cooling-out process

cooling-out process

In higher education ‘the provision of readily available alternative achievements’ (e.g. transfer from an engineering course to a lower-level course as an ‘engineering aide’) (Clark, 1960b). In this process ‘the student does not clearly fail’, unless he or she wishes to define it so, but instead transfers to some form of more immediate terminal qualification. In alleviating the emotional consequences of‘failure’ in this way, the ‘general result of cooling-out processes is that society can continue to encourage maximum effort without major disturbances from unfulfilled promises and expectations’.