TITLE: How can we help students overcome "naturalness bias"?
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: July 27, 2017  1:36 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
In
<A HREF="http://www.edbatista.com/2017/04/leadership-as-a-performing-art.html">
   Leadership as a Performing Art</A>,
Ed Batista discusses, among other things, a "naturalness
bias" that humans have when evaluating one another.
Naturalness is "a preference for abilities and talents
that we perceive as innate over those that appear to
derive from effort and experience".  Even when people
express a preference for hard work and experience, they
tend to judge more positively people who seem to be
operating on natural skill and talent.  As Batista notes,
this bias affects not only how we evaluate others but
also how we evaluate ourselves.

As I read this article, I could not help but think about
how students who are new to programming and to computer
science often react to their own struggles in an introductory
CS course.  These thoughts reached a crescendo when I came
to these words:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 One commonly-held perspective is that our authentic self is
 something that exists fully formed within us, and we discover
 its nature through experiences that feel more (or less)
 natural to us.  We equate authenticity with comfort, and so
 if something makes us feel uncomfortable or self-conscious,
 then it is <B>de facto</B> inauthentic, which means we need
 not persist at it (or are relieved of our responsibility to
 try).  But an alternative view is that our authentic self is
 something that we create over time, and we play an active
 role in its development through experiences that may feel
 uncomfortable or unnatural, particularly at first.  As INSEAD
 professor of organizational behavior Herminia Ibarra wrote in
 <A HREF="https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-authenticity-paradox">
    The Authenticity Paradox</A>
 in 2015,

 <BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
   Because going against our natural inclinations can make us
   feel like impostors, we tend to latch on to authenticity
   as an excuse for sticking with what's comfortable...  By
   viewing ourselves as works-in-progress and evolving our
   professional identities through trial and error, we can
   develop a personal style that feels right to us and suits
   our organizations' changing needs.  That takes courage,
   because learning, by definition, starts with unnatural
   and often superficial behaviors that can make us feel
   calculating instead of genuine and spontaneous.  But the
   only way to avoid being pigeonholed and ultimately become
   better leaders is to do the things that a rigidly authentic
   sense of self would keep us from doing.
 </EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

So many CS students and even computing professionals report
suffering from impostor syndrome, sometimes precisely because
they compare their internal struggles to learn with what
appears to be the natural ability of their colleagues.  But,
as Ibarra says, learning, by definition, starts with the
unnatural.  To be uncomfortable is, in one sense, to be in a
position to learn.

How might we teachers of computer science help our students
overcome the naturalness bias they unwittingly apply when
evaluating their own work and progress?  We need strategies
to help students see that CS is something we <EM>do</EM>,
not something we <EM>are</EM>.  You can feel uncomfortable
and still be authentic.

This distinction is at the foundation of Batista's advice to
leaders and, I think, at the foundation of good advice to
students.  When students can distinguish between their
behavior and their identity, they are able to manage more
effectively the expectations they have of their own work.

I hope to put what I learned in this article to good use
both for my students and myself.  It might help me be more
honest -- and generous -- to myself when evaluating my
performance as a teacher and an administrator, and more
deliberate in how I try to get better.
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