Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

We investigated optimistic grade expectations among 258 college students from 2 contrasting perspectives: optimism as uninformed wishfulness and as an informed aspirational judgment. Results revealed considerable grade optimism; most students (70%) overestimated an average of 1 full grade. Grade expectations moderately predicted final grade but not course effort after adjusting for cumulative grade point average (GPA). Grade optimism and predictive accuracy differed as a function of GPA. For most students (upper two thirds on GPA), grade expectations accurately predicted performance, suggesting a mixture of self-knowledge and realistic aspirations, or informed optimism. For less accomplished students, grade optimism may be more uninformed wishfulness, the solution to which may be student skill improvement.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Armor

D. A.

Taylor

S. E.

(1998). Situated optimism: Specific outcome expectancies and self-regulation. In Zanna

M. P.

(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 30, pp. 309–379). New York: Academic.

Balch

W. R.

(1992). Effect of class standing on students' predictions of their final exam scores. Teaching of Psychology, 19, 136–141.

Buehler

Griffin

Ross

(1994). Exploring the “planning fallacy”: Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 366–381.

Jourard

S. M.

Landsman

(1980). Healthy personality: An approach from the viewpoint of humanistic psychology (4th ed.). New York: Macmillan.

Kruger

Dunning

(1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1121–1134.

Lange

Byrd

(2002). Differences between students' estimated and attained grades in a first-year introductory psychology course as a function of identity development. Adolescence, 37, 93–108.

Moncur

(2005). The quotations page. Retrieved March 9, 2005, from http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Henry_Ford/.

Prohaska

(1994). “I know I'll get an A”: Confident overestimation of final course grades. Teaching of Psychology, 21, 141–143.

Remedios

Lieberman

D. A.

Benton

T. G.

(2000). The effects of grades on course enjoyment: Did you get the grade you wanted? British Journal of Educational Psychology, 70, 353–368.

10.

Rosenthal

Rubin

D. B.

(1982). A simple, general purpose display of magnitude of experimental effect. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 166–169.

11.

Schneider

S. L.

(2001). In search of realistic optimism: Meaning, knowledge, and warm fuzziness. American Psychologist, 56, 250–263.

12.

Shepperd

J. A.

Ouellette

J. A.

Fernandez

J. K.

(1996). Abandoning unrealistic optimism: Performance estimates and the temporal proximity of self-relevant feedback. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 844–855.

13.

Wendorf

C. A.

(2002). Grade point averages and changes in (great) grade expectations. Teaching of Psychology, 29, 136–138.

Grade Expectations: Informed or Uninformed Optimism,or Both?

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References