Why Students Resist Learning: A Practical Model for Understanding and Helping Students

However personally committed faculty may be to helping students learn, their students are not always as eager to participate in this endeavor, and may react with both active and passive resistant behaviors, including poor faculty evaluations.

The purpose of this book is to help faculty develop a coherent and integrated understanding of the various causes of student resistance to learning, providing them with a rationale for responding constructively, and enabling them to create conditions conducive to implementing effective learning strategies.

In this book readers will discover an innovative integrated model that accounts for student behaviors and creates a foundation for intentional and informed discussion, evaluation, and the development of effective counter strategies. The model takes into account institutional context, environmental forces, students’ prior negative classroom experiences, their cognitive development, readiness to change, and metacognition. The various chapters take the reader through the model’s elements, exploring their practical implications for teaching, whether relating to course design, assessments, assignments, or interactions with students.

The book includes a chapter written entirely by students, offering their insights into the causes of resistance, and their reflections on how participating on this project has affected them.

While of great value for faculty, this book is also useful to faculty developers advising future and current faculty, as well as to administrators, offering insight into how institutional values impact teaching practice and student attitudes.

Anton O. Tolman is a Professor of Behavioral Science at Utah Valley University. He is past Director of the Faculty Center for Teaching Excellence where he served for almost eight years, and his recent work and publications have focused on student metacognition, power dynamics in the classroom, and student resistance. He lives in Orem, Utah with his wife Patricia, and is an avid boardgamer.

Janine Kremling completed her doctorate in Criminology at the University of South Florida. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the California State University at San Bernardino. Her research with regard to student learning has focused mainly on metacognition and the impact of institutional culture on the learning environment.

John Tagg is Associate Professor of English at Palomar College in San Macros, California, and author of The Learning Paradigm College.