Underachievers
This paper addresses the issue of how a
negative self concept can effect
achievement of gifted students. it
specifically focuses on the effect of academic
achievement, discusses what it
means to be both an underachiever and have a
negative self concept, how to
identify these students and what family and
teachers can do about this. PAPER
Many academically gifted children underachieve
in school classrooms as a
result of the fact that they do not know how to
achieve higher a or they feel
they cannot achieve a task that they are expected
to be able to but find it
too difficult. Underachievement is a pervasive problem
which results in a
tremendous waste of human potential among our most able
students. In fact, in
1972 the U.S. Commissioner of Education estimated that
17.6% of gifted (
both academically and non-academically) students drop out of
high school, and
that percentage is probably even higher today. (Schnieder,
1997) and to
add a New Zealand perspective, Moltzen (in McAlpine and Moltzen,
1996)
suggest that 10-20% of students who do not graduate are gifted.
These
students hold a negative self concept of themselves as they have not
received
the support necessary to be able to work and achieve at their own
level. There
are many different contributing factors to the establishing of
self concepts and
how they effect gifted children. . This paper addresses how
gifted children form
negative self concepts of themselves and how can effect
their achievement in an
academic school setting. First it is necessary to
provide the background
knowledge and the definitions on areas that are to be
discussed. For the purpose
of this paper the definition of self concept is a
persons view of self, in
relation to their perception of feed back from
others. This view occurs in both
academic and non-academic areas. (Fox, 1993
in Rawlinson, 1996) To specifically
focus on the academic area of self
concepts which is being addressed in this
paper , an academic self concept is
a relatively stable set of attitudes and
feelings reflecting self evaluation
of ones ability to successfully perform
basic school related tasks such as
reading, writing, spelling and maths. (Boersma
& Chapman,1992 in
Rawlinson, 1996) Self concepts tend to be domain specific,
meaning that
pupils have different self concepts towards different areas of the
curriculum
(Schunk,1990) but to avoid complications throughout this paper all
academic
subjects will all be inclusive with each other. The definition of
underachievement
is not as straight forward as that of self concept as many
people have different
ideas on what it means to underachieve. Wellington and
Wellington (1965) suggest
that under achievers have a low level of
aspiration. In its simplest form it can
be defined as a unfulfilled potential
(Moltzen in McAlpine and Moltzen, 1996)
but neither of these definitions
provide much capture the essence of
underachievement in gifted children as
they do not provide enough detail as to
the difference between what they are
achieving and what they could achieve. The
definition of the purpose of this
assignment is provided by Davis and Rimm( 1994
in Moltzen, 1996) who define
underachievement as a discrepancy between the Childs
school performance and
some index of his or her actual ability such as
intelligence, achievement, or
creativity score or observational data. Because a
gifted student
underachieves it does not mean that they are failing in the
school system.
Gifted students are generally capable of performing at least two
levels ahead
of their age peers. If they are not identified as being gifted,
they are
seldom challenged to perform in accord with their potential. In fact,
these
capable students may be considered underachievers even when they get"good"
grades.( Schneider, 1997) All children are natural learners and begin
life
with a drive to acquire knowledge, understand it and make use of it
according
to their abilities. Children do not begin school with the intention
of
seeking failure or frustrating their teachers. (Schnieder, 1997) And
gifted
children definitely do not go out to seek failure. How pupils use this
newly
found information that they have learnt and how teachers react to how
they use
this information or how well they achieve, contributes to the
forming of self
concepts. An individuals self concept is formed as a result
of interactions and
experiences with others and is learned and acquired over
time. (Rawlinson, 1996)
In reinforcement to the idea that self concepts
are learned, Scheirer &
Kraut (1979) suggest with specific reference
to academia that a self concept is
a product of interactive outcomes with
ones academic environment with an
emphasis on accumulated pattern of
competence in conceptualisation of self and
on social environment for
changing behaviour. It is important to acknowledge
that as self concept is
learnt it can be changed. School children receive many
opportunities to
evaluate their skills and abilities and this evaluative
information
contributes to the formation and modification of their
self
concepts.(Schnuck, 1990) Gifted children can obtain a negative self
concept by
being exposed to people who either are not informed about their
abilities
therefore the child does not know what they are capable of or
people who are not
supportive in fostering their abilities. But despite the
fact that they may not
be totally aware of their gifts they are still gifted
and the intensity with
which many gifted children approach life increases
their vulnerability to
criticism and consequently enhances fearfulness.
