Who Feels Comfortable Saying "I'm Confused" in College?

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 1:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Equity-Focused Constructs and Contexts in Motivation Research (Table 14)

Abstract

What psychological factors encourage or discourage students from revealing what they do not understand in classrooms? The current study takes a qualitative approach to studying how negative stereotypes and belonging uncertainty shape undergraduates’ willingness to reveal ignorance and confusion in order to learn. In a thematic analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews, students described many ways that belonging uncertainty and negative stereotypes related to gender, race, and ethnicity, dampened their willingness to disclose their questions and confusion. This study contributes to the research literature on belonging and stereotypes by centering students’ voices in the analyses, and by linking these psychological processes to a novel learning behavior, that is, willingness to reveal what one does not know.

Authors

• Allison Southworth, Ball State University

• Tenelle Porter, Rowan University