Abstract
To assess academic entitlement, we employed a repeated cross-sectional design to compare survey data from two systematic random samples collected eight years apart, in 2009 (n = 225) and 2017 (n = 159), at a small, private, mid-Atlantic liberal arts college. According to an entitlement scale (based on Greenberger et al., 2008), students were less likely to be entitled in 2017 (27%) than in 2009 (41%) (p = 0.02). In 2009, a higher proportion of males than females felt entitled (50% versus 34%, p = 0.05), a sex difference that disappeared by 2017. To explore academic entitlement further, we developed the “PIE” scale to measure the extent to which students believe “participation,” “improvement” and “effort” should help determine their course grades. Although the proportion of above average PIE scorers was stable from 2009 (36%) to 2017 (34%), in 2017, more females than males were above average on PIE (26% of males versus 44% of females, p = 0.02). PIE, or the desire for recognition of “academic sweat equity,” could reflect students’ support for a learning model that goes beyond mastery and is more developmental and process oriented. These data challenge common conceptions of what constitutes academic entitlement, the belief that it is rising, and suggest continued discussions of what factors should determine grades.
Highlights
College students are allegedly becoming increasingly self-important [1], narcissistic [2,3] and entitled [4], qualities that tax faculty patience [5,6] and raise questions about the tolerance of such traits among students’ future employers [7]
In conducting our assessment of student academic entitlement, we turned to a seminal article on this topic by Greenberger et al [21] who define academic entitlement as “expectations of high grades for modest effort and demanding attitudes towards teachers” (p. 1193)
We examine the nature and trajectory of academic entitlement, including gender differences given that males are reportedly more likely to be entitled than females [24,25,26] and suffer from a lower retention rate [27]
Summary
College students are allegedly becoming increasingly self-important [1], narcissistic [2,3] and entitled [4], qualities that tax faculty patience [5,6] and raise questions about the tolerance of such traits among students’ future employers [7]. Despite contrasting data that show low levels of college student entitlement (e.g., [18]), media outlets have decried the entitled mentality of millennials responsible for “a changed relationship between the schools and the schooled [in] one of the most striking transformations in higher education over the last quarter-century” in which “[s]tudents get the message that they call the shots” ([19], para 5 and 15). In conducting our assessment of student academic entitlement, we turned to a seminal article on this topic by Greenberger et al [21] who define academic entitlement as “expectations of high grades for modest effort and demanding attitudes towards teachers” While two thirds (66%) of their respondents thought that “trying hard” should be considered in a course grade, about one third thought that merely attending most classes should earn them a B in a course
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