An Analysis of University Student Academic Self-Entitlement: Levels of Entitlement, Academic Year, and Gender

Academic self-entitlement is a rapidly increasing phenomenon that is becoming a problem in universities today. Self-entitled students expect high grades for minimal effort and tend to be highly demanding; they exhibit strong emotions when outcomes fail to meet their expectations. This type of student behavior increases the burden placed upon unprepared faculty, emphasizes performance goals rather than learning goals, and threatens to place the core values of education at stake. This study investigates whether relationships exist between student gender, year in school, and academic self-entitlement. University students were assessed using the Academic Entitlement Scale (Achacoso, 2002). A two-way MANOVA revealed significant differences by gender, with males more self-entitled than females. There also were significant differences by academic year in school, with students less self-entitled as they progressed from early undergraduate years to graduate school. There were no significant interactions for the effects of academic year in school and gender.