College Research Project - Please Reply THANKS!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE reply to this questionnaire. The final assignment is due on Friday April 23rd and I still need responses to compile my research. Thank you so much!

At what college is this considered acceptable research?

My hypothesis is this: “Adults with ADHD can succeed in college with the right mixture of necessary elements and under modified conditions.”

What do you define as adults? Have they been formally diagnosed with ADHD? Your ‘theory’ isn’t one. “Necessary elements”? What do mean by that? Modified conditions?? What do you mean exactly?

I have some questions that I need people to answer to help me prove or disprove my theory.

If people could please reply to the message boards, or email me at [email protected], I would greatly appreciate your assistance and insight. Here are my questions:

1) “What elements are necessary for the college-level ADHD student’s success?”

There’s no easy answer to this question. ADHD’s manifestations can vary dramatically from person to person.

2) “Under what conditions is success most prevalent?”

Your ‘research’ should specify the conditions.

3) “How much responsibility does the teacher bear?”

4) “How much responsibility does the student bear?”

5) “Does a diagnosis make a difference?”

HOW CAN THEY GET ACCOMODATIONS WITHOUT A DIAGNOSIS?????

6) “Do treatment methods make a difference?”

I am already compiling my research for my paper and could use as much help as possible as quickly as possible.

Thank you all for any input and opinion you can share!
Tammy[/quote]

I’m not sure who you are, or why your reply to my post is so cynical, hurtful, and mean.

I have been receiving email responses from professors, teachers, and students. Their responses have all been several pages long, full of depth, and feeling. They’re offering suggestions, insight, and thought provoking responses to my research request; above and beyond what I could’ve imagined.

You actually had me doubting myself, but fortunately, not for very long.

I hope you resolve what ever issues you have that makes you feel compelled to be unnecessarily hurtful towards others.

Tammy

Tammy, I try to be supportive, but Jeb does have a point. Collecting a bunch of feelings and opinions and emotional responses may be a pleasurable activity, but it is not real research. If your college accepts this as research, well, read the long threads here on these boards by and about teachers who arrive in the classroom without the skills they need to do a good job.

If you are doing real research, you *should* doubt yourself. Questioning your own convictions and proving them against observable and measurable fact is the first step to becoming a serious observer.

If your feelings get hurt when somebody disagrees with your hypothesis and you brush off any differing opinion with a little comment about being sorry for them — not really nice yourself, dear — then you are just going to spend your career in denial of anything that doesn’t fit your own world-view, and that is also something a lot of people here have been very very hurt by.

I’m indeed sorry to have hurt your feelings and apologize for my tone. I was somewhat incredulous and it got the better of me.

This fact remains - no one can get accomodations without formal diagnosis. That reality is fundamental to the federal legislation designed to deal with the issue of people with learning differences/disabilities. The legislation is called The Americans with Disabilities Act or the ADA.

Without formal diagnosis (your question #5) as a teacher I can’t know for certain who has ADHD or not. Thus I can’t answer your other questions.

For that I’m also sorry.

Personal stuff: I’m a 33 year old grad student in economics finishing my PhD this year (if all goes well). My main area of research is in firm-level interaction, but education has been a dear sideline for me for quite a while. I wanted to help you if I could at all. My mother in law is a professor of education in curriculum and development, and I am interested in the theory and practice in your field.
I’ve been evaluated as having ADHD, first diagnosed in 1996. My academic background is one probably typical of someone similarly put together. I graduated high school with a GPA under 1, but as a National Merit semi-finalist from standardized test scores. In undergraduate school, my GPA in major was 4.0, while overall it was 2.23. As I matured, attitude toward school became less of a problem (and confounding factor) but many of the difficulties are still with me. I have been off medication since late in undergrad school as I discovered methods to manage my attention, and I entered subjects where a talent for learning (which I might claim for myself) could outweigh an inability to take notes, complete homework, etc. I have sailed through a reasonably tough graduate school (second-tier, but still reputable) up to the current point, though writing a dissertation has proven a significant challenge. My innate interest faded after a couple months (not surprisingly) before I was anywhere near done. Today, in fact, I sought out and received a prescription for a stimulant to try to refocus my efforts on the drudgery in front of me after many years without it. I found the message board with your survey today as well. I usually pay as little attention to ADHD as I can get away with, which I suppose makes its own sort of sense.

