Gifted Child Quarterly, 41, 5-17. (1996). Understanding Underachievement All information presented is for informational and archival purposes only. Underachieving students: Intervention programs that work. Conversely, there is a 10% chance that this students real IQ score is lower than 124 or higher than 134. In some states, students must achieve an IQ score at or above a certain cut-off in order to acquire the gifted label. New York: John Wiley and Sons. In other words, using an overly narrow definition may increase Type II error, leading to a failure to identify a truly underachieving gifted student. This genus of this definition, illustrated in Table 2, views underachievement as a regression equation involving human potential and performance (Frick et al., 1991). Teachers and parents perceptions of social-psychological factors of underachievement of the gifted in Korea and the United States. Chapter. The manifestation of underachievement may reflect a mismatch between the student and the curriculum. In addition, as many as 25 to 30 percent of high school dropouts may be gifted individuals. Conceivably, the combination of these factors may account for more variance in achievement than ability alone. Kanoy, R. C., Johnson, B. W., & Kanoy, K. W. (1980). If a student performs more poorly on measures of achievement than one would expect based on measures of ability, then he or she is underachieving. We do not know how many talented students underachieve, but we know that this issue is foremost in the minds of practitioners (Renzulli, Reid, & Gubbins, 1992). An underachievement epidemic. Underachievers in school: Issues and intervention. Overcoming underachievement. In M. C. Wang & E. W. Gordon (Eds. However, other intervening environmental influences and experiences that may not be obvious to school personnel or parents also affect achievement. The results of this research suggest that flexible, student-centered enrichment approaches may help reverse underachievement in gifted students. Clasen, D. R, & Clasen, R. E. (1995). Consider an extreme example: No one would be surprised if a student who had been ill for a long period of time scored significantly lower on a standardized achievement test or a final exam than a healthy classmate of similar ability. WebIn this lesson, you will learn about the emotional and environmental causes of underachievement in gifted students, as well as strategies to help gifted students Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press. The estimated correlation between IQ scores and estimated GPA is approximately .5 (Neisser et al., 1996). (1982). By implicit definition gifted stu- famous longitudinal study of 1,500 gifted students. The effects of group counseling on gifted underachieving adolescents. Underachievement WebStudent Achievement & Underachievement: A Conversation with Del Siegle from the Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented Professional Learning Online Units NRC/GT's Researched Strategies to Increase Student Motivation and Academic Achievement (5 comprehensive professional learning units based on the Achievement Orientation Model) First, psychometric definitions tend to ignore important behavioral causes and correlates of underachievement (Ford, 1996). How can the underachievement of older students be reversed? Rimm (1995) emphasized the importance of parenting styles and parental influence on the development of childrens achievement and underachievement behaviors and found that inconsistent parenting techniques appeared to occur more frequently in the homes of underachieving children (Rimm & Lowe, 1988). Toward a new paradigm for identifying talent potential (Research Monograph 94112). Ford, D. Y. Why bright kids get poor grades and what you can do about it. Family environments of underachieving gifted students. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. (1990). Renzulli, J. S. (1977). One could even argue that Rimms definition includes almost all students. Therefore, one might expect counseling approaches to effectively address the problem of underachievement. WebCharacteristics of gifted underachievers. Because of these errors of measurement, psychologists can never determine with 100% certainty a students true score on the original measure. Roeper Review, 12, 23-29. Pendarvis, E. D., Howley, A. Culturally diverse students continue to face unintentional bias at school and in society at large (Ford, 1996). Social Science Research, 18, 21- 52. For example, low self-concept is one of the most common characteristics ascribed to underachieving gifted students (Belcastro, 1985; Bricklin & Bricklin, 1967; Bruns, 1992; Clark, 1988; Diaz, 1998; Fine & Pitts, 1980; Fink, 1965; Ford, 1996; Kanoy, Johnson, & Kanoy, 1980; Schunk, 1998; Supplee, 1990; Van Boxtel & Monks, 1992; Whitmore, 1980). Definitions of gifted underachievement are inconsistent and sometimes incompatible. Defining Underachievement g l a n c e , in Gifted Students Definitions of gifted underachievement as a discrepancy between potential and performance are by far the most common. Or, can we see the forest for the trees? A social cognitive view of self-regulated academic learning. Mickelson, R. A. Gifted Child Quarterly, 15, 279-292. Unfortunately, little research has addressed the effectiveness of these options. International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. Practitioners who responded to a National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented needs assessment identified underachievement as a major research problem (Renzulli, Reid, & Gubbins, 1992). If unchallenging scholastic environments produce underachieving gifted students, then providing intellectual challenge and stimulation at all grade levels should decrease underachievement. Several issues pose potential problems for understanding the underachievement of African American students. A common method of defining ability involves the use of an IQ test, such as the WISC-III or the Stanford-Binet IV. UNDERACHIEVING LEARNERS: CAN THEY LEARN AT Heacox, D. (1991). