By SUSAN COLTRIN
BYU students tend to be more accepting of authority, more organized and more concerned with perfection, said David Smart, clinical professor of counseling and development at BYU.
Smart’s conclusions, based on many different tests, will be presented at a Faculty Brown Bag lunch Friday at noon in 376 ELWC.
Compared to national figures, BYU students’ scores on the autonomy section of the Omnibus Personality Inventory were low. The test measures many different aspects of personality and is designed for college students.
“BYU students tend to be more obedient and respecting of authority,” Smart said. “Much of that is simply due to the way LDS people are raised.”
“I think students at BYU generally believe and do what they are told, but only because they agree with it,” Amy Fritz, a sophomore from Connecticut majoring in French, said. “We all have common beliefs or we wouldn’t be here. If we did disagree with something, I don’t think we would just accept it.”
“Everyone knows we have bright students at BYU,” Smart said. “The average ACT score is 27.1. That’s around the 91st percentile. But I think some students have a hard time thinking critically.”
Smart said some students, particularly freshman, will accept anything he says simply because he is the professor.
Laura Smit, a sophomore from Munich, Germany, majoring in journalism agrees. “I think if a professor said something wrong or something that people didn’t agree with, some people might say something, but most people would just accept it.”
Smart wants to find out how to help students be loyal to the church and still be able to think critically and analytically. He also wants to know if it’s necessary to adjust teaching methods to accommodate these personality characteristics.
Students at BYU also seem to be more concerned with perfection than students at other schools, according to the Student Concerns Survey, a survey given by many counselors around the country.
“How do we help kids deal with their needs for perfection?” Smart wonders. “We want people to be their best, but we don’t want them to be too stressed.”
At his lecture, Smart will also present theories of William G. Perry who believed that students enter college thinking in black and white and learn to think in more shades of gray during college as they become more accepting of other ideas.