My opinions in the form of answers to your questions:
1) The key element necessary for the college-level ADHD student’s success is maturity. (Not very helpful, I know.) Functioning at a reasonable level in college is a dramatically different task for ADHD folks than regular folks. It requires a significant level of maturity and a strong dose of (ambition/motivation/drive, etc.) I think ADHD folks are already at a deficit in the maturity department (compared to cohort), and yet need it more. Many of them are perfectionists, and can be rather bright, but their continual failures and realizations that they have disappointed their loved ones keeps them stunted. No one gets diagnosed with ADHD having had a rosy educational experience all their lives, and it shows. Diagnosis can often allow an ADHD college kid to shake off the emotional burdens they have accumulated through their academic lives, and size up the situation in front of them anew. But the challenges remain, and it takes maturity and motivation to get through the frustrating, humiliating work of being an ADHD student in a regular folks-oriented educational system.

2) The conditions which best predict success primarily involve the match between the student and their subject. The problems associated with ADHD will show up most glaringly in required subjects out of the student’s major (presuming they picked a major they matched well with). The standard story is correct on all this, subjects which require rote learning decoupled from any conceptual framework will be a challenge, as will those which require practice. It is not reasonable to build an educational system which exempts ADHD folks from courses which require the standard manner of learning, but advisors, parents, and the students themselves must be prepared to accept limited proficiency in particular subjects. College curriculums are designed to provide students with information, methods and tools before they need them. Calculus is taken before physics, writing before literature. ADHD folks have a terrible time learning tools without useful applications. Many of them would learn the most advanced calculus existent with comparable ease if they needed it to accomplish a task they were interested in, but will fail out of the basic course at the easiest junior college. They simply cannot muster the interest they would have to have to learn the stuff. Success, then, must be evaluated differently for the ADHD student. Passing may be a huge success, even if their IQ’s would predict an A.
On a smaller scale, the conditions that lead to success involve a lot of understanding on the part of the teacher and the student. A goal-driven relationship between the interested parties is vital. In the competitive and harried world of university-level academics, such a relationship is hard to develop. Smaller classes, flexible schedules and grading metrics, and many other structural elements can positively influence the outcome, but bottom line an acceptance of the situation and a commitment to the goals are necessary conditions.

3) Teacher’s responsibility - the responsibility a teacher bears for the success or failure of an ADHD student depends on their relationship to the student, their mission, and the subject matter. The standard I hold for myself as an educator is that it is my job to give each student a working knowledge of my subject and the tools with which to apply that knowledge. My responsibility is not fulfilled until my opportunities to teach are depleted. Ninety-nine percent of the time, my opportunities to teach are constrained by a student’s willingness to learn, so often I have little to do but lecture and grade. But I have had several ADHD students who want to learn, and I have yet to turn one away. I have the luxury of enough discretionary time to be able to, and certainly understand the limits many educators face. Opportunities to teach can be constrained by the other demands on the educator. But given the chances we have, given all other factors, I feel we have a mission to use every resource affordable to teach.
Specifically, I think educators have a responsibility to identify the goal and intent of the course they are teaching and to be flexible with ADHD students in fulfilling that goal. Due dates and grading scales and homework sets are arrangements and tools to make learning and teaching efficient and standard for the average student. They are not the mission, they are the structure. ADHD students need to be expected to have the same level of mastery as all the other students in a class, but teachers must work harder to assess that mastery than they often do. Tests are tools of evaluation and homework is a tool of instruction, and they are indispensable in many subjects, but learning is what matters. Too often, educators put structure over mission and fail to fulfill their responsibility. I understand that an educator that moves away from structure leaves himself or herself vulnerable to criticisms about their fairness and even-handedness when seen treating different people differently. To my mind, however, if you are going to call yourself a professional educator, you had better be a professional - a term which entails responsibility and standing up to criticism in pursuit of your mission.
College level educators must be cautious of going too far, however. One of the functions of college, reasonable or not, is to sort people as productive or un-productive; useful to their fields of study, profession, etc or unfit. An A in chemistry 101 should mean the same thing ADHD or not. Attention is a component of a person’s ability to contribute on the job, just as is intelligence. We would not see it as an injustice if a person with dangerously low mental ability is not whisked through medical school and given a licence to practice medicine even if that person had incredible powers of concentration and attention-control; we should be careful about considering it unjust when a bright person has trouble getting through school and ends up with a transcript that puts them at a disadvantage because they lack the ability to focus their attention. ADHD students must accept that they have to play the game by the rules. Their intelligence and insight, to say nothing of their simple desire, do not directly warrant them a good degree and a good job. In my view, educators are responsible to their discipline as much as they are to their students. Students who demand accommodations that lower the standards do a disservice to themselves, their institutions of higher learning, and to ADHD students who follow them. (Note, I say this as a person with ADHD and a horrible transcript.) I’ll add a bit of a description of my approach - again, feel free to skip it.

