Achieving Success through Academic Assertiveness

Real life strategies for today's higher education students

Jennifer Moon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781135852542
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Academic assertiveness is an essential capability that is required of students who wish to achieve academic and professional success. Written for students who are aiming to achieve college success, Achieving Success through Academic Assertiveness: Real life strategies for today's higher education students focuses on the challenges that learners face and encourages positive actions that support triumphs in learning situations. Jennifer Moon creatively explores the importance of this emerging topic and how assertiveness is linked to the process of learning and overall student development, critical thinking and academic achievement.

Part I
About Using This Book

1
Introduction

This Book…

This short chapter is designed to indicate the structure of this book and briefly to introduce how to use it. The important thing to say is that the content of the book is about academic assertiveness for students and the description of what I mean by that term and the concepts that lie behind it are presented in Part II, Chapter 2. This is an introduction to the use of the book.

The book is arranged in three parts. “Part I: About Using This Book” introduces the whole of the book. The largest part by far—“Part 2: Learning How to Live More Assertively: Academic Assertiveness for Students”—is written directly for students and is presented in a manner that relies on illustrations and examples that are likely to be in the experiences of students (though I acknowledge that there are very many different identities of students these days). The third part of the book—“Part 3: Leading Courses in Academic Assertiveness” is written directly for those who might lead courses in academic assertiveness. This might be lecturers, or staff in student support organizations, or other outside trainers—or it might be students themselves who take a lead or who decide to run a self-help course.

So you can read whichever parts of the book are useful to you. If you are to lead a course, it will be the whole book. If you are a student, you may only be interested in the second part of the book and will be able to ignore the last chapter, though you might find the synopsis of the contents of the book in Chapter 11 useful as a quick reminder (pages 195–8).

The Content of the Chapters

Because the content of the chapters is laid out in Chapter 11, I won’t go into substantial detail here—but will provide a paragraph or two of orientation to the book.

Academic assertiveness is an application of the principles and practices of assertiveness in an academic (higher education) environment. The way I have chosen to write the book is to rely a great deal on scenarios to illustrate the points that I want to make. The fact that the book relates to academic settings does not detract from its relevance to other situations—the principles, tools and techniques will all be the same. So this book of is relevance to being a student, and to life beyond being a student. It is about learning to cope better generally, as well as specifically in the academic environment.

Learning to be more assertive in an academic environment is about learning to manage better in the various relevant interactions, situations, and activities in higher education. There is a general introduction to academic assertiveness in Chapter 2. It helps to understand what assertiveness is when it is contrasted with other behaviors that are not assertive—nonassertion, aggression, and manipulative behaviors. This contrast is made in Chapter 3, along with a discussion of some of the ways in which “assertiveness” is misconceived. Chapter 4 is about the ways in which assertiveness is displayed—verbally, nonverbally, and in things about the whole person—even down to the furniture that you choose! Chapter 5 takes a look at how the way in which we are assertive, or not, develops, and the manner in which individuals differ from each other in their reactions to particular situations. One of the traditional components of books about assertiveness is to say that, as human beings, we have rights. I have selected and worded the rights in Chapter 6 to be those that are most relevant to academic situations and those associated with being a student. The notion of rights is important for academic situations in which there is the possibility of failure or making an error. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 really focus on how to manage better in a range of situations using the tools and techniques of assertive behavior. Chapter 7 mainly deals with the techniques themselves. Chapter 8 considers particular situations and how to manage them, making use of the techniques (e.g. giving and receiving criticism, giving and receiving compliments, and so on). Chapter 9 is about ways of managing the mental side of assertiveness—of, for example, preparing for situations that are going to be difficult. As I say in the introduction to these three chapters, it may be necessary to shuffle backwards and forwards through the pages, linking anticipation with techniques and the details of actual situations. There seems to be no logical order in which to present the material. Chapter 10 is a bit different because it takes a broader look at failure and achievement in academic life, and the fears that are common among students. It is mostly directed towards the assertive behaviors of recovery—and of recognizing failure and error as part of growth and development.

Chapter 11 is for those who want to lead a course in academic assertiveness. It provides suggestions on the areas of academic life to which academic assertiveness is relevant, and discusses the range of situations in which courses may fit. It also considers the ways in which the material of academic assertiveness may be presented—and provides some hints and tips about, for example, managing role play (where that is a possibility). Towards the end of Chapter 11 there is, as I have said, a fairly detailed synopsis of the book that may be of value for any reader.

At the end of the book, I have included a list of definitions and, in particular, some techniques of assertiveness for quick reference and memory-jogging.

On many occasions the reader will be asked to consider or to do something. There are activities and exercises at the end of most of the chapters and I will suggest you use a journal. There are also, in the later chapters, “stop and think” spots—text boxes that ask the reader to think about some issue—or to do something that is directly related to that subject. There are also the fictitious journal entries of two fictitious students—Christina and Tom—who are on a course that coincides with the content of the chapters. In their journals they talk of their reactions to things in the course and how it relates to their lives.

How to Use This Book

I have tried to write this book so that it can be as flexible in use as possible. Here are some of the ways in which it might be used.

