Pre-service teachers’ defensive pessimism in situ: Two case studies within a mathematics classroom

Beginning to Teach Chemistry: How personal and academic characteristics of pre-service science teachers compare with their understandings of basic chemical ideas

“…Thus, evidence points to personal qualities such as confidence and resilience as being important factors in teacher success. Besides these obvious positive qualities, Merz & Swim (2008) add an additional dimension, discussing the role played by -defensive pessimism‖ in certain individuals, who set low expectations for themselves in situations they perceive as -risky‖. Merz and Swim found that although this may seem a negative quality, teachers with this stance could perform well, because they could harness their anxiety to motivate themselves to avoid the possibility of failure.…”

“…Daniel and Matthew are examples -both described at interview the amount of -extra‖ work they did to prepare outside specialism lessons, and the impact this may have had on children's learning. -Anxious‖ PSTs may be especially valuable, as they may have -defensive pessimism‖ traits (Merz & Swim, 2008). This leads them to finding ways of handling their anxiety to achieve positive outcomes.…”

Cutting your losses: Could best-practice pedagogy involve acknowledging that even robust hope may be vain?

“…Indeed, forcing them to adopt an optimistic outlook lowers their performance (Norem & Cantor, 1986b), whereas critical but instructional feedback raises their performance more than it does for those who are generally optimistic (Norem, 2008). Defensive pessimists engage in more negative self-talk and hold lower expectations; nevertheless, this need not impair their learning or teaching Merz & Swima, 2008;Norem & Chang, 2002). Defensive pessimists get the job done in a non-hopeful manner by effectively harnessing their negativity.…”