Why don't students learn from failure?
Abstract
Chapter 1 explores how the emotional and cognitive barriers associated with failure leave many students struggling to learn from their errors. It considers the humiliation and shame that are linked to academic mistakes and encourages readers to reflect on their own responses to failure. By differentiating between a general ‘fear of failure’ and a more specific ‘threat of failure’, it exposes how failure is subjective, inevitable and frequently damaging to the motivation of novice learners, in relation to both goal setting and goal striving.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Education
Achievement
and Giftedness
Grit
Self-Efficacy
and Motivation
Perfectionism
Procrastination
Anxiety Studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Routledge eBooks
- Pages
- 1–22
- Publication date
- 3 February 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Book chapter