4) The ADHD college student bears the final responsibility for his or her learning. There is certainly no law that says anyone must go to college. ADHD makes a fine excuse for dropping out of college (or high school, for that matter). There is significant social pressure and expectations placed on bright young people to go to college, and so many of them feel like they do not have a choice. They do. The trouble is that it takes significant maturity to succeed in college for an ADHD student, but probably just as much maturity in many cases to decide not to go, successfully or otherwise. Bottom line, though, is that college is voluntary. No one makes you go, so you cannot impose the responsibility of your success or failure on someone else.
It is the responsibility of the ADHD students to maturely accept the situation they are in, understand that they are the ones who are different from the norm, accept why educational structures are the way they are and why accommodations must have limits. They must then decide for themselves if they are up to the challenge of college-level work. Society is imperfect and the educational system is flawed in a way that can let valuable people slip through the cracks. The system is not going to change, because it is the way it is for some very good reasons. Right or wrong, fair or not, it is our problem. There are things ADHD students can do to promote their own success. Find a college who has a reputation for accommodating people in your situation. Manage yourself and your educational experience at a very high level, any less will result in failure. Take advantage of your skills and opportunities, and find an area of study where passion can make up for what you lack in attention. Ask for any accommodation that is proper and maintains the academic integrity of your institution, but accept that your participation in higher education is your choice, not your right. If ADHD ultimately keeps you from fulfilling you dreams despite your best efforts, your complaint is with God, not the registrar.

5) I am of mixed feelings about the diagnosis. It is a powerful conceptual object for organizing understanding and motivating active means of overcoming the challenges of ADHD. It allows one to make sense of the bundle of tendencies and troubles that ADHD represents, putting a name to the monster, as it were. I believe in general, much more good can come after diagnosis than would be possible (or at least probable) without it.
On the other hand, it is far too often used as an excuse for the negative consequences of our fear, our shame, and our failures to make the best of what we have. One can only accomplish what they believe they are capable of, and people with challenges as intangible as those associated with ADHD find it easy to give themselves a pass once they receive a diagnosis. People with ADHD are capable of some very impressive feats given the proper setting. Those who find the diagnosis as an excuse more than a challenge sell themselves short. It is arguable, and perhaps a bit self-serving to say, but ADHD is a much a set of tools as it is a set of problems. I find the comparison of ADHD folks to hunters/gatherers and regular folks to agrarians rather compelling, though I wouldn’t stand on it as evolutionary truth. We have abilities that other people do not have, even though they are often ones least in demand in modern society. Those who use the occasion of a diagnosis for ADHD to objectify and confront their set of challenges and find settings where their traits are least costly (or even advantageous) are the true success stories of ADHD.

6) Yes, treatment methods make a difference. They make certain tasks possible where they are not possible without them. I only have experience with stimulant medication, but can tell you they have had a significant effect in my case.