Chapter VII: The "Underachiever"--Learning to Work the
System
Summary: This chapter discusses a type of student
who, for want of a better term, is referred to as an
academic "underachiever." This is someone who,
though bright, is not motivated to excel
academically. He is also characterized by a high
use of guanxi in the job search.
Both survey and interview data identified one type of szu
student as a prodigious user of social relationships.
This student is usually male and receives poor grades
during his academic tenure. He builds networks of
relations during his college years. After graduation he
usually works in the public sector, in a municipal bureau
or state-owned trading company. In the workplace he
often shows a diligence that was not evidenced in the
classroom.
K.R. Mitchell & O.E. Piatkowska define the
underachiever as "a student whose academic performance is
significantly below the expected performance predicted
for him from scholastic aptitude measures."1 This
differs from low achievers "whose academic performance is
in accord with what would be expected on the basis of
their low scholastic aptitude."2 The present chapter is
written on the basis of an assumption: that few if any
szu students may be defined as low achievers. The
support for this assumption is simple: all szu students
have high scholastic aptitude. Entrance to the
baccalaureate undergraduate program (benke) at szu occurs
completely on the basis of the college entrance exam
(CEE). Only the top 20% of students who take the CEE in
Guangdong are able to enter university. Low achievers
are successfully weeded out. Furthermore, students who
reach szu have succeeded on earlier tests that permit
transition from kindergarten, to primary, to junior
secondary and finally to senior secondary. Low achievers
are placed in schools that do not send graduates to
tertiary. Others are streamed into vocational tracks.
In sum, students who get poor grades at szu are
underachievers, not low achievers.
For educationalists in the United States during the
1960s, the topic of the underachiever at college became
fashionable. R. Bednar & S. Weinberg3 identified 23
studies that examined treatment programs for
underachieving college students. Articles appeared
mostly in journals concerned with student counselling and
psychology. At that time there was also a great deal of
emphasis placed on intelligence testing. Students who
tested high but did poorly in school were labelled
underachievers. Educational psychologists and school
counsellors were called to address the needs of this
group of problem students. As IQ testing fell into
disrepute in the 1970s and 1980s, however, educators
began to favour a more behavioral approach that paid
attention to motivation. Most of later articles that
appeared in academic journals looked at primary school
and secondary school underachievers. Examining college
students went out of vogue.
M. Lacher identifies two separate clusters of
underachievers: (1) relatively practical, achievement
oriented, conservative, controlled, science oriented,
adjusted, non-intellectual, traditional; (2) relatively
theoretical, liberal impulsive, artistic, humanities-
oriented, non-traditional, deviant, verbal.4 In general,
the majority of szu students appear to populate the first
group: more practical than theoretical-oriented,
achievement directed, conservative, adjusted, non-
intellectual, traditional. No evidence suggests
underachievers should diverge from this norm. Indeed,
they may share these attributes to an even greater degree
than the general population.
A brief reflection on underachievement in the
American context may help in understanding what happens
in szu. American university admissions had expanded in
the decades following World War II until the baby boom
generation had flooded the tertiary sector. The
stereotype (as portrayed in the movie Animal House) was
the bright, but hedonistic ("gimme drugs, sex, and rock
'n roll") and extremely lazy student who could squeak
through the higher educational system by cracking the
textbooks a week or so before exams. He invariably
attended a small, mediocre mid-Western party school.
This stereotype had replaced the more positive
stereotypes of achievers and overachievers of previous
generations: the Great Depression East European immigrant
making straight A's, on scholarship, working in his spare
time in the family store. After the war the stereotype
became the returned GI, supporting wife and child,
attending night school and achieving a diploma more
through diligence than intelligence.
Using stereotypes serves a purpose but requires
care. The stereotype should not be intended to represent
the average, but rather the perception of the average.
As an indicator of what can be defined as perceived
reality,5 it represents how a segment of the public is
viewed by the public at large. Since `the average' is
not qualified by `the standard deviation' the
representation alone cannot represent the entire picture.