Dismissive, or, judgemental
responses from adults simply confirm their belief
in their own inadequacy whilst
achievement based teacher and parent
expectations determine a child's worth as'conditional. (Eckhaus, 1997) As the
formation of self concept is learned
through the childs environment, both at
home and at school, the people who have
the biggest effect on the children
are teachers and parents. Causes of
underachievement due to negative self
concept that has come from the home, are
parents who have not acknowledged
their children’s abilities or are
unsupportive of their talents. If they have
acknowledged their abilities, they
can have unrealistic, unobtainable
expectations of their children. The classroom
is one of the major challenges
in pupils lives so the feed back that teachers
give them will shape their
whole perception of themselves. Within the school
environment the classroom
can provided a gifted child lack of respect, a
strongly competitive
environment and inflexibility and rigidity, exaggerated
attention to errors
and failures, and unrewarding curriculum. It can also be
simply the lack of
knowledge that the teacher has about the identification of
gifted children
therefore the teacher does not expect that the child can do
better. (Moltzen
in McAlpine & Moltzen, 1996) Teachers always from
expectations about
their students and it always involves aspects of intellectual
achievement.
Teachers mainly form expectations from the students past
performance which is
usually less biased and the most appropriate information
available.
(Stipek,1993) but if these children have not been identified as
gifted
previously then the expectations that are formed at the beginning of
the
school year may not be as high as what they should be. Teachers can
communicate
these expectations through various kinds of interaction with the
pupils such as
verbal and written comments on work.(Good and Brophy,1987)
This reinforces to
the gifted child where their abilities lie so they know
that they only have to
achieve to the level that the teacher expects of them.
As to avoid this
occurring it is necessary to discuss how teachers can
identify underachievement
in an academic situation. Identification of the
underachieving child is going to
be very much up to the classroom teacher but
parents should also be considered
an important source of information.(Moltzen
in McAlpine and Moltzen, 1996)
Identification of underachieving gifted
children can be very difficult Moltzen
(in McAlpine and Moltzen, 1996)
suggest that testing is the most effective means
of obtaining an accurate
picture of the ability of an underachieving gifted
child as if a child scores
higher in a test than what is expected is quite
significant. Providing
students with access to programmes, activities and
experiences that they
would not normally be considered for can sometimes
demonstrate a previously
unnoticed ability. Also, self concept is often shown in
their attitudes
toward learning .Pupils who are confident of their learning
abilities and
feel a sense of self worth display greater interest and motivation
in school
which enhances achievement. Higher achievement, in turn, validates
ones self
confidence for learning and maintains a high sense of self esteem.
(Schnuck,
1990) All children like to feel success, it makes them feel
good about
themselves especially when they achieve a challenge which is
really what gifted
children need. They also need to be taught the strategies
so that they can
achieve a challenge at their level also. Problem behaviours
of gifted
underachievers are often efforts to cope with an environment which
isn't meeting
their needs. (Schnieder, 1997) Ideally all human beings need
enough success so
that they see themselves and their possibilities as within
the successful range.
( Wellington & Wellington, 1965) Teachers need to
not only know how to
identify an underachieving child with difficulties in
their own self concept but
what can be done about it. As a negative self
concept is learned it is then
important to acknowledge that it can be
changed. There are many strategies that
can be use inside and outside the
classroom to help gifted children achieve
academically in the classroom and
overcome negative self concepts. Much research
shows that pupils benefit from
instruction on strategies. Strategies enhance
achievement and provide pupils
with a higher self concept. (Schnuck, 1990)
Gifted children benefit
mostly from meteacognitive strategies which are
strategies that reflect on
cognitive processes. (Flavell, 1989) These strategies
include such
instructions as goal setting, planning and evaluation of their
work. In
independent work this is so student get a chance to plan what they want
to
achieve or what they think they can achieve and reflect on the process
of
doing the task. This helps with gifted students who have either
difficulty
achieving to what they can achieve and those who are expected to
achieve but do
not know how to get there. It is important for both parents
and teachers to
change their expectations of the students as the student
makes process. This can
help with students changing their own self concepts.
and the reinforcing
behaviours of their underachievment should be changed
also. (Moltzen in McAlpine
and Moltzen, 1996) Moltzen (1996) also suggests
that it could be helpful to
provide a role model for the particular students.
Davis and Rimm (in Moltzen,
1996) suggest that all other treatments for
underachievemnt dim in importance
with strong identification with an
achieving model. The most important point to
conclude from this paper is that
children need the support from both home and
school so that they can build a
healthy self concept and achieve at their own
level. Teachers need to develop
skills to identify when a gifted child is
underachieving but acknowledge that
this is not always easy. This is all
necessary when trying to reduce the high
percentage of gifted students in New
Zealand not
graduating.
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