Academic Skills Advice
Building Self-confidence, Becoming More Assertive and Dealing with People
This workshop will...
−Explain why you need to be confident at degree level
−Demonstrate ways to improve your confidence with people at university and in the workplace
−Provide tips on how to reduce anxiety for examinations, and other performative assessments
Teaching points:
- Understanding the importance of confidence
- Being assertive
- Dealing with people in one-to-one interactions, meetings/seminars and presentations
- Exams and other performative assessments
Adapted extensively from Gutmann (1993) and Hayes (2004).
1.Understanding the importance of confidence
Your previous educational experience will be very different from your time at University. There are two major differences:
- the methods tutors use to deliver information -lectures, seminars, tutorials, etc.
- how you show your understanding through different assessment methods - longer essays and examinations, presentations, laboratory practicals, work-based sessions, etc.
These methods of taking on information and demonstrating learning require you to develop new skills which are not just about being a good student.
You may have to learn how to…
deal with people in a one-to-one situation
be pro-active in a group whether in a work meeting or in an assessed activity
deliver a presentation
ask questions of tutors and guest speakers
perform a lab practical to be observed
write long essays in an extended exam situation
These all require confidence which some people believe you are born with.This is not true:
confidence is a skill,
(to) be learnt and mastered
(Fox, 2011: 44)
If you want to succeed, you need the confidence to learn the skills to do so. Do not be afraid of failure: it is how we learn. No one tied their shoelaces, or rode a bike without tying a knot or falling off. Mistakes are good: it shows you are trying and you will be better the next time.
Activity 1: Your confidence black hole
Write down on a Post-it note what you are least confident about concerning university. Nothing is too silly or small. Fold them up and place in the box. We will then discuss possible solutions to your fears.
2.Being assertive
Whether you are asking a question, putting across your point of view or having to give someone bad news, how you tell people will affect how they feel and react. Being assertive is an important aspect of saying what you need to say and minimising any problems. Like having confidence, assertiveness is a skill that can be learnt. To follow are a number of elements to acting assertively.
Content skills:
- be brief and direct to stay on track
- be respectful without being judgemental about whether it is your or the someone else’s fault
- use ‘assertive messages’ to acknowledge the other person’s potential responses and feelings…
−explanations – I cannot change the date of our study group
tomorrow asmost ofthe group have a lab
practical the day after.
−empathy – I cannot change the date of our study group
tomorrow. I’msorrybecause I know you will be
disappointed as you wanted to discuss retinal
fluctuations.
−apology for consequences – I cannot change the date of our study group
tomorrow. I’m sorry as I know it will mean you miss presenting at the University conference.
−attempting compromise – I cannot change the date or time of the study
group, butwould you like to ask Suzie if she could change the time of your presentation at the conference?
−being positive – Suzie told me she had asked you to present at the
conferencebecause of the contributions you made towards the project. I’m sorry I cannot change the date of the study group.’
- Develop verbal responses for when you are in a conflict situation…
−When you (non-evaluative description) When you are late for study group
meetings…
−I feel (what you feel) I feel frustrated…
−Because (clarification of effect) because our time is wasted whilst
we update you on our discussions.’
Let’s look at these three situations together to decide if the responses are assertive or non-assertive.
- You have submitted a report to senior-management and the Managing Director visits your office to compliment you on its clarity and scope. You say…
1.Thank you’
2.It didn’t go to plan, I found it very difficult’
- You have booked a day’s leave tomorrow to meet a friend who is over from New York. Your colleague decides to take the day off to go shopping for her wedding dress and checks that you will be in. You say…
1.Yes, I’ll be in, I suppose I can see Elaine at the weekend.
2.Yes, I’ll be in.
- You have watched your manager give a good presentation and afterwards congratulate him on his success. You say….
1.That was really brilliant: I’d never have the nerve to face so many people.
2.That went really well; I like the way you made the statistics interesting.
You also have to avoid aggressive behaviour which is not necessarily about shouting, arguing or being angry. It is about taking rights for yourself that you do not allow to others. Does this sound familiar?
A friend insists you look at her holiday photographs although she knows you are rushing to get away.
Friendly advice – ‘You should try….’ ‘You must tell him…’ ‘Why didn’t you….?’
Involving flattery – ‘Could you do me a huge favour? You are so good at…….could you do this? It will only take a few minutes and I’m no good at it’ perhaps with a pleading (manipulative) tone.
