A comparative study of achieving and underachieving boys of high intellectual ability. Defining underachievement based strictly upon scholastic success or failure may also be limiting. 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. Finally, the differences among the three authors typical categories of underachievers further illustrate the fact that none of the lists are definitive or immutable. Counseling interventions for passive-aggressive underachievers are most effective when the student seeks counseling or at least participates willingly in the counseling process. Locus of control and self-concept in achieving and underachieving bright elementary students. First, researchers should begin to explore the relationship between classroom practices and academic underachievement. Underachievement is an issue that can be especially impactful among gifted students, particularly those who are profoundly gifted. Gifted Child Quarterly, 41, 5-17. Recently, Reis (1998) suggested that gifted students who are not challenged in school may actually demonstrate integrity and courage when they choose not to do required work that is below their intellectual level. ), Understanding the gifted adolescent, (pp. The definition of achievement in a particular subculture may be very different from that of the dominant culture. Environmental influences and events have a major impact on students achievement. Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut, National Research Center for the Gifted and Talented. Laffoon, K. S., Jenkins-Friedman, R., & Tollefson, N. (1989). Diagnostique, 21 (1), 43-59. Bright underachievers. Attempting to define overarching psychological constructs to describe gifted underachievers is virtually impossible. Often, students may not be classified as underachievers unless they have exhibited low performance for at least a year. Gifted Child Quarterly, 26, 179-184. Up to 50% of gifted children underachieve at some point in their school career; therefore, it is an important issue for parents and educators to address. Lupart, J. L., & Pyryt, M. C. (1996). Disclaimer: The appearance of any information in the Davidson Institutes Resource Library does not imply an endorsement by, or any affiliation with, the Davidson Institute. These are the students that the teacher may wish to assign more work, extra work or more challenging work to in order to help them get this out of their system. Does the underachievement of the child create problems in the family unit? RT @DavidsonGifted: Finding out your child is profoundly gifted or twice-exceptional can be overwhelming. Crossover children: A sourcebook for helping students who are gifted and learning disabled. 149-195). In a recent study, researchers used self-selected Type III enrichment projects as a systematic intervention for underachieving gifted students. Because causes and correlates of underachievement differ, no one intervention reverses underachievement patterns in the full spectrum of gifted underachievers. Child Development, 64, 467-482. Defining underachievement operationally provides researchers and readers with a clearer picture of the composition of the sample being studied and enables the comparison of results of different studies. Do gifted underachievers have more in common with gifted students who do achieve or low-achieving students who are not gifted? Underachievement syndrome: A national epidemic. Baum, S. M., Renzulli, J. S., & Hebert, T. P. (1995a). A., Bridger, R, & Evans, K. (1998). Underachievers Web Growing up gifted (2nd ed.). Perhaps the family discord is a result of rather than a cause of, the childs underachievement. Why bright kids get poor grades and what you can do about it. Growing up gifted (3rd ed.). Do schools that differentiate instruction for high-ability students have fewer, incidences of underachievement? Curriculum compacting: A guide for teachers. New York: Teachers College Press. WebUnderachievement Syndrome: A Psychological Defensive Pattern. English language proficiency in school tends to improve across generations of immigrants, but test scores, grades, and other forms of educational achievement do not, especially among Latinos (Rumberger & Larson, 1998 Rumberger and Larson found that. Chichester, England: John Wiley and Sons. Supplee, P. L. (1990). (1988). We propose an imperfect, yet workable operational definition for defining and identifying underachievers in general, as well as gifted underachievers. (1985). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. McCall, R. B., Evahn, C., & Kratzer, L. (1992). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. The most well-known educational interventions for gifted students have established either part-time or full-time special classrooms for gifted underachievers (e.g., Butler-Por, 1987; Fehrenbach, 1993; Supplee, 1990; Whitmore, 1980). Communicator, 29 (1), 1, 19-24. Different types of underachievers may require different proportions of counseling, self-regulation training, and instructional or curricular modifications. Educational Psychologist, 33, 45-63. Whitmore (1980) designed and implemented a full-time elementary program for gifted underachievers. Therefore, such studies will require the attention of researchers who can utilize sophisticated design techniques. By Ingrid Wickelgren on November 2, 2012. (1998). After reviewing the research in the field of gifted underachievement, Emerick (1992) observed that the picture of the underachiever which emerges is complex and often contradictory and inconclusive (p. 140). Reis, S. M., Neu, T. W., & McGuire,J. It is important for educators to have a clear understanding as to who are considered gifted underachievers in the classroom. When teachers expect students to complete work involving content and concepts mastered several years earlier, high-ability students become difficult to motivate. 