Perils and Promises of Undergraduate Research

1. Perils and Promises of Undergraduate Research C. W. Von Bergen Southeastern Oklahoma—Management & Marketing

2. 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

3. One Peril in Students… Inaccurate Self-Assessments Top Performers Incompetent Performers consistently overestimate their performance Do not learn from just feedback Feedback Teaching writing skills • consistently underestimate their performance • Learn from feedback

4. Who Said This… “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

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

6. 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, SE April 16, 2013

7. 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

8. Sydney Opera House—Example of the planning fallacy

9. Sydney Opera House-2

10. 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. 

11. 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.

12. One Peril: Overconfidence Bias • “Napoleon’s Tragic March Home from Moscow: Lessons in Hubris” • “I Thought I Got an A! OverconfidenceAcross the Economics Curriculum” • “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”

13. 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-viewsare objectively true.

14. 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

16. Never heard from the student.

17. 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 …

18. 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).