Sarcasm, prejudice, threat, put downs – ‘typical woman’.
Self-confident people do this but so do people with little confidence as they try to mask their anxiety by overly-blunt aggressive behaviour.
Together we will work out which of the following are assertive
or aggressive.
A close colleague is about to have a meeting with another member of staff who has been unpleasant to him in the past. You say…
1.You must stand up to her this time, don’t let her get away with being so rude to you and don’t let yourself be browbeaten.
2.If youwant to discuss how you are going to behave when you see her, I’ll be happy to help.
Activity 2: Your turn
Read the scenarios and responses below and decide if they are aggressive, assertive or non-assertive, and why. Check with your neighbour to see if you have the same answers. Beware as some response types may appear more than once in the same questions.
A.Youhave made a mistake which will cost your Company around £8,000 to put right. Your boss is reprimanding you and you:
1.Get angry, saying it would not have happened if you had been properly briefed.
2.Shift from one foot to another, feeling about three years old.
B.Youhave been set an assessed group activity and are in your first meeting with the other students. Two of the students are talking to each other about a night out whilst others discuss the task. You:
1.Say nothing to the two chatting students but roll your eyes at other students.
2.Ask the chatting students to please stop talking about other matters as you are finding it difficult to hear the discussion.
C.Youare in a 1:2:1 with your social work placement supervisor regarding a record of the previous meeting you feel does not reflect the content based on your notes. You are very nervous and say:
1.Our meeting was nothing like this - you got the record wrong and this is what really happened.
2.We don’t appear to have remembered the meeting in the same way. I suggest we look at the points that don’t tally and come to a decision we both agree on.
Non – verbal skills:
- Speaking louder but not shouting
- Using inflection to direct attention to important parts of communication
- Being firm
- Intermittent eye contact
- Not fidgeting including facially
- Smooth and steady body gestures
- Upright body posture
Social interaction skills:
- Escalating by increasing the intensity of your communication to get an answer to your question (before you start escalating, try rephrasing your question first)
- Persisting until you get an appropriate answer or reaction
- Managing defensive reactions by reflecting what the other person has said -
Assertion: ‘I am grateful for the first-class apprenticeship you’ve given me but I think it’s time for me to stand on my own two feet. I think it’s time to end our regular daily meeting.’
Response: ‘So you don’t think an old hand like me has anything useful to offer any more. You think I’m past it.’
Reflective response and reassertion: ‘You feel I don’t value your advice because I think you are out of touch with new developments. That is not the case. I want to break off the daily meetings because I feel it’s time I took more responsibility for my own work.’
3.Dealing with people in one-to-one interactions, meetings and presentations
Sooner or later, you will have to deal with people during your course. The situations students tend to feel anxious about related to people aremeeting their tutor or work-based supervisor; asking questions in a seminar or meeting; and delivering presentations to a group.
Being in an office with your tutor or supervisorcan make you feel like you are under a microscope: you are pinned to a chair with nowhere to hide from what you think will be a ‘telling off’ or at the very least, heavy criticism even if you are the one who arranged the meeting.
THIS IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS
At University, you have two tutors:
- Personal Tutors and Work-based supervisors do a similar job with the first dealing with any academic (not subject specific) issues you may have and the latter handling your wellbeing and professional development in the workplace.
- Course Tutors are available face-to-face or by email to help with any problems or questionsregarding their subject area.
It is normal to feel nervous before you speak to any of these people as they are in a position of authority, whether you’ve arranged the meeting or not. I like to remember that your tutors are paid by your fees and their job is to ensure you are a successful student, so this means that they should answeryour questions, decipher feedback, explain a difficult point, or help in any other way. Your work supervisors have been selected for their expertise and ability to assist new students, so you are part of their job too.
As a group, what do you think you should do before you go
to see a tutor/supervisor?
Straight forward isn’t it? No? One major factor is missing from the list above: how to ask questions assertively. Whilst we have also covered this extensively, it is useful to look at an example of how a student might ask a question for a booked 1:2:1 tutorial session:
Dr. Smith, if you’re not too busy…course you’re busy but thanks for seeing me. I‘m…umm..having a bit of…am in a pickle about….aahh.. the social regula… social work regulations since…aaahh…..hang on, I’ll just check the date….since 1990 was it? Yes. Would it be ok if you could sort of help me out with it? Please?’
