The article, “Boosting Grades for Reframing Failures” addresses very critical issues in the in the field of education. Improvement of grades has always become a matter of concern to many educators thus the need to find a solution to this challenge. The work selected for this assignment, ‘Boosting Grades for Reframing Failures’ is chosen from the article (Wilson & Linville, 1982). Wilson and Linville (1982), in their research work, use the survey as the leading research method for their study. During the investigation, they had the participants randomly selected to the treatment group or control given different treatment and the outcome of their grades later analyzed. The treatment group was given encouraging surveys to read and allowed to watch various videotaped interviews. The control was subjected to none of the above treatment. The result indicated that participants in the treatment conditions had better GPAs as compared to the control group which recorded zero change in their GPA ( Wilson, & Linville, 1982 ).
The research methodology used for this assignment is relevant and is one of the best ways this research could have been conducted. The participant observation gives the reality of what happens when people get exposed to different conditions that alter behavior. The beauty of this study is the fact that the participant can be followed for an extended period and all changes in behavior and performance recorded. This would act as a real testimony to the changes that occur in the process of boosting grades. I believe that the research methodology was appropriate mainly because it was testing the ability of the participants which is essential in understanding ability to study. However, the results obtained through this study depended upon the observation of individuals. This makes the method ineffective as it increases the chances of error. Ideally, different people have variant viewpoints, and it would have been imperative if the people who gave their observation were modified to take care of any error that may arise from the perspective of the single individual ( Wilson, & Linville, 1982 ).
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The primary ethical issue in this research is consent of the participants. The college freshmen were picked without obtaining consent to be part of this study. This is not in order since it was appropriate to get their approval and willingness to be part of this research. On the contrary, obtaining consent could have introduced an error in the study since some participants could have struggled to ensure their outcome is in line with the question of the study. The study was not ethical because the freshmen were not informed that they were being investigated. This goes against the moral requirement of societal behaviors and research rules. Moreover, the participants could have been debriefed about the research to make them aware of the entire process. This fact could have altered the results, and this makes it unnecessary to some extent thus the reason why it does not top the list of the ethical considerations (Wilson, Damiani & Shelton, 2002). However, informing the freshmen that they have been selected for the study was a necessity. This is the primary reason why the research was not ethical. It makes the study to seem like some secret human experiment ( Wilson, & Linville, 1982 ).
In conclusion, the research study was successful and is exceedingly helpful to many students who perform dismally in their early years of campus life. All that is need is to give assurance to the students that despite the failures in the earlier years, they can still do better and improve to become better students with encouraging results.
References
Wilson, T.D., & Linville, P.W. (1982). Improving the academic performance of college freshmen: Attribution therapy revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42 (2), 367-376.
Wilson, T. D., Damiani, M., & Shelton, N. (2002). Improving the academic performance of college students with brief attributional interventions. In J. Aronson (Eds.), Improving academic achievement: Impact of psychological factors on education (pp. 88-108). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
