On "Teaching Generation Me"

I noted earlier a bad bit of journalism. This is a better bit on the same story (which does provide some links to the actual study). Two-thirds of college students think they will perform in the top twenty percent of their colleagues. Two-thirds of them are wrong.

For those interested in the actual study, it is Jean M. Twenge, "Teaching Generation Me," Teaching of Psychology 40 (2013): 66-69. It is available to those with EBSCO access.

An excerpt from the abstract:

Today’s college students are significantly different from previous generations. On average, they are overconfident, have high expectations, report higher narcissism, are lower in creativity, are less interested in civic issues, and are less inclined to read long passages of text. They are highly confident of their abilities and received higher grades in high school despite doing fewer hours of homework than previous generations.

Having read the actual article, it is best as a summary of previous studies rather than ground breaking research. Such are useful in providing a summary of the problem but not necessarily news to those who have been following the research.