My perception of the public's perception of szu
students is that they are seen on the whole as
underachievers. As part of the research for this
dissertation, I spent ten days in Shanghai where I
visited various university job placement offices. One
afternoon on the campus of the Shanghai International
Studies University, I was walking with my interpreter,
then a senior at szu. He struck up a conversation with
two female students who offered their perception of szu.
The school, they said, was a heaven for students, who
lived in co-ed air-conditioned dorms, having to share a
room with only a single roommate. They suggested that
students spent much time dating (with a not unsubtle hint
at sexual activity); they were not required to attend
classes, could start their own businesses and make
fortunes. In fact, dorms were neither co-ed nor air
conditioned (but classrooms are); two-to-a-room is
normal; before 1989 class attendance was optional; most
students did work in part-time jobs, but few made
fortunes. I cannot say if these women's misperceptions
of szu students are representative, but I have heard
these stereotypical descriptions on more than a few
occasions.
In interviews I have had with various Shenzhen
people, the school has been characterized as a country
club, a four-year reward given to those who do well in
high school. In this respect, it resembles tertiary
Japanese education where "[most] of the university
students have more interest in extra-curricular
activities than real hardworking study...Their most
important interest in school life is just to graduate."6
A most convincing indication of the public's
negative perception is found in a 1993 article from the
Shenzhen Legal Newspaper,7 a publication that may be
described as somewhere between investigative journalism
and tabloid exploitation. In a lengthy piece extremely
critical of most aspects of the school, the investigators
report that "only 80% of the freshmen bother to attend
classes and for seniors the figure is below 50%...the
library is 80% underused...learning how to make money and
enjoy life is the students' key aim." Again, the
accuracy of these views notwithstanding, they appear to
be valid as perceptions. Also, an article like this
greatly shapes public opinion.
The underachiever at szu is one who puts in the
least possible effort to obtain the desired goal, a
diploma. The passing grade at szu, as in other
universities in China, is 60 marks. For underachievers,
a "long live 60" (liushi fen wansui) mentality has
developed. The idiom is one of extreme praise,
traditionally reserved for the emperor who should live
10,000 (wan) years (sui). Tang et al. explain why
students have such respect for the mark of 60:
Most [szu] students feel that a 60% final mark is
their goal in order to get a degree which is their
lifeline. Liushi fen wansui is a well known student
phrase. The students note that good or poor study
results will not bring you a deserved profit and to
know how to make money and enjoy life is the key
aim; a 60 or 90 mark makes no difference. Some
cheat or bribe to get past the escape line of 60 and
the teaching and study atmosphere is seriously
crooked.8
Ironically, the liushi fen wansui attitude characterized
education associated with the state job allocation
system, a point made by the critics of fenpei. Since
students knew they would be assigned jobs not based on
their individual academic achievement, they developed a
fatalistic view of their study and didn't work hard.9
With the iron rice bowl broken, "long live 60" students
will be put in crisis.10 Thus, a reformed system will
help raise motivation and active involvement in study.
If worried about getting jobs, the students will be
inspired.11
The above projection of a reformed employment system
assumes a positive relationship between academic
achievement and getting a good job. That is, the better
you do in school, the better job you will likely get.
This appears often not to be the case for szu graduates.
Take, for example, Case 2. This student's job was with a
state import-export company, a prestigious job, the envy
of many of his classmates. In his first three years, the
company has sent him to Canada for a trade fair; he wines
and dines foreign buyers; he and his bride have been
given an apartment; he has been able to obtain a good
salary and bonus, supplemented by commissions paid by the
foreign buyer. Yet, he was one of the weaker students in
his department and put in less and less effort until the
last year, when he almost failed a course. The situation
of another student is similar (Case 15). In two years,
this young man has worked for three companies, each
successive moves up the prestige ladder he has defined
for himself. He started with a municipal bureau, a
desirable workunit because of good benefits, pay, and
possibilities for outside income. After working there
for less than a month, the job he really wanted came
through, and he moved to an import/export company. After
working there for 2 years, he moved into a position with
the municipal government, the employer he wanted from the
start. He got acceptable grades at szu with putting in
considerably less effort than his classmates. He knew
when to work (immediately before assignments were due;
several weeks cramming for exams) and when not to work
(the rest of the school year). Most of his four years
were spent in non-academic pursuits, including organizing
students who came from his native area. His college
life, he admitted to me, was spent building relationships
he expected to use in the job place.