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks. The research literature mentions only a small number of interventions. Participants in Emericks study perceive that out-of-school interests and activities, parents, development of goals associated with grades, teachers, and changes in selves had a positive impact on achievement. Certain treatments aimed at combating underachievement combine counseling and school-centered interventions. A longitudinal test of a model of academic success for at-risk high school students. Rimm (1997a) believes that if students are not working to their ability, they are underachieving (p. 18). Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press. Up from underachievement. Rimm and Lowe studied the family environments of 22 underachieving gifted students. In other words, tests may not register the decline since the first test did not discriminate accurately (Rimm et al., 1989 p. 62). Three of these paradigms are compared and contrasted in Table 6. But neither our psychological insights nor our statistical evidence give us reason to believe that a scholastic aptitude test measures all of the significant determiners of scholastic achievement. ), Handbook of gifted education (2nd ed., pp. (p. 157) Reis and McCoach further contend that underachievement can-not be the result of a diagnosed learning disability and must be Belcastro, F. P. (1985). Author Lesley Sword provides strategies for parents to help their. Berndt, T.J. (1999). Diaz, E. I. Often, the lists of common personality traits contradict one another. WebUnderachievement in Gifted and Talented Students with Special Needs Sally M. Reis, Ph.D. Because students underachieve for so many different reasons, no one intervention strategy can possibly reverse these behaviors in all underachieving gifted students. Underachieving students frequently report peer influence as the strongest force impeding their achievement (Clasen & Clasen, 1995). Thorndike, R. L. (1963). Frankel, E. (1965). Although passive-aggressive underachievement may be more likely to indicate psychological disturbance than underachievement attributable to motivational, educational, and cognitive components, this type of underachievement seems fairly responsive to psychotherapy (Weiner, 1992). (1993). Use of behavior modification strategies: A review of the research. New York: Delacorte. Because the factors that influence the development and manifestation of underachievement vary, no one type of intervention will be effective for the full range of underachieving gifted students. Meeting the needs of gifted underachievers individually! Gifted Child Quarterly, 34, 72-75. Weiner, I. Her qualitative research study examined the patterns of underachievement and subsequent achievement of 10 young adults. However, such definitions may not adequately distinguish between gifted students who achieve and those who underachieve. New York: John Wiley and Sons. (NCES 97-055). However, an interesting, though less studied, line of research involves comparing gifted underachievers to other students who are at the same achievement level as measured by GPA, achievement test scores, and so forth, regardless of their measured mental ability. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_3" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Please note, the Davidson Institute is a non-profit serving families with highly gifted children. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. To be classified as an underachiever, the discrepancy between expected and actual achievement must not be the direct result of a diagnosed learning disability and must persist over an extended period of time. Because different school systems use different criteria to label a student gifted, the populations of students who are identified as gifted vary; and, in some cases, they are not comparable. Setting and agenda: Research priorities for the gifted and talented through the year 2000. In M. Kornrich (Ed. Top 12 Quotes & Sayings About Underachievers Planning and implementing programs for the gifted. (1985). Delisle, J. The process of defining underachievement, identifying underachieving gifted students, and explaining the reasons for this underachievement continues to stir controversy among practitioners, researchers, and clinicians. Gifted Child Quarterly, 26, 179-184. Whitmore (1986) suggested that the problem of gifted students who lack motivation to participate in school or to strive to excel academically is, in most cases, a product of a mismatch between the childs motivational characteristics and the opportunities provided in the classroom (p. 67). Sociology of Education, 71, 68-93. Underachieving gifted students: Review and implications. Moreover, a students family, school, or community environment or peer influences may also influence his or her level of achievement. Abstract. Brown, B. Underachiever 484-487). Both Whitmore and Supplee designed their programs to effect immediate change in student behaviors, as well as to research the construct of underachievement. The underachievement of gifted students: What do we Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut, National Research Center for the Gifted and Talented. Includes types of underachievers, suggestions for motivating students and some famous underachievers. Gifted (1988). It is impossible to establish a causal relationship from case study reports of family conflict and underachievement. In other words, they may not identify a student as an underachiever unless performance in at least one major subject area is at least one year below grade level. Challenging expectations: Case studies of culturally diverse young children. What happens when the student reenters the regular class and is once again faced will unstimulating schoolwork? Gifted Child Quarterly, 42, 96-104. In M. Kornrich (Ed. Sociology of Education, 63, 44-61. 