behavior” (Woolfolk, 2016, p 444). There are three types of motivation: amotivation, intrinsic

motivation, and extrinsic motivation. Amotivation is when we lack motivation, and give no

engagement at all. Intrinsic is when you do not need incentives or punishments to be motivated.

You are pursuing personal interests of yours, because the activity is rewarding and satisfying to

you. Extrinsic is the opposite, you need incentives or punishments in order to have motivation

toward the activity. You have no interest in the activity yourself, but rather the incentives that

come with it (p 445)

There are five general approaches to motivation: behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, social

cognitive, and sociocultural. Behavior approaches fall under extrinsic motivation, because they

need reinforces, rewards, punishers, and incentives. Humanistic approaches are under intrinsic

motivation, because they need self-esteem, self-fulfillment, and self-determination. Cognitive is

also under intrinsic, because beliefs, attributions for success and failure, and expectations are

what motivated them. Sociocultural is the last one that falls under intrinsic motivation, because

they are engage participation in learning communities; maintain identity through participation in

group activities. Lastly, social cognitive falls under both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. This

approach has goals, expectations, intentions, and self-efficacy (p 448).

As a coach it is important for me to know the types of approaches toward motivation,

because not every player will be motivated the same on my teams. I will have to learn how to

motivate my team as a whole, using multiple approaches. That can be tricky, but in order to be a

successful coach I have to learn how the individuals on the team get motivated, and use the

multiple approaches mentioned to motivate them. If I only use one approach then I will not be
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able to reach all the players, and they may disconnect themselves from listening to me, and from

the team.

Conclusion

Students who have a higher self-efficacy will perform better when it comes to learning.

The four sources of self-efficacy: mastery experiences, physiological arousal, vicarious

experiences, and social persuasion are what influence a student’s self-efficacy level. When a

student is able to learn how to increase their self-regulation, they can also see a rise in their self-

efficacy. When dealing with a student confrontation it is important to make eye contact, use the

students name in an assertive clear voice to return to her chair, and offer them a choice. In a

criterion-referenced grading system you are comparing the student’s score to the criteria you

have stablished, not to the other students’ scores. This can allow you to see what areas the

students need work on. Motivation can be defined as an internal state that maintains our

behavior, directs us, and the arousal we have toward certain activities.
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References

Woolfolk, A. (2016). Educational Psychology (thirteenth edition). Boston, Massachusetts:

Pearson.