Promoting Self-Efficacy in students with ADHD
More and more students are presenting with ADHD (stats). This increase has caused some controversy in the field and attracted a lot of negative media attention. UAL has embraced this increase and, leaning even more into the social model of disability, now offers support to students without a full diagnosis. Due to long waiting times for assessment and diagnoses, students were missing out on support.
There has long been an argument that ADHD is under diagnosed especially for women and girls. Evidence suggests that girls are better at masking ADHD but this comes at quite a cost to their mental health.
ADHD is different for each person, but commonalities exist. Problems associated with executive functioning; planning, organising workload, time management, memory and problems with self- regulation.
Despite having average or above average intelligence there is a tendency to devalue their own achievements which causes high levels of frustration and stress related to academic work. This can contribute to a lack of self-esteem, low motivation and a gap in intelligence and achievement.
As a Specialist Study Skills tutor, I already offer strategies and techniques to improve executive functioning. However, I recently read a paper on how self-efficacy and self-esteem may be improved by employing a Positive Psychology approach, emphasizing traits such as optimism and perseverance, well-being, satisfaction and interpersonal skills (Costello & Stone, 2012, p. 119).
ADHD students usually have negative images of the ‘academic self’ due to historical failures with education and suggestions that their struggles are more to do with behaviour (lazy) as opposed to function. Low self-worth affects motivation.
So, if students can be encouraged to focus on their strengths, they might be more optimistic about their ADHD and study skills. I already promote these thought processes through metacognitive exercises but what I am proposing is using a more directed approach underpinned by positive psychology. Not counselling as I am not qualified to deliver that. Nor would the intervention ignore wider institutional and structural biases that impact on attainment. I need to do more research and discuss with my peers, but I believe I can come up with an appropriate model to carry out a pilot.
Positive Psychology and Self-Effi cacy: Potential Benefi ts for …
Hi Frances,
What an exceptional piece of writting!
You have such a clear grasp of the field you work in and your confidence and knowlwedge on the subject really comes across on your blog. Im not sure if I know what else to add or suggest…perhaps its worth expanding on the social model of disability or adding alink to futher information for those that need more clarity on what it means. I also noticed your harvard refenreces aren’t up yet, you probably already know this and are adding them later, but worth mentioning just in case.
I can’t wait to read more about your interventation!
Dear Frances
I hope that you are well and appreciate your engagement with the formative submission and feedback. The format for this formative feedback is a 300-word maximum summary with 3 questions and or provocations supported by a resource for each item.
Please find below my feedback, which I hope that you find useful:
LO1: Critically evaluate institutional, national and global perspectives of equality and diversity in relation to your academic practice context. [Enquiry] – So far, you appear to do a great job of evaluating different perspectives of equality and diversity in relation to your role and its context. At times, it would be helpful if your enquiries were more carefully linked to the references that you seem to draw from in order to evaluate, but which are not always clear to the reader.
LO2: Manifest your understanding of practices of inequity, their impact, and the implications for your professional context. [Knowledge] – At this stage, your knowledges of inequity and their impact and the implications for your teaching context are potent within the submission; it is clear that you take a very proactive and positively critical approach to new knowledge production within your field of enquiry.
LO3: Articulate the development of your positionality and identity through the lens of inclusive practices. [Communication] – You write clearly and fluently in regard to inclusive practices and there is a strong sense of you understanding your own positionality and identity relative to this. There could be scope to strengthen communication surrounding your own positionality in relation to your expertise, including by making clear to the reader where you are drawing from your specialist knowledges and how / which resources you use to do this – see feedback below.
LO4: Enact a sustainable transformation that applies intersectional social justice within your practice. [Realisation] –
At this stage, your proposal for a sustainable transformation is impressive and intriguing and appears underpinned by positive values relating to intersectional social justice and your practice of this. With more detail / specificity given in regard to how you might proceed to enact the transformation, this could become a very powerful model with potential to be used beyond the current scope that you delimit.
