Re: behaviorism and attendance

[RACEDON4100]

It is a given that if a human organism is expected to be controlled by the contingencies in effect, he/she must understand the contingencies and the relationship between their behavior and its consequences. I am not convinced that that is the case with many of my students.

Their behavioral history is such that whatever effort they made in elementary, middle, junior high and high school, they were passed along, or given last minute opportunities to raise their grade, regardless of attendance. Many perceive college as a glorified high school and act accordingly.

I offer the four big mysteries in academic life as data to support this hypothesis.

1- The kid with the 59% average who does not show up to take an optional final although they need only a 70% on it to pass the course. (Some have told me that they expected me to give them the point and pass them).

2- The kid who would need 250% on the final who does show up.

3- The senior who aims for the minimum grade of 60% to pass and misses it by 1-2 points thus not graduating.

4- I post grades on my office door. Every semester, a few come to me during the last week of class to ask me where the grades are posted indicating that they never looked before and have no idea what their test scores were up until this point.

No matter how detailed my syllabi are spelling out contingencies, they don't register, or are forgotten in 24 hours.

Another variable that I think is important is that the school tells them through the newspaper that we have a 93% placement rate among graduates (they never say they got jobs in their major). The students make that assumption, look around and see juniors and seniors dabbling in their education and assume that they too will be all right.

Rip Pisacreta ---
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