Academically Entitled Research Articles

Are social work students academically entitled: implications for social work education

ABSTRACT Educators have observed that university and college students have been exhibiting behaviors that are consistent with academic entitlement. There is however a dearth of research surrounding social work students. The current study assesses whether social work students exhibit academically entitled behaviors as compared to other disciplines and whether there are age, gender or academic level differences. Results from the Academic Entitlement Questionnaire (AEQ) indicate that overall, that students in this study have low levels of academic entitlement. It was found however that younger students had higher levels of academic entitlement than the older students. Implications for social work education are discussed.

Ratemyprofessors.com evaluations affect academically entitled intentions and expectations

ABSTRACT This study investigated if Ratemyprofessors.com evaluations’ valence influences students’ academically entitled intentions to request course policy exceptions and lower their evaluation of professors who do not grant them. It also investigated academically entitled expectations that professors will grant requests and are responsible for students’ grades. The study also investigated if valence effects differed by professor and student gender. These were investigated while controlling for academic entitlement. Undergraduates (n = 338) read Ratemyprofessors.com evaluations for a fictitious professor and rated their academically entitled intentions and academically entitled expectations. Participants reported greater intention to request all policy exceptions of and expect they be granted by positively evaluated professors. Women students reported greater expectation that positively evaluated professors would grant certain exceptions. Findings suggest Ratemyprofessors.com evaluations engender academically entitled intentions and expectations. Findings have implications for faculty–student relationships, student learning, and professors’ stress and risk for burnout. These implications and limitations are discussed.

Adaptation of Academic Entitlement Questionnaire

Academic
 entitlement is one of the most significant problems that affect not only
 students’ academic success but also lead them to engage in various uncivil and
 undesired behaviors such as disrespect, anger and aggression. It might disrupt
 individuals’ psychological and social adaptation by itself or interacting with
 other problems. Academically entitled students are inconsiderate of their
 friends, intolerant to even constructive feedback, and exhibit unethical
 behaviors such as cheating, plagiarism, etc.. This global phenomenon is a
 significant problem in Turkey as well. Therefore, the need for having a sound
 grasp of academic entitlement led to initial reliability and validity studies
 of Academic Entitlement Questionnaire in Turkish Culture in this study.
 Analyses were carried out on 469 participants data, 351 (75%) of whom were
 females and 118 (25%) of whom were males. It was found that Turkish and English
 forms were equivalent, the construct with a-five-item unidimensional scale was
 confirmed. Furthermore, for concurrent validity, relationship between academic
 entitlement and similar structures of narcissism, entitlement and academic
 self-efficacy was investigated. Results indicated that academic entitlement was
 found to be significantly related to narcissism and entitlement and negatively
 related to academic self-efficacy. This indicates that academic entitlement
 despite related to these three structures is a different construct. For
 reliability, internal consistency coefficients and test-retest methods were
 used. These analyses indicated that the scale assess academic entitlement
 consistently. Thus, it can be stated that Academic Entitlement Questionnaire is
 a valid and reliable instrument for measuring academic entitlement of Turkish
 university students.

Academic entitlement and its relationship with perception of cheating ethics

ABSTRACTCheating is an epidemic in higher education. The author examined the psychological variable of academic entitlement and its relationship with the ethical perception of cheating using a sample of business students. Contrary to some previous research, the author found that millennials were only slightly more academically entitled than students from other generations but overall had a low sense of entitlement. Highly entitled business students viewed cheating actions as less unethical compared with less entitled students.

College instruction is not so stress free after all: A qualitative and quantitative study of academic entitlement, uncivil behaviors, and instructor strain and burnout.

The vast majority of today's college students are millennials, who have traits of confidence, tolerance, but also of entitlement and narcissism (Twenge, 2006). Therefore, college instructors face a unique challenge: dealing with the requests from academically entitled students, who have unreasonable expectations of receiving academic success, regardless of performance (Chowning & Campbell, 2009). We conducted two studies to examine whether student academic entitlement would increase instructors' strain and burnout via uncivil behaviors. A qualitative inquiry asked 136 instructors with college-teaching experience to describe types of behaviors entitled students display, their responses to entitled students, and the influence of these interactions on instructors' well-being. Next, a quantitative study with data from 857 college students nested in 34 instructors tested a multilevel mediation model where students' academic entitlement was related to instructor-reported uncivil behaviors, which in turn related to instructors' strain and burnout. Both studies largely support our hypothesis that uncivil behaviors fully mediate the relationship between students' academic entitlement and instructors' strain and burnout. We recommend employing behavioral modification strategies to decrease uncivil behaviors (e.g., class rules regarding uncivil behaviors might be specified in the course syllabus and consistently enforced) because academic entitlement attitudes are largely stable beliefs and thus may be less amenable to modification.

Effects of Academic Entitlement on Conflict Management: Implications of a Consumer Culture for the Student–Teacher Relationship

This study examined a conflict management model in which students’ customer orientation toward education affected their sense of academic entitlement, which led to different conflict management preferences. Participants were 689 undergraduate students. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized model and results showed that: 1) students’ customer-orientation influenced their academic entitlement and conflict preferences; and 2) academically entitled students were more likely to engage in distributive bargaining and negotiate with their instructors for a compromise. The findings imply that mitigating student customer orientation and academic entitlement is critical to improving the student–teacher relationship.

