'My grade, my right: linking academic entitlement to academic performance' by Bianca Bert, Denise Andrzejewski, Lynda Hyland, Anita Shrivastava, Douglas Russell and Jakob Pietschnig in (2019)
Social Psychology of Education 1-19 argues
The identification of determinants and correlates of academic entitlement is of particular interest for researchers and (academic) tutors alike. Whilst personality traits have been linked to academic entitlement in the past, the relative importance of familial influence remains unclear. Hence, to address this deficit, this study utilizes a sample of business and psychology undergraduates (N = 170) in the United Arab Emirates. Additionally, the impact of academic entitlement on students’ misestimation of coursework grades was assessed in a subsample of psychology undergraduates (N = 92). Multiple regression analyses revealed honesty–humility as the strongest predictor of academic entitlement, indicating lower entitlement of more honest students. In contrast, familial influences were unrelated to academic entitlement. Interestingly, higher entitled expectations were associated with larger overestimation of grades. Our findings indicate honesty–humility as an important driver of academic entitlement, whilst entitled expectations appear to be associated with misperceptions of students own academic performance.
The authors comment
Higher education (HE) has experienced a notable landscape transformation over recent decades including changes in funding that force universities to compensate the waning capital through higher tuition fees. This, in turn, affects various characteristics of students entering tertiary education. The steady decline in HE funding, particularly in the UK (e.g., Greenaway and Haynes 2003), the US (e.g., Mitchell et al. 2016), or Australia (e.g., Kniest 2018), has resulted in staff redundancies in numerous universities and the opening of overseas branch campuses (Varghese 2013). Furthermore, the compensatory inflation of tuition fees increases exposure to commercial demands such as customer satisfaction, efficiency, and competitiveness (Bunze 2007; Lesnik-Oberstein 2015). This new direction in education inevitably pressures academic staff to develop ‘easier’ courses in the interest of better student feedback and higher satisfaction rates, which jeopardizes academic standards at large (Bunce et al. 2017; Emery et al. 2001). This encompasses a shift of powers between HE institutions and students—with the first increasingly resembling service-providers and the latter displaying diverse motivations and skills (Altbach et al. 2009; Biggs and Tang 2011) as well as consumeristic thinking and behaviours (Cain et al. 2012; Gokcen 2014; Tomlinson 2014). Intellectual engagement (Williams 2013) and active educational involvement (Finney and Finney 2010; Tomlinson 2014) are at risk in the presence of such consumer attitudes.
The student-as-consumer (SAC) approach has been found to create feelings of entitlement among university students (Delucchi and Korgen 2002; Finney and Finney 2010). With increasing participation in a changing higher education landscape, it seems important to gain a better understanding of the influencing factors and effects of academic entitlement in tertiary students. It has been suggested that academic entitlement (AE) influences students’ attitudes towards academic achievements. Students who report high levels of academic entitlement consider academic success their right, without taking responsibility for it (Boswell 2012; Chowning and Campbell 2009). This often results in various maladaptive behaviors that considerably impact academic outcomes. For example, students might voice dissatisfaction with their grades, using the argument that they pay to perform well (Bellah 1999), or they may consider their lecturers responsible for their poor results (Twenge and Campbell 2009). It has also been suggested that uncivil and disruptive behaviors (Kopp and Finney 2013; Taylor et al. 2015), dissent towards instructors (Frisby et al. 2015), and impaired learning and poorer student performance (Barton and Hirsch 2016) are other corollaries of entitled and consumerist attitudes in education. However, much remains to be understood in terms of the correlates and consequences associated with academic entitlement. Understanding these factors related to AE will consequently allow for the development of strategies to support students in taking more ownership over their academic progress which, in turn, can potentially correct the decline in intellectual engagement, and foster active learning.
In discussion they comment
The aim of this study was to examine associations between personality traits, family influence, and academic entitlement. Furthermore, we investigated the link between students’ academic entitlement and the misestimation of their grades. It should be noted, that due to our correlational design, causality cannot be inferred from our results. Only personality traits showed a significant influence on both entitled expectation and externalized responsibility. Our study revealed significant associations of family influence variables with academic entitlement which is consistent with past studies that emphasised the importance of parenting and career expectations when it comes to academic entitlement (e.g., Greenberger et al. 2008). However, these associations are not present when controlling for personality traits. Therefore, personality traits seem to be more important drivers of academic entitlement than family influence. These findings are not necessarily inconsistent with developmental perspectives, because parents are bound to influence the development of certain personality traits (Anaya and Pérez-Edgar 2019). There has been little research conducted in regard to direct associations between parenting and the Big 5, however, past research has identified direct links between parenting styles and children’s temperament (Kitamura et al. 2009) and older adolescents’ personality, specifically agreeableness, openness to experiences and neuroticism (Weiss and Schwarz 1996). However, more research comparatively has been done on the effect of parenting style on academic traits, including self-regulation (Abar et al. 2009), grit (Howard et al. 2019) and academic engagement (Waterman and Lefkowitz 2017). To the best of our knowledge, there is no previous research using the HEXACO framework. Hence, further research is warranted to look at if, and how, the personality traits assessed by the HEXACO can influence the relation between parenting and academic entitlement.
