A Study on Academic Self-handicapping among Behavioral Sciences Students of The University of the Philippines Manila

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the incidence, prevalence and nature of academic selfhandicapping among all 2nd year, 3rd year and 4th year/ graduating Behavioral Sciences students of the University of the Philippines Manila. Self-handicapping is a form of defense mechanism whereby a person attributes his/her failure to something temporary or external rather than to lack of talent or ability. It is an impression-management strategy, a way to make other people perceive them as competent. A pretested, interview-guided questionnaire was administered to the study population. The sociodemographics is described as follows: 96 male and female students, 16-24 years old, with general weighted average ranging from 1.46- 3.00, majority of which plan to graduate with honors. The goal of the questionnaire is to extract enough information that will determine if the respondents never, seldom, often or always engage in self-handicapping. The data were analyzed using the Pearson correlation and Pearson chi square. Results showed that 56.3% of the study population seldom and never engage in selfhandicapping while 42.7% often do. There was no significant difference in self-handicapping tendency between males and females in the study. A variety of behaviors surfaced as self-handicaps, such as sleeping very late, watching television/ movies or engaging in long phone and/ or internet sessions a night prior to an exam and doing some other things in the seat during class discussions. Claims or excuses, such as professing to be shy and not being able to review class lesson were reported to be the most frequent forms of self-reported self-handicapping by both genders. Of the 3 year levels, the 3rd year students seldom self-handicapped, followed by the seniors/graduating and the 2nd year last. It was also observed that the higher the GWA (General Weighted Average) as well as the desire to graduate with honors, the lower the incidence of self-handicapping was. Results further showed that the stronger the student’s belief that his peers and professors know his/ her skills, the lower the tendency to self-handicap was. Students who have high self-esteem exhibited a lower tendency to self-handicap. And those who generally rated themselves as achievers seldom self-handicapped while the underachievers often did. Factors significant to the strategy were uncertainty, anxiety, procrastination, impression management, performance goal orientation and academic concept.