5072 Accesses. Using the estimation of the first true score to predict a students expected score on another related measure compounds these measurement uncertainties. Underachievement in Gifted Students: Causes & Solutions Learning to underachieve. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Mandel, H. P., & Marcus, S. I. Gifted Underachievers The problem in this case lies in our initial predictions, not in the students levels of achievement. The researchers found no relationship between poverty and achievement, between parental divorce and achievement, or between family size and achievement. Confidence intervals are usually reported with the standardized test scores. The attitude achievement paradox among Black adolescents. B., Goldberg, M. L., & Passow, A. H. (1966). Gifted Child Quarterly, 30, 66-69. Furthermore, the majority of interventions have attained limited long-term success (Dowdall & Colangelo, 1982; Emerick, 1992). Watertown, WI: Apple. The identification of gifted underachievers using the Woodcock-Johnson psychoeducational battery. They may criticize the school for emphasizing conformity rather than originality and creativity. The underachievement of gifted students is a perplexing phenomenon. The Schoolwide Enrichment Model: A comprehensive plan for educational excellence. Anderson, E. S., & Keith, T. Z. Just as IQ scores are not completely reliable, standardized achievement test scores are also subject to errors of measurement due to content sampling, time sampling, and other issues. Any discussion of issues relating to underachievement in gifted students must carefully define both the constructs of giftedness and underachievement. Roeper Review, 4, 18-21. 108-415). Reis, S. M., Hebert, T. P., Diaz, E. P., Maxfield, L. R., & Ratley, M. E. (1995). WebFor example, many gifted individuals underachieve simply because their parents do not stress the importance of academic achievement and how it can translate into success in the future. Whether gifted students actually require interventions that are qualitatively different from nongifted underachievers has yet to be determined. Unfortunately, what is viewed as achievement in a poor school may be viewed as underachievement by a more competitive school or by society at large. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. B. Neither study utilized a true longitudinal design, and neither researcher was able to fully track the progress of the students once they left the elementary school. The causes and correlates of gifted underachievement have received considerable attention in recent research literature (Dowdall & Colangelo, 1982; Van Boxtel & Monks, 1992; Whitmore, 1986). Four types of - Blogger Externalizing behavior problems and academic underachievement in childhood and adolescence: Causal relationships and underlying mechanisms. A., & Howley C. B. Some researchers have suggested this minority language background may adversely affect Hispanic students academic achievement (Fernandez, Hirano-Nakanish & Paulsen, 1989). Defining underachievement in gifted students seems as if it should be an easy and straightforward task. In M. Kornrich (Ed. However, the relationship between language proficiency and school is complex. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds. Berndt found that students seemed to resemble more closely their friends at the end of the school year than they did at the beginning of the school year. The most common component of the various definitions of underachievement in gifted students involves identifying a discrepancy between ability and achievement (Baum, Renzulli, & Hebert, 1995a; Butler-Por, 1987; Dowdall & Colangelo, 1982; Emerick, 1992; Redding, 1990; Rimm, 1997a; Supplee, 1990; Whitmore, 1980; Wolfle, 1991). For example, an observed score of 130 on WISC-III is in the 98th percentile. Students who are required to repeat grade levels or courses are rarely singled out as a result of low standardized achievement test scores. Renzulli, J. S., & Reis, S. R. (1997). The sample consisted of 56 gifted underachievers and 122 gifted achievers from 28 high schools Models of underachievement among gifted preadolescents: The role of personal, family, and school factors. The authors believe that creativity may be connected to this underachievement. They suggest that highly creative students have a hard time conforming to a more rigid traditional environment. Finally, African American students often exhibit an attitude-achievement paradox; they report positive attitudes toward education, yet they manifest poor academic achievement. McCall, Evahn, and Kratzer (1992) observed that most of the comparison group research within the area of gifted underachievement equates gifted underachievers to their mental ability cohorts. Mather, N., & Udall, A. J. A comparison of gifted underachievers and gifted high achievers. Clarifying the myriad definitions of underachievement that exist in our field will enable professionals and scholars to communicate and investigate this phenomenon more effectively. Reis, S. M., Burns, D. E., & Renzulli, J. S. (1992). Academic underachievement among the gifted: Students perceptions of factors that reverse the pattern. (1985). Many of these studies have found qualitative differences between gifted achievers and gifted underachievers. gifted 514-528). Roeper Review, 16, 88-90. This student may have consciously decided not to expend the time or effort to do seemingly meaningless homework and willfully chose to engage in more self-actualizing activities. Reis, S. M., Neu, T. W., & McGuire,J. 45-74). Most of the self-contained classroom studies lacked suitable control groups. 