Essay Example on Honors vs Regular Students: Engagement & Self-Handicapping.

Buckner et al. in their article "honors and non-honors student engagement" discuss the mental heuristics of studying and grades received by honor and regular student cohorts. The authors use theoretical concepts to discuss the relationship of honor students and regular students within the large south Alabama University (Buckner et al., 2016). The primary variables used in the study comprised of mastery and performance goal constructs, student perception on engagement, and self-handicapping. Also, research studies are used to demonstrate the importance of the strategic significance of the honor program. In the exercise, self-handicapping was also used as a learning characteristic to measure the success or failure of the student cohorts. Moreover, in student recruitment, surveys are done to target honor and regular students during and after class. A total of 87 students are selected to participate in the study (Buckner et al., 2016). However, to augment student motivation, incentives such as soft drinks, pizza, and gift cards are given. Attribution was then measured from the subscales of the motivated learning strategies used. The 87 students were selected from various departments and schools and significant effort was made to enroll student cohorts to respective distinctions. The results depicted that honor students perform better than regular students. Buckner et al. (2016) argued that the relationship between honor and regular students in terms of GPA was 3.65 vs 328; although it was not significant, it could indicate that honor students were again superior.

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Another empirical research by Brimeyer et al. (2014) explored the relationship between honor students and regular students and their mental shortcuts of studying and the grades they receive. In the research, the author uses quantitative survey data to discuss the background characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors of honors and regular students. They argue that honor students are responsible and responsive, and this makes them have higher GPAs as compared to regular students (Brimeyer et al., 2014). However, according to the study test scores, honor programs are biased in that they tend to select students based on a racial and ethnic basis. In the literature review, the author focuses on entry programs to compare the mental heuristics of performance and grades earned. Students who are enrolled in honor programs have a privilege to access good education materials and practices as compared to regular students and this makes them perform slightly better. The method that was used in this study is an online survey in which 408 students were involved in the study. The overall GPA was 4.20 for honor students and 3.72 for regular students (Brimeyer et al., 2014). Honor students seem to be more concerned about their learning that regular students despite the presence of other factors such as racial differences, background, or privileges.

Scager et al. (2012) explored the difference in mental heuristics of studying and grades received between honor and regular students. A questionnaire is used to access student characteristics, for instance, desire to learn, the drive to excel, intelligence, openness to experience, creative thinking among others. In the study, more than1, 122 students are involved; 467 honors and 655 regular students (Scager et al., 2012). All the participants were undergraduate students from different departments. They were included in the study to keep the sample broad. They are supposed to complete a paper and pencil sample questionnaire, which took approximately 20 minutes. A multivariate analysis was done and the correlated scales were factor analyzed. Results showed that the desire for learning between honor and regular students was 5.8 vs 5.2 scores (Scager et al., 2012). Among other factors, the profiles of these differences were exhibited throughout the entire program. Honor students were more eager to learn and they received higher grades as compared to regular students.

Conclusion

In an article authored by Testa in 2010, much has been discussed about the perception of teachers and students about the middle honors programs. In the same parallel, much has been discussed about the mental heuristics of studying and grades received by honor and regular students. However, the focus will be on the mental shortcuts about academic success for honor and regular students. The methodologies that were used in the sample survey comprise of surveys, t-tests, descriptive statistics, and qualitative questions. Closed and open-ended survey questions were used due to lack of testing instruments and the expected percentage between the two groups would fall from 19.7 to 18.3 respectively (Testa, 2010). Further, thematic coding was used to analyze data and still, statistics could depict the differences between the cohorts. In survey research of 1, 709 freshman students, the differences were explicit in that honor students scored a higher GPA as compared to regular students. Similarly, there were noticeable differences in terms of response to the grade point average. The average for honor students amounted to 87% whilst that of regular students was 62% (Testa, 2010). From the results, honor students were responsible and responsive in class, and they rated themselves as students with higher intellectual and self-confidence. On the other hand, regular students rated themselves as uncooperative and with low social and self-confidence.

References

Brimeyer, T. M., Schueths, A. M., & Smith, W. L. (2014). Who Benefits from Honors: An Empirical Analysis of Honors and Non-Honors Students' Backgrounds, Academic Attitudes, and Behaviors? https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1419&context=nchcjournal

Buckner, E., Shores, M., Sloane, M., Dantzler, J., Shields, C., Shader, K., & Newcomer, B. (2016). Honors and Non-Honors Student Engagement: A model of Student, Curricular, and Institutional Characteristics. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1508&context=nchcjournal

Seager, K., Akkerman, S. F., Keesen, F., Mainhard, M. T., Pilot, A., & Wubbels, T. (2012). Do Honors Students have More Potential for Excellence in their Professional Lives? Higher Education, 64(1), 19-39. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10734-011-9478-z.pdf

Testa, S. (2010). Perceptions of Teachers and Students Regarding the Middle School Honors Program. Current Issues in Education, 13(2). http://cie.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/cieatasu/article/download/308/119