burning desire to do something Essay
Answers
The turning point of my life came the following year. The Malaysian education system required all 10th grade students to choose either the Pure Science stream, the Sub-Science stream or the Art stream. The Science Stream was more desirable for smart students. As an average student, I did not think that I would be able to cope with the smarter students in the Science stream. So, I opted for Sub-Science.
On the first midterm exam, I managed to come out as top student in class. I have never achieved anything like that before. From that day onwards, I studied day and night to maintain my grades. Studying took top priority in my to-do-list. I would read and reread my textbooks at least three times before I sat for a test. The dining table at home was piled up with my text and exercise books. Soon, everyone started eating in front of the TV because there was no room on the dining table. All my effort paid off when my grades improved from B’s and C’s to A’s. Teachers started noticing me and they praised me for my achievements. The desire to receive A’s pushed me to study harder and harder. I was addicted. By the end of my high school days, I was the top Accounting student in school.
I choose to explore this educational experience of my life because I want to know what made me change from a student who cared less about the future to a student who takes education so seriously. I want to find out what made me chose Sub-Science while everyone else chose Pure Science and how this decision affected my studies.
The first psychological concept that was evident in this educational experience was self-concept. Specifically, how past experiences develop academic self-concept which then influences the selection of coursework. Self-concept is defined as the overall idea of what we think of ourselves; it is a cognitive structure. This includes our beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, feelings, and expectations. It is not constant and could change from one phase of life to another. Through self-evaluations, comparisons, and past experiences on assignments and exams, students develop their self-concept. In 2008, Herbert Marsh conducted an experiment to study how different classroom environments (average vs. high-achieving) affected students’ academic self-concept (Woolfolk 2011). He found that students in a class of equal ability showed a decline in their academic self-concept. On the other hand, students who are strong in Math in an average class developed better self-concept compared to when they were in a class of equal ability. A student in an average class has a higher chance of doing well on tests, assuming that this student is good at Math, for example. Conversely, when the same student is placed in a smarter class or even in a class of equal ability, he may feel intimidated by the other higher achieving students. His work maybe the same and not “outstanding” compared to the other students’ work. This feeling of intimidation may interfere with the student’s ability to perform well on tests. It is easy to see how this situation could affect a student’s academic self-concept.
Students select their courses based on their academic self-concept. An experiment conducted by Herbert Marsh and Alexander Yeung in 1997 studied how students selected their courses and the results were that the students selected their courses based on their subject-specific self-concept. Students who had higher math self-concept took more math classes and the same goes for science classes (Woolfolk 2011). A student who finds it hard to understand a subject’s material may obtain lower test scores. This student’s self-concept in this subject may decrease if the problem persists. Consequently, according to Marsh and Yeung, this student will not take classes that are related to the subjects that he/she have a poor self-concept in.
In my educational experience, I chose not to take biology because I always did poorly in science compared to the rest of the class; I felt that I was not capable of it. My failures to do well in previous exams decreased my academic self-concept in biology. Therefore, my self-concept in biology affected my choice of choosing Sub-Science. Until now, I have never taken any classes in biology because of my preexisting self-concept in the subject.
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