Incompetent student

General Tech Learning Aids/Tools 2 years ago

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manpreet Tuteehub forum best answer Best Answer 2 years ago

 

I am a PhD candidate and I have recently received an undergraduate (Bachelor degree student) to work for a short duration. For purpose of discussion, the work is mainly mathematical in this project.

I have chosen this student based on the classes he has taken and works he has done. They were prerequisites for the work that should be done for me. So, he has the knowledge required. However, since he has started working on the project, I see that he makes very "silly" mistakes or takes too long to perform some calculation. I have told him several times to check his math and I am suspecting that he does not put enough effort into the project. My friends have told me that it may be that I expect too much and not all people understand stuff as quickly as I do, given that I have been working in this field for so long. I took their approach and started detailing everything to the student. I gave him small lectures, codes that I have written, and told him to come to me every-time he has a problem. However, I see that my lectures come to deaf ears. When I discuss with him about material covered, he still cannot answer. When confronted about it, he told me two years have passed since he has taken the prerequisite courses (which is true) and that he has hard time to get back on track. Still, the knowledge is there and he should be able to use it.

We are almost half-way through the project, so I cannot dismiss him. However, my biggest questions:

Is he just being lazy or is the topic too difficult for his level of skill?

I suspect that he is being lazy and giving up because he may be overwhelmed.

If anyone has any idea on how to encourage the student or make sure that he puts more effort without lowering his motivation. The followings are options I am considering now:

  1. Use fear. I will let him know somehow that he got to put more work and I am not impressed with what he has done so far. Hence, anything that he does now will be reflected in my future references for him.

  2. I have already told him to send me some works that he has done previously to this project. I told him that I want to see the level of math he is used to.

  3. Stop helping him. I will stop supervising his progress and if he needs help he will come to me. Otherwise, it is as if I do not care about the output of his project. When he will come to meet with my supervisor about his progress (we have weekly meetings), my supervisor will be able to see what I am seeing. However, this approach does not suit me as I do not want to involve my superior in this mess.

Any comment is appreciated.

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manpreet 2 years ago

 

So I think I can chime in here. I did research as an undergraduate sophomore while pursuing my Bachelors Degree.

I think something you should realize is that research is very different from academic schoolwork. I was extremely overwhelmed when I started doing research. Instead of finding an answer in a few minutes on stackoverflow or a tutorial on a website: I was working in such a niche field that I could not find any resources online to aid me. Apart from getting help from my grad student (who was very forgiving and understanding and guided me well)- I felt like I was completely alone and the stress definitely got to me.

Chances are the student you got is quite smart- but is not prepared for research. Schoolwork does not really prepare one for research.

Use fear. I will let him know somehow that he got to put more work and I am not impressed with what he has done so far. Hence, anything that he does now will be reflected in my future references for him.

Using fear will most likely result in less progress because you will be stressing out the student. You can hint at wanting more work to be done but by demanding more work and saying that you're literally not impressed: I don't think anything good will come from that.

I have already told him to send me some works that he has done previously to this project. I told him that I want to see the level of math he is used to.

Previous school work does not mean that they will be super capable of applying that knowledge to research. Have they done prior research before? If so you can ask to see that. If not- then they are not used to the research setting which helps explain why they aren't being as competent as you hoped.

Stop helping him. I will stop supervising his progress and if he needs help he will come to me. Otherwise, it is as if I do not care about the output of his project. When he will come to meet with my supervisor about his progress (we have weekly meetings), my supervisor will be able to see what I am seeing. However, this approach does not suit me as I do not want to involve my superior in this mess.

This will not only make the undergraduate student frustrated with you but it may cause them to stop pursuing research if their view of higher level academic research is one of a toxic community where they cannot receive help.

You should not be looking at opportunities to criticize an undergraduate student whenever you can. They are new to research. You should be guiding them on the right path- helping them as needed- giving them that extra push in the right direction. If you are not willing to do this then you should not be in charge of an undergraduate student- learning how to work well with people who have a lower skill set than yourself is a vital skill and I suggest you work on improving that skill rather than blaming the student.


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