ED314401 SP031883
Title: Teachers' Strategies for Coping with Perfectionist Students.
Research Series No. 198.
Author(s): Brophy, Jere; Rohrkemper, Mary
Author Affiliation: Michigan State Univ., East Lansing. Inst. for
Research on Teaching.(BBB15214)
Pages: 90
Publication Date: October 1989
Available from: EDRS Price MF01/PC04 Plus Postage.
Availability: Institute for Research on Teaching, Michigan State University,
252 Erickson Hall, E. Lansing, MI 48824 ($8.00).
Language: English
Document Type: Reports--Research (143)
Geographic Source: U.S.; Michigan
Journal Announcement: RIEMAY1990
Experienced elementary teachers (N=98) described their general strategies
for coping with perfectionist students told how they would handle
incidents depicted in two vignettes portraying problems of perfectionism
at school. Most of the teachers were oriented toward sympathetic responses
featuring support, encouragement, assistance, and attempts at cognitive
restructuring (getting students who were perfectionsts to view mistakes
as normal features of the learning process). Higher rated teachers
exhibited greater confidence and described a greater variety of strategies
in more detail, but the lower rated teachers generally spoke along
the same themes. The teachers' responses indicated that they were
able to supplement cognitive restructuring with additional approaches
that take advantage of their roles as instructor and authority figure.
Teachers can work with the problem directly by helping perfectionists
to shape their thinking as they set goals and expectations prior to
classroom tasks, to cope with the events that occur as they work on
the tasks, and to evaluate their performance both as it unfolds and
after it has been completed. (Author/JD)
Descriptors: Attitude Change; Behavior Modification; *Cognitive Restructuring;
Elementary Education; Intervention; Responses; Student Attitudes;
*Student Behavior;
*Student Characteristics; *Student Reaction; *Teacher Role; *Teacher
Student Relationship
Identifiers: *Perfectionism
