ANALYSIS | The Psychology of Senioritis
Students have coined the term “Senioritis” to describe grade 12 students’ mindset as they finish their final year of high school. What is the science and psychology behind it?
Photo Credit: The Black Shirt
Senioritis is categorized as a loss of motivation that affects students in their last few months of high school. After university acceptances begin to arrive in their inboxes, their future looks a lot brighter than the hallways they’ve roamed for years.
Students might start skipping classes, procrastinating more, and generally adopting the mindset that they are already done with their secondary education. With the looming knowledge that, in a couple of months, they will no longer see their friends or family every day, they begin to prioritize socializing over academic excellence. Having worked themselves dry for four and a half years to achieve their end goal — that acceptance letter from their dream university — high school can begin to feel unnecessary.
Students spend a large amount of their secondary years striving for a sufficient GPA for the university they want to attend. This race for a perfect academic performance is driven by the need to get into the best university possible, and the result is valued more than the process. This is known as extrinsic motivation, which the American Psychological Association defines as “an external incentive to engage in a specific activity, especially motivation arising from the expectation of punishment or reward.”
Attending university is not the only external factor that pressures students to attain good grades. Many teachers motivate their students with warnings, such as a pop quiz or constant reminders of that dreaded AP Exam on the horizon. In a study conducted by the National Library of Medicine, it was found that the most common psychological problem in students was “fear of the exam.” These factors cause students to overwork themselves to the point of burnout due to the fear of failing or the hope of doing well. By the beginning of the second semester, when all their hard work has paid off, students may feel that they no longer want to uphold the same rigorous academic schedule.
Having said that, students cannot be entirely blamed for their loss of motivation, because much of it comes from the way we structure learning. Originally, grades were intended to simply communicate student progress. In our current society, however, high school grades have become critical to a student’s future. Because many post-secondary institutions' admissions systems are based solely on grades, grades dictate a student’s post-secondary options, including scholarships and exchange programs. With all of these repercussions associated with grades, many students have let them consume their lives.
A study conducted by Queen’s University found that “the obsession with grades prevented teachers from using assessment in ways that would support meaningful learning.” Often, students skip past teacher feedback and look only at their grade. This study found that a focus on the teacher’s comments was often more helpful to their learning than a focus on their actual grade. Similarly, Gerald E. Knesek, a senior lecturer at the University of Michigan, shared, “What’s apparent in all this focus on grades is that there’s no real emphasis on learning — the true purpose of education.” Knesek observed that, when he would interact with alumni, they were more likely to remember the grade they got in his class than the material they learned.
With a system so focused on academic performance, seniors can often lose motivation to put in their usual amount of effort when they perceive the finish line of graduation to be near, according to Southern New Hampshire University. This trend of senioritis, however, is not accepted by universities. UBC’s acceptance policy states that they reserve the right to reassess your application if “your final average on all academic courses that you have taken in Grade 11 and Grade 12 has fallen by 2 per cent or more or your final average in Grade 11 and Grade 12 courses in subjects related to your chosen degree has fallen by 4 per cent or more.”
Contrary to extrinsic motivation, where incentive is acquired from external factors, intrinsic motivation is “an incentive to engage in a specific activity that derives from pleasure in the activity itself…rather than because of any external benefits that might be obtained,” as described by the American Psychological Association. If students do not possess interest in their courses, it is more likely they will suffer from this loss of incentive. However, according to Southern New Hampshire University, if students genuinely enjoy a course, completing work not only to uphold their GPA, some of these senioritis symptoms could be avoided.