In my preliminary survey, 1993 graduating seniors
were asked to give their class rank. As indicated in
Table 7-1, the distribution does not reflect actual class
ranking which should amount to 20% in each quintile.
Instead, about 2/3 of the students who should have
admitted to being at the bottom of the class elevated
their standings when completing the questionnaire.
Likewise, the top 3/5 of the class has 40% too many
people. The accuracy of these data cast somewhat in
doubt, Table 7.2 indicates that those who report they are
in the bottom 1/5 and the bottom 2/5 in class rank score
the highest on the guanxi use index.12 We may presume
that those who admit to being in the dregs of the
academic vat must be telling the truth as they would have
little reason to claim having poor grades if this were
not the case. In the same vein, perhaps some of those
who inflate their class standing might tend to lie about
other things, such as using guanxi. Nevertheless, the
highest guanxi use seems to go with those who get the
poorest marks.
For several reasons, the extent of the difference in
guanxi use between achievers and underachievers may be
stronger than that reported according to class standings
in Table 7.2. Some underachievers, like the second case
above, manage to get good marks and would not appear in
the table as an underachiever. This particular student,
for example, would reside in the top part of the class.
Thus, it should be noted that this table reflects only
the underachievers who score low marks. In addition,
scoring high on the guanxi use variable, this student
brings up the average score. If we accept that those at
the bottom score higher in guanxi use, then in their
placing themselves in the upper portion of the class,
they have inflated the mean score. For this reason,
guanxi use among achievers is probably less than that
suggested in Table 7.2.
The important question is "Why do underachievers use
more guanxi than achievers?" For an answer, one needs to
more closely examine the underachiever. As John Biggs &
P.J. Moore13 point out, achievement is directly related
to motivation. They identify four types of motivation,
each of which can be examined for szu students.
Extrinsic motivation occurs when students carry out
academic work because of the consequences, to obtain
rewards or to avoid punishment. Some employers seek out
the top students. They may ask applicants their class
rank or seek recommendations which would provide that
information. Shenzhen employers, however, do not request
this information; in many cases employers do not review
transcripts until after the student is hired. The top
students at szu do receive scholarships during the time
at university. One person per department gets the top
scholarship of 250, several get a mid-range smaller
stipend, and about 40% of the students get the basic
monthly scholarship of 80. Generally, these
scholarships are not considered sufficient financial
reward to change students' behaviours. "Shenzhen is a
rich place. These scholarships can buy you one good
meal, not much else," one student explained. Social
motivation results when students try to please people who
are important to them, such as parents. In the case of
Chinese education, entry into university is such an
accomplishment that, so long as one does not get
expelled, remaining in school is sufficient to please
most parents. Parents of szu students, in any case, are
not notified of students' grades, except when exams are
failed which happens less than 1% of the time. The third
category is achievement motivation, in which students
compete against one another because it makes them feel
good. This type, again, is not especially relevant to
tertiary students at szu. Students have experienced so
much competition during their years of schooling that few
chose voluntarily to compete when not forced to.
Finally, intrinsic motivation means that students see the
pleasure of performing the task to be more important than
the outcome. They learn because they want to. At the
tertiary level, educators and students alike find this
motivation the most appropriate. My own teaching
experience suggests that most szu students are concerned
with grades, and thus extrinsic motivation applies. I
also found that students--whether high-, average- or
under-achievers--learned most when intrinsic motivation
was involved. The student described above and many of
his classmates admitted that they did more homework in my
research writing class than all the rest of their classes
combined. They said this less as a complaint than a
statement of pride, that they could do the assignments
despite their demanding nature. By doing my assignments,
they were saying to me: "See, I'm not stupid, just lazy."
Most courses at szu, however, are not demanding.
There is little pursuit of knowledge in the classroom.
