6.7 Poor Student Performance

Students can do poorly. There might only be one, perhaps even none; the Holy Grail. Perhaps a few, quite a few. All struggling students should be a concern at the start. None should be dismissed, discounted. In a student-centric teaching environment, those floundering are not ignored or barely supported; they are one of the issues to focus upon (e.g., Pedersen and Liu 2003).

Once you know why a student (or students) is not doing well, you can figure out what to do. We do not believe that there is valid reason to do nothing; not attempt something to help the student(s). Until you do the root cause analysis, the source of the problem and/or the remedy might not be in the student's domain!

There are students who start off poorly and there are students who start off strong and then tank. There are likely different things going on.

So, it is not an easy job being an instructor and taking a professional, responsible perspective. Dealing with students performing poorly can require different skills, knowledge, and methods. It takes time and effort to learn how to monitor for grades or mental health issues, and how to address any suspected issues.

You need to have clarity about the cause and effect. Is the problem with performance student based, course/instructor based, or a combination of the two? If there is course/instructor component, it is important to address it if possible, through a course change, or through another mechanism that compensates (e.g., extra help from the TA). It should never be assumed out-of-hand that any poor performance is student based, even if you are getting 10-15% A's, and if there are many other students doing well. They might be doing well in spite of you, not because of you. There might be Type I, II errors going on, and correlation does not mean causality.

If the performance across students seems linked in time, and if the students have been doing ok so far, it possibly has something to do with the instructor's end of the business.

Depending on what you find in the analysis, you might find that your assumptions about what the students know and what they should be capable of are flawed. This is possible and if it is the case, adjust the course accordingly.

If many students are involved and the issue can be tracked to one key concept or lecture, do some additional intel and see if there was something going on in that lecture (or outside of the lecture) that caused the gap in learning and understanding. There might have been another big assessment due, other demands on the student body. It might not have been your class, but your class was collateral damage.

Here are some of our thoughts about students with poor performance...

• You can lead the proverbial horse to water, but they will still not drink. There will be students like this, but you first lead the horse to water and see what happens, you do not assume a priori they will not.
• You should consider your role in the situation. Is the course design, delivery and assessments appropriate, using the proper assumptions? Are you part of the problem? Sort this out, as soon as possible.
• We like to take an early reading on the students, get a baseline as-soon-as-possible in the course, even in the first class while the bloom might still be on the rose. We have found these early assessments very useful for understanding student and class performance, in addition to sniffing out academic policy infractions. If a student's later performance looks too good to be true, it might indeed too good.
• There are times that we do the 'intervention' ourselves or through the TAs. It depends on the type of issue and how you feel that message, help will be received.
• Track the performance of students and the class, use sufficient assessment points, monitor activities, and discuss with the TAs about any odd patterns. Use your discretionary power to deal with special cases where one assessment is not representative.
• Assuming that the problems are student centric, are they pedagogical in nature?
• Reading and understanding word problems?
• Comprehension?
• Inability to join the dots between concepts?
• Inability to remember key concepts and relationships,
• Inability to analyse - look and see, decompose, get the relevant and irrelevant bits sorted out?
• Inability to combine, to synthesize?
• The inabilty to frame things in a meta-cognition sense?
• Does it go back to prerequisites and the student is not prepared or skilled enough to take the course?
• Or, are they of a different nature?
• The student is not coming to class, tutorials, labs. Sees no value or is busy with other things.
• The student is not doing any effort to read, work between classes. Thinks they can do it by cramming, memorizing at the last moment. They might just be lazy, not interested.
• The student is cramming, not studying in a smart way.
• The student is allowing others to do the work, coasting and then tanking when sole effort is required.
• The student just wants the minimum pass. It is a conscious decision. And if not quite, that the instructor will throw a few mercy marks at them.
• For situations which are not a clear pedagogical nature, there might be underlying mental health issues. It is not clear how you can approach and engage a student who has checked out in some ways and suggest counseling. Hard. If there are other signals, you might have to try. If the student brings up issues or stressors, you can then suggest counselling etc. in a natural fashion. It is the unsolicited intervention that is tough.
• For pedagogical situations, have in your pocket extra resources and remedial recommendations depending on what the student is having problems with. And, always recommend any and all department, faculty, and institution resources! You should also think about these learning challenges in advance and learn how to work with the various learning challenges. This should be at the level of recognizing the issue and knowing what common resources can used/accessed by the student for the specific issue. In some cases, you or your TA can help. For example, helping the student decode questions, learn how to read and understand the word problems. That kind of thing.
• You can also suggest more TA time, better use of resources, the need for a tutor.
• If the problem is motivation, you might be able to make the course more relatable for the student, find a personal hook for them. Perhaps assign a side topic or challenge that might spark some interest.

Further reading

• Pedersen, S. and M. Liu (2003). Teachers’ Beliefs about Issues in the Implementation of a Student-Centered Learning Environment, ETR&D, 51, 2, pp. 57–76.