What is Fear of Failure

Academically disengaged college students are often judged as detached, alienated, and uncommitted to the rigors of learning. While these assumptions are sometimes true, academic disengagement is a multi-faceted phenomenon consisting of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. A restorative approach to disengagement requires faculty to demonstrate vulnerability in telling their own stories of success and failure to foster learning and change of behavior. This chapter is a case study outlining the steps of a restorative experiential learning activity conducted in a criminal justice course in response to 71% of students failing an examination. Using scholarly personal narrative methodology and a qualitative content analysis of open-ended questionnaires from students, this chapter focuses on the need for faculty to be vulnerable to connect and build trusting relationships with students as both prevention and intervention to academic disengagement.