514-528). Understanding Underachievement For 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) Students may experience short-term lags in achievement that may not be indicative of a long-term underachievement problem. The sample consisted of 54 students from primary schools; 35 high achievers and 24 underachievers. In M. C. Wang & E. W. Gordon (Eds. Renzulli, J. S. (1977). The construct of underachievement in gifted students differs across cultures. The absence of any clear, precise definition of gifted underachievement restricts research-based comparisons and hinders the quest for suitable interventions. New York: Teachers College Press. Supplee (1990) instituted a part-time program for gifted elementary underachievers. These menus should include curricular modification and differentiation options such as curriculum compacting, counseling components, and self-regulation training activities. Educational Psychologist, 34, 15-28. The research literature mentions only a small number of interventions. The report entitled A Nation at Risk: The Imperative of Educational Reform was prepared by the National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983). Most of the interventions reported in the literature (i.e., Supplee, 1990; Whitmore, 1980) were designed to effect immediate results with a group of acutely underachieving gifted students. Webunderachievement appear to be one of the major reasons for disagreement, and different researchers may use different measures to determine who is an underachiever. Whitmore, J. R. (1986). Rimm, S. (1997a). In this conception of underachievement, underachievers may be viewed as individuals who fail to self-actualize. The plethora of definitions and identification methods contribute to the difficulty in studying the characteristics of this population. Gifted (1992). Deficits in self-control or self-regulation may engender underachievement (Borkowski & Thorpe, 1994; Krouse & Krouse, 1981). An underachievement epidemic. Interventions aimed at reversing gifted underachievement fall into two general categories: counseling and instructional interventions (Butler-Por, 1993; Dowdall & Colangelo). Gifted Child Quarterly, 39, 224-235. Furthermore, Rimm (1995) developed her underachiever profiles to reflect the variety of students she had treated in her clinical practice. Underachievement and Student Motivation If a student scores in the 99th percentile on an IQ test, that does not mean that he or she should also score in the 99th percentile on standardized measures of achievement. If tests provide invalid inferences about a students ability or achievement, they must, by extension, be invalid indices of underachievement (Ford). Manila, Philippines. (NCES 97-055). No reason exists to believe that all gifted students should achieve well academically (Janos & Robinson, 1985) or that ability and achievement should be perfectly correlated (Thorndike, 1963). ), Handbook of Gifted Education (2nd ed., pp. Ford, D. Y. Rather, they are retained as a result of their classroom performance. 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, Underachieving students may not want to identify with their parents (Clark, 1983; Weiner, 1992). Using the estimation of the first true score to predict a students expected score on another related measure compounds these measurement uncertainties. The issues surrounding the identification of culturally diverse gifted students have received greater attention in recent years, and several points seem clear. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 14, 451-467. In other words, if a student were to take the same IQ test again, there is a 90% probability that his or her score would fall between 124 and 134. Gifted Child Quarterly, 42, 96-104. Roeper Review, 12, 23-29. Author: Reis, S. & McCoach, D. 649-668). Because students underachieve for so many different reasons, no one intervention strategy can possibly reverse these behaviors in all underachieving gifted students. 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). We need to move beyond correlational studies of common characteristics of underachieving students and begin to explore linkages and flow of causality among these different characteristics and student achievement. Parents of high-achieving students seem to utilize an authoritative parenting style more often than parents of low-achieving students (Taylor, 1994). Underachieving students: Intervention programs that work. The range of characteristics ascribed to gifted underachievers by numerous authors are summarized in Table 5 and Table 5 (continued). Minority students are often underrepresented in programs for the gifted and talented (Ford, 1996; Tomlinson, Callahan, & Leili, 1997). The manifestation of underachievement may reflect a mismatch between the student and the curriculum. Broad, inclusive definitions of gifted underachievement allow more flexibility in the identification of gifted underachievers. Pirozzo, R. (1982). (1996). The abilities of gifted children. (1991). This attitude-achievement paradox makes understanding and reversing their underachievement difficult to those unfamiliar with the phenomenon (Mickelson, 1990). If a certain amount of variation between aptitude measures and achievement measures is normal, how does one distinguish between normal variability in scores and a discrepancy that indicates a cause for concern? How many researchers have explored how success can be achieved in the mainstream in the United States without assimilation? ), Underachievement (pp. 119-137). As you can see, intelligence and high achievement are two of the big winners. (1991). Three general themes emerge from the many operational and conceptual definitions of gifted underachievement (Dowdall & Colangelo, 1982; Ford, 1996). Is providing intellectual challenge especially critical during a particular age range? Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 14, 221-233. M. (1995). The attitude achievement paradox among Black adolescents. Underachieving gifted males: Are we missing the boat? Students who are difficult to motivate are often categorized as underachievers. (1992). Part of this variability is explained by the error of measurement of the criterion. These and many other question remain unanswered. Differences in scores will arise as a result of sampling errors, student mood and health on the testing days, and other extraneous variances. It is erroneous to equate an A in third grade math with an A in advanced placement calculus. For example, according to several authors (e.g., Belcastro, 1985; Bricklin & Bricklin, 1967; Bruns, 1992; Diaz, 1998; Dowdall & Colangelo, 1982; Fine & Pitts, 1980; Fink, 1965; Ford, 1996; Kanoy, Johnson, & Kanoy, 1980; Schunk, 1998; Supplee, 1990; Van Boxtel & Monks, 1992; Whitmore, 1980), positive self-concept appears to correlate with student achievement, raising an interesting but unanswered question: Does low self-concept cause underachievement or does underachievement result in a deterioration of self-concept, or does a third exogenous variable influence both self-concept and scholastic achievement? The extent and effects of peer pressure among high school students: A retrospective analysis. Identifying distinguishing characteristics of gifted and talented learning disabled students. The Davidson Young Scholars progr, RT @Indl_Learning: Some of the executive functioning skills are: Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press. Families with underachieving children tend to exhibit less positive affect (Mandel & Marcus, 1988). Gifted Child Quarterly, 42, 5-14. 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.
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