Adaptivity In Education

Humans are creatures of adaptivity. We adapt to the Sun and lack thereof in the changing seasons, new people in our lives and even something as simple as a haircut. All of these changes require us to adjust our way of living and current behaviors. When discussing adaptivity in terms of education and a student’s willingness to do so, what kind of effect can those two factors have on a student’s academic outcomes? 

 

    A person’s adolescent years are arguably the most important in the development of who that child is going to be in future. Tied along to this time is education. This is most likely the longest stretch that a person will go to school as well. As if going through both physical and emotional changes are not hard enough, there are also educational highs and lows weighing down on students, questioning their every move. Academic perseverance can be very difficult to achieve in these situations. In a study done at the University of Sydney in Australia, researchers investigated adaptability in high school students and the circumstances in which students' adaptability harmed or helped their “academic outcomes”.   

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    Adaptivity is “the capacity to make appropriate responses to changed or changing situations; the ability to modify or adjust one’s behavior in meeting different circumstances or different people.” (Vanden Bos, 2007, p.17) This definition comes from a research article titled, Adaptability: How Students’ Response to Uncertainty and Novelty Predict Their Academic and Non-Academic Outcomes. Within this article, researchers at the University of Sydney conducted a study on 9 different high schools and 969 students to determine how adaptability can foretell their academic outcomes.

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    The study hypothesized that students who were able to adapt would be more motivated about their future and what they want to do as a career, not fall behind in their school studies even when they move fast, have more "positive academic outcomes", and be less likely to give up on themselves and their school work. Researchers found that their results were in line with this hypothesis which can lead us to conclude that students who were unable to adapt, or did so inefficiently, did not experience any of these positive outcomes. 

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    The outcomes discussed in the hypothesis of this article are all very important elements to the education experience and being unable to experience those will have a great negative effect on a students grades and academic performance. Institutions at any level, not just high school, should recognize when students are not performing well and evaluate why that might be. Martin, Nejad, Colmar, and Liem suggest these steps in helping improve adaptability, “(1) the individual is taught how to realistically and effectively recognize uncertainty and novelty that might require adaptability; (2) he/she is taught how to make appropriate adjustments to behavior, cognition, and/or affect…” the articles continues that the adjustments (1 & 2) will help students manage “uncertainty and novelty”. The authors also state that the student should be motivated to understand the positive effect that these adjustments could have on their academic outcomes. Behavioral and cognitive adjustments should be perpetually implemented in order for students to see change in how they react to uncertainty and novelty. (Martin, Nejad, Colmar, Liem 2013)

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    In general, it can be said that schools should work towards implementing systems in which students are taught ways to improve their studies like recommended by Martin, Nejad, Colmar, and Liem in their research article, Adaptability: How Students’ Response to Uncertainty and Novelty Predict Their Academic and Non-Academic Outcomes. If there is greater emphasis on a students attitude and ability to adapt to their educational environment then schools will see higher academic achievements. Let’s stop looking at a student’s subpar grades and suggesting a tutor or mandated study hour and start looking deeper into the needs of students during these transitional times. 

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References

  Martin, Nejad, H. G., Colmar, S., & Liem, G. A. D. (2013). Adaptability: How Students’ Responses to Uncertainty and Novelty Predict Their Academic and Non-Academic Outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(3), 728–746. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032794