The increasingly neoliberal course of Higher Education is linked to rises in student anxiety around assessment and increased fear of the consequences of failure. Making mistakes is an inevitable part of any learning process (and of life generally) and managing failure in a productive and positive way is crucial for success and wellbeing beyond…

Academic failure is commonplace in higher education. Some students persist and go on to complete their courses. However, some do not, and this can create problems for themselves and the institutions in which they are enrolled. If we could understand students' lived experiences of academic failure and persistence, it may be possible to design…

Within his classroom, the author is often confronted by students who fail to see, or accept, the relevance of mathematics both to their lives and the world around them. One topic which is regularly perceived as being disconnected from people's daily lives is that of circle theorems, especially among less motivated students. In this article, the…

The motivational effects of failure were investigated. Students worked perceptual judgment problems, receiving varying levels of failure feedback on their work on unsolvable problems. Subjects assessed their success or failure at the task. Those who believed they had failed scored higher on a subsequent set of similar, but solvable, problems.…

Governing boards should ask seven questions when a plan fails: where did the plan break down? who was responsible for the plan? were adequate resources available? were goals clear and specific? was the solution appropriate and adequate? were barriers allowed to derail the plan? were key players involved in planning? (MSE)

Researchers have suggested two models of risk preference to account for subjects' preference for tasks of moderate difficulty. The affective model proposes that pride of success and shame of failure are responsible for the observed preference. The cognitive model suggests preference for tasks of moderate difficulty because they are the most…

Examines student success in a freshman chemistry course that involves students who are at risk of failure. (Contains 14 references.) (YDS)

Problem-solving performance and goal-setting behavior were investigated in 156 undergraduates who, on Mehrabian's Achievement Scales, demonstrated either the motive to approach success or the motive to avoid failure. Different expectations of success or failure were induced by fictitious preperformance information. The degree of success or failure…

Describes a survey of 20 distinguished clinical medical teachers concerning episodes of instructional failure that subsequently led to improvement in teaching. Identifies eight common failure types associated with each phase of teaching (planning, teaching, reflection) and respondents' suggestions for improvement for each. Notes that the…

Performance and persistence on the Concealed Figures Test and the Embedded Figures Test decreased: (1) after short-duration failure when subjects were falsely led to attribute failure to task difficulty; and (2) after long-duration failure when subjects were falsely led to attribute failure to lack of ability. (CP)