Finally, please find some further questions as provocations to support the development of your intervention:
Do you think the proposal might be improved if you positioned paragraph 5, beginning “As a Specialist Study Skills tutor…” were positioned right at the start of the proposal? When we discussed your proposal in our tutorial, the issue of self-esteem and self-efficacy were identified as the underlying and key issues at stake, so would it be better to introduce with the paragraph that directly speaks to these issues and then relate this to the related issue of ADHD? Relatedly, we discussed in our tutorial how you could then show awareness that your proposal could have scope to be used to address other conditions beyond ADHD (and give examples of these conditions).
Whilst the proposal is mainly fluent and clearly written, at this stage, there are many ‘sheer’ (unsupported) assertions and claims within the proposal which are not referenced / evidenced. To a non-specialist reader, this communicates as rather vague at times. For example, where you say: “There has long been an argument that…”. Do you think the proposal would seem more viable if this was addressed? There are two possible approaches here: One approach is to go back through the proposal and highlight where you make claims and assertions without referencing supporting material – and note that this seems to happen where you are actually drawing from your expertise but without saying where that information has come from – and then link your claims to appropriate supporting material. Another approach is to frame the claims and assertions around your expertise more obviously, by making statements such as: “Having worked in this area for x years and carried out extensive research relating to x, I am aware that (then make the claim or assertion here)”. Each of these suggested approaches could be combined with the other.
It would be really helpful if there were more specificity in some places within the proposal. For example, where you refer to ‘metacognitive exercises’, a very quick bullet-point list of what this entails and what the intended outcomes are would help to sharpen the communication for the reader and make the content more accessible. What do you think?
Regards and take care,
Linda
Hi Frances,
As discussed here are the notes from yesterdays presentations.
– Positionality, at the beginning of your intervention it would be good to mention your role as a study skills tutor and a brief description of that entails i.e. planning, academic support.
– What are the services/what do you put in place now? How can you improve/change some systems already in place to address the challenges you are facing.
– I would also mention the increase in more complex needs that you have noted as well as students presenting with a lack of confidence.
– Some questions you raised are; how does one make one feel like they are good enough? How does one address high expectations/perfectionism? This is a big undertaking, and I wonder if there is some text that addresses this? It may be helpful in shaping the questions you are formulating, which is a start in addressing these trends you have noticed.
– What would help in finding the best changes to make to the original questionnaire? Are the 4/5 directed questions relating to different topics? The same topic?
– Finding a voice, you mentioned a few times a lack of confidence and a struggle in communication. Is this something that could be explored further? How does one find their voice in a creative educational environment?
Hi Emilia
thanks for these. I had already commented on your intervention before our meeting and your presentation answered most of the questions I had. I will go through your feedback point by point.
Positionality – yes. Intend to be clearer about my role and responsibilities and what I currently teach students.
Re the underpinning theory regarding working with students who struggle with self-esteem. There is a wealth of literature out there. I’m using some suggestions from social psychology models. Have to be mindful that I am not a counselor.
The questions – still working through. Yes, the idea is to have a couple of directed questions regarding the why, what, who of thinking and learning. Where do they position themselves, if you like. Maybe start to help them to unpick why they approach learning the way they do. This has to be directed by the student but I am suggesting some direction is needed at the beginning.
Being able to communicate to yourself why you do things, what you value about the learning helps you communicate to others.
Thanks again.
Your summary provides a clear overview of the rise in students with ADHD and the strategies used to support them or, in some cases, the lack thereof. Your role as a Specialist Study tutor gives you valuable insight into this student group, and it’s commendable that you’re choosing to focus your intervention on improving this area of your professional practice.
Your use of ‘Positive Psychology’ (Costello & Stone, 2012) is a well-placed choice, particularly given its emphasis on building self-esteem and self-efficacy, two areas often underdeveloped in students with ADHD. I’m curious to know more about the classroom methods you’re considering. Will you be using coaching – style techniques that help build students’ confidence in their learning processes?
You also mention mainly working in one-to-one settings, are you thinking of introducing more group-based elements? If so, how might these be structured to support ADHD learners effectively?
I found your summary thought-provoking and would like to hear more on this to if you have the time to share further.
Hi Mikolai
Thank you for your feedback.
I would be more than willing to share further. I have ended up with a work in progress, rather than a completed intervention but am very excited by ideas generated from discussions with my peers, colleagues in my team, colleagues who work in psychology and psychotherapy and the literature review I have carried out.