• As a guide for students working individually.
• As a guide for students working in small groups.
• As a background text for personal development planning (PDP) or student success programs. It provides longer-term reference after the course has finished.
• As a formal text for a course—in which the content is matched directly to the classes.
• As a guide for teachers who would like, informally, to support their students in learning to cope better with academic life.
• As an aid to new teachers who need to understand the challenges of being a student.
• As a manual for a short course on academic assertiveness.

(I have expanded on these in Chapter 11).

A Note About How This Book is Written

Unless the gender of a person is obvious, I have usually used the feminine gender for the examples. This is the case with all my books. I dislike the incorrect use of “they” to avoid gendered language (she and he; his and hers, etc.). Addressing both genders in this way is cumbersome—so instead of the more usual adoption of masculine gender, I use the feminine. We are, after all, half the population, and mostly, if we have not been written out of history entirely, we have been addressed as part of the universal male.

Some Other Books on Assertiveness

Books on assertiveness tend, as I have said, to cover the same general topics, though this book is more comprehensive than most. Sometimes it is useful to read about the same ideas in different sources because sometimes there is a different slant given. In addition, several books are focused towards specific situations. Some general books on assertiveness are Smith, 1975; Alberti and Emmons, 1983, Lindenfield, 1987, Rees and Graham, 1991. Books on assertiveness for women include: Dickson, 1982; assertiveness at work: Back and Back, 1982, Stubbs, 1985; assertiveness for managers: Gillen, 1992; and assertiveness for young children: Lenett and Crane (1985).

Part II
Learning How to Live More Assertively

Academic Assertiveness for Students

2
Coping with Challenges in Higher Education

Introduction

Going into anywhere new is scary for most of us, but education is, by its very nature, challenging. It seeks to change you for ever. Hopefully you will find it comfortable to go along with the changes and hopefully a tide of enthusiasm will carry you along, making the difficult bits worthwhile….

Here is someone who is facing a typical challenge on the first days on his higher education course.

It is early October. Jamie has just started at Sallymae College. He arrived last week and this is the period for induction. Jamie is following a list of things to go to and things he must do. He is missing home, does not know anyone, and does not always know where things are. Nor does he always understand what he is meant to be doing. He does not, for example, fully understand what “induction” means but he is trying to go along with it. A fellow new student, Jules, has told him that he should have been signing on for module choices yesterday but he missed it. He is hoping that someone will notice and find him, or that it will not matter. He is pretty miserable….

And here is another example:

Chen is from mainland China. He has come to the UK to do a degree in Engineering. While he has been studying English for a long time in China, it seems different here and he is finding day-to-day life very difficult. He has gone into a supermarket to buy some rice and he cannot find it on the shelves. There is a girl stacking shelves. He knows that at home he would ask her where the rice is (though he would be embarrassed not to know …) but here she might not understand him and then he would feel foolish. He imagines her screwing up her face at him. Then again, he might not understand her and he imagines pretending to understand and promptly walking in the wrong direction. He would feel even more foolish. He goes on looking and not asking and feeling more bewildered about how he will ever fit in.

The aim of this section of the book is to open up the issues that are involved in being effective in facing challenges, whether they are in your academic life or more generally in the life of being a student—which can include the difficulties of living in college accommodation, in shared accommodation, of coping away from home, taking part-time work, and so on. I use the term “academic assertiveness” to cover all of this. What you learn from this book will not stop being relevant when you leave your studies and take a career job, because assertiveness is a capacity for life in all its future forms. The principles that are covered in the book will be relevant to everything. The principles should help Jamie to go and ask for help and not to hope that someone will notice that he has missed out a stage in his induction processes, and it should help Chen to face the challenge of asking the supermarket girl to show him where the rice is, and to cope with the probably that he will not initially understand what she says. Learning about academic assertiveness should help you to feel more confident generally. It will not make challenges go away, but you should be able to cope with them more effectively.

At the end of this chapter, there is a suggestion that you set up a learning journal alongside reading this book. As with most of the other chapters in Part II of the book, there are activities and journal exercises for you to do that relate to the content of the chapter. There is also the start of the fictitious journals of Christina and Tom. These are students who are attending a course based on the chapters of this book. Their journals relate to their experiences.

A Thumbnail Sketch of Assertiveness

I use the term “thumbnail” here because we will return to the topic of assertiveness in more detail in the next chapter.

Academic assertiveness is related to a range of training initiatives that are generally called “assertiveness training.” They were developed in the United States in the 1970s, largely emerging from the women’s liberation movement, which has more recently become known as feminism. The idea then was that women needed to assert themselves more in society and in their relationships in order to attain equality with men. In the last two decades it has become recognized that all men and women need to develop a reasonable level of assertiveness, though sometimes the issues for the genders are different. There are people who still believe that assertiveness is only needed by women.

In addition, assertiveness training has been used in work with disadvantaged and disabled people, older adults and those with mental health problems, and in the context of business and management training. Books on assertiveness have been written for people in their workplaces, for managers, for women, for children, and directly for some particular work roles (for example, nurses). In general the principles in these books are fairly similar and broadly match this one. Some examples of them are listed in the bibliography at the end of the book.

Assertiveness training has sometimes been conducted in higher education situations. In particular, it is p...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Part I About Using This Book
• Part II Learning How to Live More Assertively: Academic Assertiveness for Students
• Part III Leading Courses in Academic Assertiveness
• Appendix I Summary of Definitions, Words, and Techniques for Quick Reference
• References