Challenging the Assumption of a Western Phenomenon: Academic Entitlement in Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACTAcademic entitlement (AE) is increasingly associated with problematic behaviors and attitudes, including student incivility and endorsement of cheating. As research on this context-specific form of entitlement increases, no one has yet explored the rates of occurrence outside of North America. To investigate whether students at North American universities are alone in their endorsement of academically entitled beliefs and behaviors, we administered a bidimensional (entitled expectations and externalized responsibility) AE measure to university students in Saudi Arabia and the United States. Contrary to expectations, the Saudi Arabian students, particularly the women, reported on this measure higher levels of AE than the American students. However, in the Saudi sample, academic entitlement was associated with self-esteem and not with narcissism or independent self-construal. While these results challenge the assumptions that AE is an exclusive Western educational phenomenon, they also raise questions about the potentially different meaning of AE in non-Western cultures and the validity and reliability of AE measurement.

College Students' Academic Beliefs and Their Motives for Communicating With Their Instructor

Academic entitlement, a term used to reflect students' expectation for success regardless of personal effort, has become a growing issue at many universities. This study examined the relationship between college students' academic beliefs (i.e., academic entitlement, grade orientation, learner orientation, self-efficacy) and their motives for communicating with their instructor. Participants were 184 undergraduate students who completed a series of self-report scales. Students' level of academic entitlement was positively related to their grade orientation but negatively related to their self-efficacy. Results of a canonical correlation revealed that students who were learning oriented, but not grade oriented, and possessed self-efficacy communicated with their instructor for relational and participatory reasons. Students who were academically entitled and grade oriented communicated with their instructor for sycophantic reasons and to a lesser extent for participatory reasons but not for functional reasons.

Academic Entitlement and Academic Performance in Graduating Pharmacy Students

To determine a measurable definition of academic entitlement, measure academic entitlement in graduating doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students, and compare the academic performance between students identified as more or less academically entitled. Graduating students at a private health sciences institution were asked to complete an electronic survey instrument that included demographic data, academic performance, and 2 validated academic entitlement instruments. One hundred forty-one of 243 students completed the survey instrument. Fourteen (10%) students scored greater than the median total points possible on 1 or both of the academic entitlement instruments and were categorized as more academically entitled. Less academically entitled students required fewer reassessments and less remediation than more academically entitled students. The highest scoring academic entitlement items related to student perception of what professors should do for them. Graduating pharmacy students with lower levels of academic entitlement were more academically successful than more academically entitled students. Moving from an expert opinion approach to evidence-based decision-making in the area of academic entitlement will allow pharmacy educators to identify interventions that will decrease academic entitlement and increase academic success in pharmacy students.

Instructional Dissent as an Expression of Students' Academic Orientations and Beliefs about Education

This purpose of this study was to examine how students' academic orientations toward learning and general beliefs about education (i.e., academic entitlement, learning orientation, grade orientation, academic locus of control, academic self-efficacy) predict the use of instructional dissent (i.e., expressive dissent, rhetorical dissent, vengeful dissent) in a college class. Participants were 222 students who reported on their perceived academic orientations and educational beliefs in tandem with their dissent behavior in a current college class. Results of a canonical correlation revealed that (a) when students were academically entitled, grade orientated, and lacked academic self-efficacy, they communicated more expressive and vengeful dissent, but (b) when students were learning oriented, they communicated more rhetorical dissent.

Academic Entitlement in Pharmacy Education

The constructs of academic entitlement and student consumerism refer to students' attitudes toward education as a commodity and the underlying belief that as consumers, they should be catered to and given the opportunity to participate in the education process according to their preferences. Most discussions regarding these attitudes are anecdotal, but the pervasiveness of these accounts and the troubling effects that ensue warrant attention. Grade inflation, student incivility, altered classroom practices, and decreased faculty morale are all potential aftereffects of teaching students who hold academic entitlement beliefs. Numerous factors are posited as attributing to academic entitlement including personal issues, societal pressures, and broad academic practices. This paper discusses these factors and offers faculty members and administrators recommendations regarding practices that may curb or alleviate issues associated with academically entitled students.

Self-Entitled College Students: Contributions of Personality, Parenting, and Motivational Factors

Anecdotal evidence suggests an increase in entitled attitudes and behaviors of youth in school and college settings. Using a newly developed scale to assess ''academic entitlement'' (AE), a construct that includes expectations of high grades for modest effort and demanding attitudes towards teachers, this research is the first to investigate the phenomenon systematically. In two separate samples of ethnically diverse college students comprised largely of East and Southeast Asian American, followed by Caucasians, Latinos, and other groups (total N = 839, age range 18-25 years), we examined the per- sonality, parenting, and motivational correlates of AE. AE was most strongly related to exploitive attitudes towards others and moderately related to an overall sense of enti- tlement and to narcissism. Students who reported more academically entitled attitudes perceived their parents as exerting achievement pressure marked by social compari- son with other youth and materially rewarding good grades, scored higher than their peers in achievement anxiety and extrinsic motivation, and engaged in more academic dis- honesty. AE was not significantly associated with GPA.