Students, generally, feel bored. As Biggs & Moore point
out, one can be bored when the demand is either too much
or too little.14 My interviews with students suggest
that they found their coursework unchallenging. Exams
could be passed by reading the textbook several days
before taking the exam. Sitting in class for an average
of 30 hours a week numbed even the most motivated of
students. Such an atmosphere encouraged
underachievement. In some cases, building relationships
became a sort of extra-curricular pursuit which was more
interesting than academic activity. This factor of free
time availability is not inconsequential. Unburdened by
course preparation or homework, underachievers have more
free time; thus, they can spend more time developing
connections for later use when looking for a job. The
underachiever, unchallenged by academic life, finds a
substitute challenge, building relationships to find a
job. Perhaps if grades or class standing were of
consequence in the Shenzhen employment, there might be
fewer underachievers.
In addition to the four year students (benke) who
receive bachelor's degrees at graduation, szu enrols
students in a non-degree junior college program
(zhuangke). These are students who score lower on the
CEE (3% for English majors, 12% for Chinese, 17% for
Finance). Using the same assumptions as above, we can
identify these students as highschool underachievers.
When they come to szu, their underachievement flourishes.
Indeed, szu's junior college students do not pursue
rigorous academic courses and appear to socialize more
than study. This became apparent in the case of the May
4, 1993 campus murder which involved 13 students, all
enroled in junior college programs.15 If the above
analysis holds true, one would expect guanxi use to be
greater among zhuangke than benke students. This proves
true, as the mean values for guanxi use are 5.53 for
zhuangke and 5.39 for benke graduates in 1993, but this
fails to meet tests for statistical significance.
Finally, it is worth noting that the phenomenon of
underachievers at szu has appeared only in recent years.
Szu was one of the first universities in China to develop
a student counselling program, which includes the type of
treatments American psychologists recommend to address
the problem of underachievement.16 In the first five
years of the school volunteer faculty manned the Students
Psychology and Behaviour Guidance Centre which provided
help to any student on an anonymous basis. The program
was considered successful17 but was abandoned in 1989
when political considerations demanded a change of
university leadership. Also, in the early years of the
school academic departments assigned tutors to help
students in course selection and assist in guiding
students in their thinking.18 This program was also
scrapped in 1989. In the years since abandoning the
tutors and counsellors positions, the school has
witnessed several murders and suicides and a marked
increase in the extent of underachieving students.
Finally, the writer does not wish to imply that
underachievement is a necessary result of Chinese
education; it has resulted from szu education.
_______________________________
1.Mitchell & Piatkowska (1974), "Effects of Group Treatment
for College Underachievers and Bright Failing
Underachievers."
2.Ibid.
3.Bednar & Weinberg (1970), "Ingredients of Successful
Treatment Programs for Underachievers," 2.
4.Lacher (1973), "The Life Styles of Underachieving College
Students."
5.Lincoln & Guba (1985), Naturalistic Inquiry, 81-87.
6.Urata (1994), "A Comparison between the Japanese and U.S.
Evaluation Systems in High Education," 4.
7.Tang et al. (1993) "Will Shenzhen University Be as Shining
as Before?"
8.Ibid.
9.Zhou (1987), Education in Contemporary China; Yang (1987),
"If We Want to Reform the Graduate Allocation System, We
Must First Change Our Thoughts and Concepts."
10.Chen & Liu (1992), "Deep Thoughts on Tertiary Students Job
Allocation."
11.Li (1993), "Some Points of Thought on the Reform in the Job
Allocation System for Graduates."
12.The construction of this index is discussed above, Chapter
I.
13.Biggs & Moore (1993), The Process of Learning, chapters 6,
17.
14.Ibid.
15.Zhang & Luo (1993), "Thunderbolt on campus."
16.Brown (1969), "Effects of Structured and Unstructured Group
Counseling with High and Low-anxious College
Underachievers."
17.Chen (1989), New Thoughts, New Explorations, and New
Patterns.
18.Wu & Cao (1986), "How Has the Political and Ideological
Work Concerning Students Reformed in Shenzhen
University?"