Out of the HEXACO personality domains, only honesty–humility negatively predicted both entitled expectations and externalized responsibility in our study. This may mean that more honest individuals feel greater responsibility for their own education. Students possibly create an internal representation of their efforts which could reduce their entitled expectations. In contrast to previous findings (Bonaccio et al. 2016; Chowning and Campbell 2009), we did not observe meaningful relationships between agreeableness and academic entitlement. Importantly, both agreeableness and honesty–humility are considered to reflect altruistic traits, though they seem to represent distinct constructs. For example, individuals that are high in honesty–humility were less likely to exploit others, whereas agreeableness does not preclude willingness to work with exploitative individuals (Ashton et al. 2014). Consequently, it seems likely that honesty–humility is more important in relation to less entitled attitudes in academic settings. In a similar vein, honesty–humility has been shown to be more strongly associated with narcissistic entitlement than agreeableness (e.g., Gaughan et al. 2012; Lee and Ashton 2005). These findings are in line with our observations in relation to academic entitlement.
Beyond honesty–humility and agreeableness, other personality traits significantly contributed to the explained variance in academic entitlement, although effect sizes for these were smaller and the patterns were less consistent. Extraversion negatively predicted externalized responsibility but was not associated with entitled expectations. These results are consistent with findings of Chowning and Campbell (2009) who observed significant associations between extraversion and entitlement, but contrast with others who did not identify such a link (Ackerman et al. 2010; Pryor et al. 2008). As per the HEXACO definition of extraversion, people scoring high on this trait possess more social self-esteem, are more sociable and are livelier (Ashton and Lee 2009), leading to increased social skills and social responsibility. It has been established that enhanced social responsibility leads to more positive learning experiences in school settings and to more responsibility towards one’s own academic achievements (Wentzel 1991). Hence, increased extraversion in a Higher Education setting, with a tendency to heightened social skills, could result in less externalized responsibility that would be otherwise placed on instructors. Furthermore, extraversion has been linked to prosocial behavior and value motives which could also explain these findings (Carlo et al. 2005).
The positive significant association of emotionality with entitled expectations is in line with previous research on personality and narcissistic entitlement (Ackerman et al. 2010). Therefore, the current study’s findings suggest that emotionally less stable students may be characterized by higher academic entitlement, which could be a result of greater anxiety and dependence on faculty. Students might shift the responsibility onto faculty as a means to decrease anxiety related to their own failures (i.e., in the sense of external attribution).
When considering the implications of high academic entitlement for estimated grade outcomes, only entitled expectations seemed to have an influence on overestimations of exam/essay (but not lab report) grades, whereas externalized responsibility did not. Even when controlling for personality traits, this influence remained robust, indicating a substantial influence of expectations on self-perceived academic performance. Because essays and exams have fewer guidelines than lab reports, this might cause more uncertainty in terms of the prospective outcome for the students. Therefore, to reduce uncertainty, students might blame lower than expected grade outcomes on the faculty member, or other external causes. Particularly in a private university setting, where students pay for their education, it might be more intuitive for students to hold university staff responsible for their failures. This could be interpreted as a coping mechanism to protect students’ self-esteem, which may be a function of external attribution mechanisms (Patel et al. 2015).
Considering the above findings, it appears that academic entitlement is, to some extent, driven by certain personality traits. Since personality traits are comparatively stable across the lifespan, some entitled attitudes might persist, even if interventions that are tailored to reduce academic entitlement are introduced. However, based on the observation that honesty–humility is the strongest predictor of academic entitlement, activities supporting kind, modest, and generous behaviors, such as volunteer work, could possibly reduce entitlement. This may be a worthwhile avenue of investigation in future research.
Some implications for faculty should be considered in this vein. Our results indicate that academic entitlement might not manifest itself in an identical manner across different assignments. Assignments which increase feelings of uncertainty due to a relative lack of structure might warrant students to rely on entitled attitudes to decrease anxiety. Hence, academic entitlement seems to also possess situational components. Communicating realistic expectations towards the work that needs to be involved in different types of assignments might decrease feelings of uncertainty in students.
