Presentation at 2019 D2L Connection at Normandale CC on April 5, 2019 Keynote Follow-up: 7 Psychological Keys to Student Success - Troy Dvorak, Minneapolis College

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Psychological Keys to
Student Success Troy Dvorak
Psychology Instructor
•“Great teachers keep learners focused on the
process, not the results. Focus on the process
will lead to mastery, growth, and ultimately,
better performance.”
• Barber, N. (2014, October). Focus on the process and results will follow. Retrieved from
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/focus-process-results-will-follow-nathan-barber
The Psychological Keys to Student Success

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Beliefs & Mindset
Attributions
Achievement Goals & Interest
Self-efficacy
Metacognition
Self-regulated Learning
Overcoming Thinking Errors
The Psychological Keys to Student Success
#1 BELIEFS & MINDSET
• Are you intelligent?
• Are there classes you “suck at?”
• What are examples of “easy” classes?
• How many hours should you study each week/class?
• What is the purpose of college?

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#1 BELIEFS & MINDSET
• Fixed Mindset
• You “have it” OR you don’t
• Success OR failure
• Smart OR stupid
• Good OR bad
• Right OR wrong
• 1 OR 0
• Growth Mindset
• You can improve (or decline)
• Develop skills
• Focus on learning
• Difficulties = try harder
• Emphasize effort
• Learn from mistakes
• ADVICE:
• Treat everything in college like it
is a skill
#2 ATTRIBUTIONS
• An attributions is your explanation for why something happens.
• Unhelpful attributions are usually uncontrollable and unchangeable
• E.g., I’m stupid; The test was impossible; Life isn’t fair
• Go together with a FIXED mindset
• Helpful attributions are controllable and changeable
• E.g., I need to study more; I’m going to learn better time management skills
• Go together with a GROWTH mindset

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#3 ACHIEVEMENT GOALS & INTEREST
• Achievement goals are a kind
of belief
• Help you focus on things you
want to accomplish
• Help you “visualize” the goal in
your mind
• Help motivate you
• “Mastery” – when you want
to learn, improve, and
develop skills
• Appreciate the learning process
and learn from mistakes
• “Performance” – when you
want to get a high grade,
prove your ability/knowledge
to others, and avoid bad
outcomes
• More likely to fear failure,
rejection, and evaluation
Growth Mindset – Treat everything in
college like it is a skill!
#4 SELF-EFFICACY
• Self-efficacy is the confidence
you have in your ability to
accomplish something.
• Four sources of efficacy
• Success experiences
• Vicarious experiences
• Encouragement
• Emotional arousal
• Ways to increase efficacy:
• Attend classes
• Do a lot of practice (develop skill)
• Learn better studying strategies
• Over-study
• Talk to other students about
studying techniques
• Write down examples in class
• Find a mentor
• Go to the Learning Center
• Watch how your profs solve problems
• Go to office hours

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#4 SELF-EFFICACY
• There is a potential downside - sometimes students overestimate
their skills and knowledge.
• Studies have shown:
• College students who felt 100% confident in their answers were correct
only 80% of the time. Fischhoff, Slovic, & Lichtenstein (1977).
• Students who performed worst on an exam overestimated their
performance by approximately 30%. That’s three letter grades! Dunning, Johnson,
Ehrlinger, & Kruger (2003).
#5 METACOGNITION
• Metacognition is an awareness of your own thinking and what you
do to monitor and control your thinking.
• Example…reading the text
• Metacognitive experiences
• Feeling of difficulty
• Feeling of familiarity

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#6 SELF-REGULATED LEARNING
• How do you control your motivation?
• How do you manage your time?
• How do you manage your studying environment?
• How do you plan studying sessions?
• How frequently do you talk to your instructors and get feedback?
• Office hours
• How do you monitor and control your effort and concentration?
“Cut back on the volume of assignments and
increase your feedback on those you grade
and you will double the rate of learning.”
• John Almarode, James Madison University
• Source: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/47102/how-to-ensure-students-are-actively-engaged-and-not-just-
compliant
The Psychological Keys to Student Success

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#6 SELF-REGULATED LEARNING
• 67 university students (who had not
eaten in three hours)
• In a room with freshly baked chocolate
chip cookies & a bowl of radishes.
• Some told to eat two or three of the
cookies but not the radishes.
• Others told to eat two or three of the
radishes but none of the cookies
• (they struggled but managed to resist).
• 5 minutes
• Then the experimenters gave all
students problems to solve.
• The students did not know the problems
were impossible.
• RESULTS
• Students allowed to eat cookies
• Persisted for average of 18 minutes.
• Students who had resisted eating the
cookies
• Gave up after 8 minutes (on average).
• Using their “willpower” to resist the
cookies tired them out.
Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, (1998).
#7 AVOIDING THINKING ERRORS
• Three examples of common thinking errors many students don’t
know about.
1. Perceptual fluency – When studying, do not be fooled. Just because the
material feels familiar does not mean you know it. Familiarity is not the
same as knowing (always self-test).
2. Hindsight Bias – Finding out the correct answer after you have gotten it
wrong and feeling like you knew it all along is a major headfake! If you
knew it, you’d have gotten it right in the first place.
3. Dunning-Kruger effect – When we lack competence, we make mistakes and
don’t realize it. That also renders us unable to accurately rate our own
performance or that of anyone else. Stay curious. Stay humble. Understand
that there’s always something more to know.