68-69). Using such an identification method to identify gifted underachievers may lead to problems of under-identification. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Manila, Philippines. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 13, 4-21. Richert, E. S. (1991). Further research and inquiry into this area should address the need for clearly defined, well-researched, and effective interventions for gifted underachievers. Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Association of Gifted Education, 1-7. For example, a student who is clinically depressed or has other emotional or drug-related problems may experience a sudden decline in school grades. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit. However conceptually sound this notion may be, a definition that does not differentiate between a straight-A student and a student who is in jeopardy of failing may have little practical utility for the practitioner. Although some underachieving students appear to progress during academic interventions, the long-term effect of such programs are less clear. Successful Dropouts from High School This raises several important issues. New York: Teachers College Press. Objectification of data used in under-achievement self-concept study. Gifted Distinguishing exactly what constitutes a discrepancy between ability and achievement also poses challenges. Locus of control and self-concept in achieving and underachieving bright elementary students. In fact, only three typesthe anxious underachiever, the rebellious underachiever, and the complacent/coasting underachieverhave approximate parallels in all three authors schema. Professor Department of Educational Psychology D. Betsy McCoach Researcher, Educational Psychologist, 34, 15-28. 139-162). Researchers and educators may need to adjust their views of both giftedness and underachievement when attempting to identify and address the phenomenon within a culturally diverse student population. If low self-concept causes underachievement, interventions that raise self-concept should enhance student achievement. Gifted underachievers : a review of the past and Permission Statement 5 Factors Undermining Achievement in Gifted Boys Underachievement is a very complex situation with many possible interwoven causes. Hinshaw, S. P. (1992b). Educational Leadership, 54 (7), 18-22. (1991). Parenting practices and peer group affiliation in adolescence. (PDF) The Relationship between Underachievement of Gifted Cultural relativism also becomes a factor when identifying underachievement in diverse groups. -- General, social, and academic self-concepts of gifted adolescents. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press. Even so, several studies have found that underachievers do not exhibit lower self-concepts than their achieving counterparts (e.g. Current identification practices that underidentify gifted African American students hinder the identification of gifted underachievers of African American descent. For each personality trait common to gifted underachievers, there are many other underachieving gifted students who do not exhibit that trait. Neisser, U., Boodoo, G., Bouchard, T. J., Boykin, A. W., Brody, N., Ceci, S. J., Halpern, D. P., Loehlin, J. C., Perloff, R., Sternberg, R. J., & Urbina, S. (1996). Even a child who does poorly in most school subjects may display a talent or interest in at least one school subject. Clark, B. B., Loeber, R., Christ, M. A. G., Hart, E. L., & Tannenbaum, L. E. (1991). All comments will be submitted for approval before posting publicly. However, because standardized achievement tests do not directly reflect the actual school experience, they may not be indicative of a students classroom performance. Rather, they are retained as a result of their classroom performance. WebUnderachievement Syndrome: A Psychological Defensive Pattern. By Ingrid Wickelgren on November 2, 2012. If a student spends much of his or her free time reading about world religions or volunteering at the local hospital, but fails to complete mundane homework assignments, does that represent underachievement or a personal decision reflecting a wise use of time? The literature also presents a variety of other classroom designs, such as self-contained classrooms, and home and school partnerships. Synthesizing the hypothesized characteristics of gifted underachievers becomes a nearly impossible task, and legitimate questions exist regarding the utility of such a list. Borland, J. H. (1989). Underachieving boys: Problems and solutions. Mansfield, CT: Creative Learning Press. Academic underachievement and behavior disorders, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 59, 189-194. Different types of underachievers may require different proportions of counseling, self-regulation training, and instructional or curricular modifications. We will not post comments that are considered soliciting, mention illicit topics, or share highly personal information.
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