Low Perceptions Of Control Research Articles

Students' Perceptions of Control and Success in the College Classroom: Affects and Achievement in Different Instructional Conditions

Abstract Cognitive and educational researchers are paying increasing attention to the impact of instruction in the college classroom. Recent research has demonstrated that students' manipulated perceptions of control and success can impede or enhance the benefits of one effective teaching behavior, namely, instructor expressiveness. In this study, students' actual perceptions of control and success were assessed, rather than manipulated. In a simulated college classroom, students were classified into perceived control (low, high) and perceived success (low, high) categories based on their perceptions of control and success over their prelecture test performance. Students were presented with either unexpressive or expressive instruction; then they completed a postlecture achievement test and postachievement questionnaire. Under both instruction conditions, high-control/high-success students demonstrated the best achievement results, whereas, inconsistent with the hypotheses, students with low perceptions of control and high perceptions of success demonstrated the poorest academic performance and unique affects. These results are discussed in relation to the significance of individual differences across teaching conditions.

Reactions to Interpersonal Evaluative Feedback1

Self‐enhancement approaches to self‐concept provide a perspective for identifying motivational factors likely to be affected by interpersonal evaluative feedback. The main hypothesies were that in contrast to positive feedback, negative feedback would lead to higher self‐esteem, lower perceptions of task importance, and lower perceptions of control over an evaluator's reactions. Students received a lesson on solving analogies from a teacher (confederate), and then took a test on analogies. After reviewing the student's test, the teacher conveyed either positive feedback, negative feedback, or no feedback. Consistent with a self‐enhancement perspective, recipients of negative feedback increased their global self‐esteem, placed less importance on succeeding at the task, and felt less control over the teachers' reactions. Implications for understanding the role of interpersonal evaluative feedback in motivation and self‐esteem, and self‐enhancing responses to threats more generally are discussed.

Psychosocial adjustment following a stroke.

A stroke can be a serious and debilitating health problem. The present study examined the effect of the severity of the stroke, patients' cognitive adaptation to their situation, the relationship with the caregiver and caregivers' adaptation on patient depression and motivation in outpatient therapy. Forty poststroke patients and their primary caregivers (usually a spouse) were interviewed an average of 9 months poststroke. Three independent predictors of depression were identified: a lack of meaningfulness in life, overprotection by the caregiver, and a less recent stroke. Motivation was independently related to less overprotection and lower perceptions of control over recovery. It was found that psychosocial factors predicted depression and motivation even when the effects of severity and site of the stroke were controlled for. The implications of cognitive adaptation and social support ideas for coping with a stroke are discussed.