Taxonomy of faculty assumptions about students

If you are part of a faculty meeting, a committee, or a learning community of instructors, you will sooner or later hear the same conversation - the conversation that begins with complaints about students. The attributions about lack of engagement, focus on grades, or the entitlement of this generation are common, and though typically unexamined such complaints are not completely ungrounded. This narrative creates a community around a shared “problem.” This camaraderie is natural, but what are the consequences? Beyond whether such statements are “true,” we believe these assumptions about students are affecting student learning. There is a phenomenon in education known as “self-fulfilling prophesy” where what we believe about students becomes manifest in part because instructors behave in ways that bring about what the instructor initially expects. As a first step in exploring these assumptions, 150 participants in a Teaching Professor Conference in May 2014, generated a list of assumptions they held about students. These assumptions were categorized into four dimensions: Motivation, Behavior, Preparation, and Systems with each dimension having a continuum. This paper describes the taxonomy and references theories to support the organization. The paper will give examples of the assumptions and discuss the next steps to validate the ideas.