Rebecca D. Cox

Teachers' lack of understanding of students' assumptions and motivations exponentially magnified the difficulty of teaching. When instructors recognized the reasons for students' lackluster performance--whether in class or on assignments--they were much more likely to be able to shape students' beliefs and behavior. Indeed, by virtue of their professional authority, instructors exerted tremendous influence over students' sense of competence and willingness to seek assistance with coursework. Virtually across the board, an instructor's efforts to assuage students' fears functioned as an active invitation to take part in the class and marked the first step toward fostering the perception on the part of students that the coursework they were being asked to accomplish was challenging but "doable." In this way, the most promising pedagogical approach accomplished three crucial goals: it (a) demonstrated the instructor's competence in the field of student; (b) clarified both the instructor's expectations for student performance and the procedures for accomplishing the work; and (c) persuaded students that they were more than capable of succeeding. Achieving these results required that instructors be very clear and consistent in their messages to students and actively respond to students' conceptions of the course goals, instructional activities, and learning strategies. (163; my emphasis)