When Students Aren’t Underthinking—They’re Overthinking [Guest Post]
Guest post by Christin Monroe, Cameron Pilato, and Ari Weinshenker
Have you ever had a student fail to submit a research assignment—even though you’re fairly certain they spent a great deal of time working on it? Have you worked with a student who asks what feels like too many questions, or none at all? Have you seen students dramatically undershoot—or overshoot—the expectations for an assignment?
As instructors and as students, all three of us have experienced these moments from different sides of the classroom. Too often, they’re interpreted as signs of low motivation, poor time management, or disengagement.
But our shared experience suggests something else is often going on.
Many students aren’t underthinking their academic work. They’re overthinking it.
What overthinking looks like in practice
Overthinking doesn’t always look like effort. From the outside, it can resemble procrastination, confusion, or missed deadlines. From the inside, it’s often driven by intense cognitive labor—so much mental work that starting, finishing, or submitting an assignment becomes overwhelming.
In academic contexts, overthinking commonly shows up as:
Perfectionism that delays completion
Decision paralysis when tasks are open‑ended
Cognitive overload caused by unclear scope
Slow or uneven processing that affects task initiation
These challenges are largely invisible, especially in brief instructional encounters like library sessions. When students miss deadlines or submit incomplete work, the assumption is often that they didn’t invest enough effort. In our experience, the problem is frequently the opposite.
To make this more visible, we want to center student perspectives.
Student voices: what overthinking actually feels like
Ari’s perspective: perfectionism, processing, and fear of misunderstanding
For me, overthinking shows up most clearly in writing and communication. Whether I’m working on an assignment, an email, or even a text message, I get stuck trying to make my wording exactly right. Tone, clarity, formality, and interpretation are all very important for me to get right and compete for my attention.
This often results in high‑quality work—but it also uses a huge amount of time and energy. I often find myself taking three to four times longer than my peers to output a similar amount of work. By the time I feel confident in what I’ve written, I may be mentally exhausted, which makes finishing and submitting harder. Additionally, once I successfully complete one writing project I often don’t have enough time or energy to work on anything else.
Processing information can also take longer or feel inconsistent. Sometimes I’m juggling too many thoughts at once; other times it feels like my brain is moving slowly through material others grasp quickly. This affects both understanding new information and producing work.
Asking questions can be difficult, too. Even when I know instructors expect students to ask for help, fears of being judged or of bothering the instructor can delay help‑seeking. I also feel pressure to fully understand a topic before contributing, which can slow progress even further.
The result is that many tasks take far longer than intended—not because I’m disengaged, but because I’m expending a great deal of invisible cognitive effort.
Cameron’s perspective: open‑ended tasks and decision paralysis
For me, overthinking often starts at the very beginning of an assignment: choosing a topic. Open‑ended tasks can turn “simple” decisions into exhausting ones. When I’m given a list of possible topics, I worry they’re too basic or unoriginal. When I’m told I can create my own, I weigh endless factors about what’s “best.”
Vague instructions intensify this. I spend a lot of time brainstorming, outlining, and redoing work—sometimes without making visible progress. When expectations feel unclear, I tend to assume I should do more just to be safe, which can make assignments grow far beyond what was intended.
I experienced this during an evolutionary biology final project. I spent days deliberating over topics, then compensated for lost time by over‑researching, creating original diagrams, and expanding the project unnecessarily. I worked extremely hard—and still felt disappointed with the result.
Over time, this pattern becomes a cycle:
overthinking → overwhelm → procrastination → late or missing work
From the outside, it can look like low effort. From the inside, it’s too much effort in the wrong places.
Why library instruction can accidentally trigger overthinking
From both the student and instructor perspectives, it’s clear that research tasks are especially prone to triggering overthinking.
Library instruction often emphasizes:
Open‑ended questions
Multiple valid approaches
Flexible or ambiguous boundaries around scope
For students prone to overthinking, this freedom can feel paralyzing rather than empowering—especially in one‑shot sessions tied to high‑stakes assignments with limited opportunities for feedback.
When expectations aren’t explicit, students may default to assuming that more work is safer than less.
Teaching where overthinking is the norm
Teaching in environments where executive‑function challenges are common makes these patterns easier to see. Missed work is rarely about apathy. More often, students are overwhelmed—putting disproportionate effort into parts of assignments that don’t matter most.
This aligns with broader teaching‑and‑learning research: instructional design shapes cognitive load. How we frame choices, define scope, and communicate expectations deeply affects how students distribute their mental energy.
Designing instruction that reduces cognitive load (not rigor)
Reducing overthinking doesn’t mean lowering expectations. It means making effort more targeted and productive.
Clarify scope early and often.
Be explicit about what students are not expected to do, how much depth is “enough,” and what acceptable outcomes look like.
Reduce decision fatigue.
Offer suggested topics, sample questions, or tiered options (“choose one of these—or propose your own”). Emphasize that multiple approaches can be equally strong.
Scaffold the process.
Even small checkpoints—topic confirmation, source check‑ins, rough outlines—can help students pace effort.
Normalize uncertainty.
Frame questions as a skill. Model how researchers make decisions without perfect information.
Designing for clarity is designing for inclusion
Students aren’t underthinking—they’re often overthinking.
Reducing unnecessary ambiguity helps students follow through, reduces overwhelm, and improves equity—particularly for neurodivergent and anxious learners. Designing for clarity isn’t about controlling learning. It’s about making space for students’ effort to show up where it matters most.
Christin Monroe is an Educational Research Associate working at the intersection of STEM education, accessibility, and inclusion. She designs and studies learning environments that center neurodivergent students, experiential learning, and equitable access to science. She has contributed to national initiatives through organizations like the American Chemical Society and regularly develops programming and resources to support inclusive, evidence-based teaching practices. Her interests include: neurodiversity-affirming pedagogy, executive function–informed course design, undergraduate research access, science outreach, and challenging inequitable structures in STEM education.
Cameron Pilato is a 2nd year student at Landmark College in Putney, VT who intends to graduate with a B.S. in Psychology and Biology from University of Rhode Island in Kingston, RI. In addition to his classes, Cameron has an internship as a Lab & Research Assistant for Professor Rhomberg and is a member of the AIE-STEMPLOS STEM program for Biology and Computer Science students. His academic areas of interest include abnormal psychology, zoology, paleontology, and evolutionary biology. In his free time Cameron enjoys hiking and observing nature as well as drawing, crocheting, and sewing among other art mediums.
Ari Weinshenker is a student at Landmark College in Putney, VT. He is about to earn an A.S. in Biology, and plans to stay at Landmark to earn his B.S. in Biology as well. He hopes to one day attend graduate school in England to be closer to his boyfriend of 3 and a half years. Ari’s academic interests focus on genetics and immunology, but he also dabbles in ecology, evolutionary biology, zoology, psychology, and physics. Ari also has a Teaching and Lab Assistant internship under Professor Eric Rhomberg, and is also a part of the AIE-STEMPLOS S-STEM program at Landmark College. In his free time, Ari likes to listen to audiobooks, play videogames, hang out with friends, draw occasionally, and cuddle with his cats.
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