Even though the tutors are there to help, this would test the patience of the most tolerant of tutors. Asking in the following way makes it clear to you both what you want to discuss making it easier for the tutor to answer:
Dr. Smith, I am having difficulty understanding your point about social work regulations since 1990. Could you go through that with me please?
What tutors like is:
- Students clearly engaging with feedback from previous assignments and using this to build upon skills
- Evidence of having taken notice of feedback on previous assignments and correcting errors.
Improving marks is a great confidence booster, so make sure you read, understand and apply any feedback given to you. It is fine to ask a tutor about feedback if it is unclear or you do not understand a point being made, but if you do ask a tutor for help and you have not read your feedback, do not be surprised by a terse response!
Seminars and meetingsshould be run and facilitated by either your tutor or supervisor at your placement who will give everyone the opportunity to ask questions and express opinions. People are worried they will be asked to participate and this can be even more difficult if you have very confident students who are constantly offering their opinions without being asked! Alternatively, you may want to get involved but aren’t sure how to do it in the heat of a discussion.
Do your homework but don’t think you have to become an expert; formulate some ideas; and transform them into questions. Doing this shows your tutor/supervisor you are engaging with the subject at hand/agenda items and you will be able to make a worthwhile contribution.
The longer you wait to get involved in a discussion, the more your stress will build, so get it over with quickly. You will then be able to relax and listen to other contributors, as well as feeling good about offering an opinion or answer. If you sit opposite your tutor/supervisor you are most likely to catch their eye and being asked to speak. You can always try the old tradition of putting your hand up or keep repeating ‘Can I ask…?’ until you get a chance to speak. If someone interrupts, either don’t stop talking or ask ‘Can I just finish please?’
Adapted from Levin (2007: 83-85)
Activity 3: Watch the film clip
Watch the film clip and with a neighbour jot down in the space below what you noticed about what the students said and did during the discussion.
We run presentationworkshopsbut the following steps will help you to have control over yourself, your content and style of delivery.
Make sure you know exactly what you are supposed to do. This includes the basics – time, date and location; and how long the presentation is to be – but also a clear brief from your tutor. You are already starting to take control.
Reading around your subject early gives you time to think about what to include. Check out your presentation venue to see how big it is, what equipment it has, if there is any building work or other noise issues to contend with, and anything else obvious. See if you can do a rehearsal in the venue itself. Knowledge is power.
Put together a basic structure for you to decide the order you want to deliver your information in. This could be as a story (how you approached the topic, how you researched it, how you made sense of it, how you arrived at your conclusion), or like an essay (introduction, main body, conclusion), or another structure. Even if you are not using PowerPoint in your presentation, it is a great tool as you can summarise a point on a slide and move them around to see check if your presentation flows. You now know what’s coming and when.
Create a draft not a script. A presentation is not a memory test so make and use notes on slides or index cards or on a piece of paper with highlighter to show you when a new point starts. This is your prompt if you are come unstuck.
Prepare a handout even if you are doing a PowerPoint as some people find it difficult to read words or see visuals on a screen. They will also be able to mull over your presentation when you have finished. You now have props to refer to.
Whilst practise doesn’t make perfect, you need to rehearse. What looks good on paper sometimes does not sound right when spoken. It will also help to get your timings right as if it is an assessed presentation, you may lose marks by going over the allocated time. Practise alone first, then with someone you trust to give you an honest opinion. Don’t just practise the presentation content: practise eye contact, smiling, moving your arms and hands. This means the first time you will deliver the presentation to the group will not be the first time you will deliver the presentation
Have a Plan B. If you are doing a PowerPoint but for some reason the equipment refuses to work, make sure you can deliver without the electronics. You now have a life raft to escape on.
Adapted from Levin (2007: 84-88)
4.Exams and other performative assessments
Like presentations, we run workshops on preparing for examinations but it will be helpful to run briefly through strategies you could try to help quell those nerves.
The two basic elements you need for success are knowing your subject thoroughly, and being able to interpret the exam questions so you can answer the actual question being asked. Looking at past papers will help with this even if at first reading they look like they have been written in Elvish. Persist and you will learn to decode what the questions are asking you. If you are unsure, speak to your Personal Tutor, Course Tutor or other students. Once you know what the questions want, you can then provide a considered answer. Past papers not only give you an insight to the questions but also how the paper is laid out so you know what to expect when you open that booklet, and also that certain sections of the paper may be worth more marks than others. This helps you to prioritise your time to gain the most marks quickly.