Becoming a Better Student

CHAPTER 2


Becoming a Better Student





Objectives


On completion of this chapter, you should be able to:


• Identify the needs common to all individuals.


• Describe physiologic needs and their effect on learning.


• Describe the way you perceive the world and your unique pattern of behavior for satisfying your needs.


• Examine your lifestyle to identify causes of stress and conflict.


• Examine your values and determine what is and what is not important to you.


• Describe ways in which conflict may be resolved.


• Increase your skills in memory and recall.


• Explain how perception is influenced by your memory of sights, sounds, and events.


• Improve your listening skills and reading effectiveness.


• Examine inaccurate memory and distortions in remembering and explain the theories for why these inaccuracies occur.



Key terms



Choosing a vocation is an explicit statement about the kind of person you are or hope to be. Professional satisfaction will depend on the extent to which you can use your abilities in a productive manner. Your work should be consistent with your values and interests and the roles you fulfill in society. Choosing radiologic technology is an exploration. Education in radiologic technology is vastly different from the learning acquired in high school or a liberal arts college; the main difference is that your curriculum will require you to spend much of your time in the clinical setting, where you will learn how to manage sick and injured patients. Because patient care is the focus of your curriculum, generally the code of conduct is more rigidly defined and is based on the moral and ethical standards associated with the medical profession. You should expect and understand these differences to avoid future frustration or disappointment.


All students experience some frustration, anxiety, and perhaps a degree of disillusionment in preparing for their careers. Fortunately, most students adjust to these irritants with only minor strain. This chapter is provided to help you cope with the rigors of your educational program by learning about yourself and learning how to learn.



Knowing your human needs


Knowing yourself is the most important information you can possess at the beginning of your education. You have your own unique pattern of solving problems and your own values, ambitions, aspirations, and experiences in addition to the basic needs common to everyone; these qualities make up your unique personality. Indeed, personality is a combination of habitual patterns and qualities of behavior and attitudes. You think, feel, and act according to your perceptions of the world. You are a seeker, and your thoughts, feelings, and actions are purposefully directed toward satisfying your needs.


Human needs are complex. Some are unique to the individual, and others are common to everyone. Abraham H. Maslow, a noted psychologist, described a hierarchy of human needs that ranges from basic needs that are essential to life (e.g., food, clothing, shelter) to the highly complex, psychologic, and self-actualization needs (Fig. 2-1). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is listed in the following order:









Physiologic needs


Optimal health and well-being require attention to nutrition, sleep, relaxation, and exercise. To expect optimal learning performance, you must take optimal care of your body.






Psychologic needs


Psychologic care involves developing and maintaining a healthy balance between rational thoughts and emotions. Although your studies will require a great deal of self-discipline, maintaining healthy social interactions with family and friends and accepting your emotions as a natural part of your personality are also important.





Emotional and primal stress


You seldom encounter the stress of a life-threatening event as did the early cave dwellers, but your body responds to stress in the same way (Fig. 2-2). Imagine being stalked by a hungry predator. Your heartbeat accelerates, your blood pressure rises, and hormones rush into your bloodstream to send sugar to your muscles and brain. Food digestion temporarily ceases so that more blood is available for energy. In this way, your body prepares to fight the beast or flee to safety. This type of acute stress, which requires a fight-or-flight response, is what McQuade and Aikman call the first primal stress. Because the body does not identify the source of the fear, it reacts in the same way when you get what is commonly known as “stage fright.” Stage fright is not life threatening, but for some, the fear they experience when speaking before a group is so intense that the body responds as if it were (Fig. 2-3). McQuade and Aikman also list two other types of acute stress that cause a primal body reaction.




The second primal stress is the basic problem of obtaining food. This type of threat does not elicit a fight-or-flight response but rather persuasion, bartering, searching, and producing. Although the stress resulting from a threat to the food supply is seldom life threatening to us today, it is a psychologic stress that may be as painful as hunger itself. You learned in infancy that while receiving food you also received attention, which you translated as receiving love; you were receiving more than the basic nutrients for life. When food is withheld, you may feel that recognition, attention, and love are also being withheld.


Death, the third primal stress, is inevitable. For many people a philosophic or religious belief provides an anchor in times of turmoil & stress. The unalterable truth is that someday you will die. In the meantime, you should make your life worth living and become the person you want to be.


Coping with life stresses is not new to you. While growing and developing, you made many adjustments and concessions. You learned to distinguish your father, mother, brother, and sister, and finally you realized that you were not any of them—this was your discovery of yourself. Later in childhood you began exploring and discovered that you could control parts of your world. You learned what was dangerous and what was safe, what belonged to you and what belonged to others, and that certain behavior brought rewards whereas other behavior was punished. While you were learning these things, you were developing patterns for coping with life situations. Your behavior was based on your most satisfying experiences. It may sound simplistic, but most people behave in a manner that will give them something in return that will satisfy their basic human needs.


B. F. Skinner, a twentieth century educational psychologist, studied animal and human behavior. He found that, when placed in a controlled environment (i.e., an artificial environment to verify the results of an experiment), animals could be taught to perform complex acts by rewarding the desired behavior. He called this reinforcement behavior. He found that behavior could also be modified through punishment or merely with the absence of a reward. Skinner later worked with humans under less-controlled conditions. He found that a form of the reinforcement theory could be applied to shape and modify human behavior.


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Mar 2, 2016 | Posted by in GENERAL RADIOLOGY | Comments Off on Becoming a Better Student

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