Students may often feel as if they are not getting better or achieving desired results, even when they are putting in significant effort. While this can be extremely frustrating and potentially even discouraging for a student, the reality is that improvement will occur in ways that are not immediately visible. A primary reason for this is that the learning process is gradual, and it is hard to measure improvement in an area such as writing immediately. A concept like this takes time to develop and improve through thorough practice and receiving feedback; hence, progress is not completely visible from one week to the next. It is when two pieces of work are compared across a longer time period that the level of progress becomes apparent.

Another factor that contributes to this feeling for students is that once they become more familiar and master certain concepts, they shift their focus towards areas where they are weak. This can create an awkward physiological phenomenon for a student where they feel they are struggling more because they are studying a concept that they have a narrower breadth of knowledge in, when in fact their knowledge has actually deepened since they have mastered other areas. Many students only measure their progress through marks. While this can be critical over a longer period of time to see a tangible difference and improvement in performance, in the short-term, this type of comparison may not be beneficial, as they may not see a significant increase in marks from one assessment task to the next. Their skills, structure and application of knowledge may all improve, but the mark may not increase exponentially right away.

In conclusion, a student may not notice their own progress largely due to the fact that they are focusing on quantitative measures, such as a mark, rather than qualitative measures, such as the widening of their knowledge base, application of theory or structure. It is actually these qualitative measures that will lead to an improvement of quantitative measures in the long run, even if they are not visible immediately.

Hayden McCarthy