[referring to Thede, 13 Jul 95] A colleague of mine at the University of San Francisco, Bonnie Becker, just finished her dissertation that looks precisely at your concern: when does frustration inhibit success and when does it support it? She looks specifically at the "frustration effect" of distance education, i.e., the lack of a "live" instructor, to see what types of students thrive on such frustration and which ones wilt.