Failure Syndrome Students (continued)

Attribution Retraining 

This strategy involves bringing about changes in students' tendencies to attribute failure to lack of ability rather than to a remediable cause, such as insufficient effort or use of an inappropriate strategy. Typically, attribution retraining involves exposing students to a planned series of experiences, couched within an achievement context, in which modeling, socialization, practice, and feedback are used to teach them to (1) concentrate on the task at hand rather than worry about failing, (2) cope with failures by retracing their steps to find their mistake or by analyzing the problem to find another approach, and (3) attribute their failures to insufficient effort, lack of information, or use of ineffective strategies rather than to lack of ability. 

Efficacy Training

These programs also involve exposing students to a planned set of experiences within an achievement context and providing them with modeling, instruction, and feedback. However, while attribution retraining programs were developed specifically for learned helplessness students and thus focus on teaching constructive response to failure, efficacy training programs were developed primarily for low achievers who have become accustomed to failure and have developed generalized low self-concepts of ability. Consequently, efficacy training helps students set realistic goals and pursue them with the recognition that they have the ability needed to reach those goals if they apply reasonable effort. 

Strategy Training

In this approach, modeling and instruction are used to teach problem-solving strategies and related self-talk that students need to handle tasks successfully. Strategy training is a component of good cognitive skills instruction to all students; it is not primarily a remedial technique. However, it is especially important for use with frustrated students who have not developed effective learning and problem-solving strategies on their own, but who can learn them through modeling and explicit instruction. 

Ames (1987) noted that these cognitive retraining approaches do not take into account the social aspects of the classroom and the reward structures in effect there. Citing findings that an emphasis on competition and social comparison will increase performance anxiety, Ames recommended emphasizing private rather than public feedback, phrasing such feedback in terms of progress beyond the individual's own previous levels rather than comparisons with classmates, and avoiding such practices as publicly grading on a curve or posting students' achievement scores. 

How can Teachers Help?

Brophy (1995) found that teachers were unusually confident about their ability to intervene successfully with failure syndrome students. They tended to mention similar response strategies regardless of grade level, location, or effectiveness ratings. A few spoke of providing support and encouragement to such students without making any demands on them; others spoke of making demands without providing special support or assistance; but most suggested a combination of support, encouragement, and task assistance to shape gradual improvement in work habits.