Perils and Promises of Undergraduate Research

C. W. Von BergenSoutheastern Oklahoma—Management & Marketing

My Research (my writing) …

• Applied (business and psychology)• Prescriptive • Often counterintuitive/countercultural – The Happy End Effect: Colonoscopies

Provide Clues on Enhancing Marketing Training– Unintended Negative Effects of Diversity Management– Your Best Ain’t Good Enough– Too Much Positive Thinking Hinders Entrepreneur

Success

One Peril in Students… Inaccurate Self-Assessments

Top Performers

• consistently underestimate their performance

• Learn from feedback

Incompetent Performers

• consistently overestimate their performance

• Do not learn from just feedback– Feedback– Teaching writing skills

Who Said This…

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the

wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

The Bible addresses this topic by coming at it from the angle of pride

SE Students

“We have several years of assessment data suggesting that students come to us by and large underprepared for college and throughthe education that we offer they are competitive college graduates when they leave.”

—Doug McMillan, VPAA, SEApril 16, 2013

One Peril: Overconfidence Bias“No problem in judgment and decision making is more prevalent

and more potentially catastrophic than overconfidence”

• 42% of engineers at one company thought their work ranked in the top 5% among their peers

• 94% of college professors thought they do “above average” work

• 90% of US adults expected to go to heaven yet researchers found that only 86% thought Mother Theresa was in heaven

• The Sydney (Australia) Opera House was initially estimated to be completed in 1963 for $7M but was completed in 1973 for $102

Sydney Opera House—Example of the planning fallacy

Sydney Opera House-2

The Planning Fallacy and Students

Buehler et. al. (1995) asked their students for estimates of when they (the students) thought they would complete their personal academic projects. Specifically, the researchers asked for estimated times by which the students thought it was 50%, 75%, and 99% probable their personal projects would be done.

How many students finished on or before their estimated 50%, 75%, and

99% probability levels?

• 13% of subjects finished their project by the time they had assigned a 50% probability level;

• 19% finished by the time assigned a 75% probability level;

• and only 45% (less than half!) finished by the time of their 99% probability level.

One Peril: Overconfidence Bias

• “Napoleon’s Tragic March Home from Moscow: Lessons in Hubris”

• “I Thought I Got an A! Overconfidence Across the Economics Curriculum”

• “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”

Pervasive Misperception

Individuals rate themselves as ‘better than average’ on a wide range of traits and abilities. Most people also claim that their overly positive self-views

are objectively true.

Student Wrote …

“Mail me my paper please..I have never made less than a A on ANY paper I have ever written and would love to read you explinations for my grade!” – . – an A– your– explanations

Never heard from the student.

Why Students Have Not Learned?

• People seldom receive negative feedback about their skills and abilities from others in everyday life– “If you can’t say something good then don’t say anything

at all.”

• Even if people receive feedback that points to a lack of skill, they may attribute it to some other factor– Dr. Von is a %^$^#&*^&$##*!@#$%^&*– I could have really done it really well if I had tried but …

For Many Areas of Life

‘‘In preparing for challenging endeavors, some self-doubt about one’s performance efficacy provides incentives to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to master the challenges’’ (Bandura & Locke, 2003).