The manifestation of underachievement may reflect a mismatch between the student and the curriculum. Current identification practices that underidentify gifted African American students hinder the identification of gifted underachievers of African American descent. In addition, bright students who receive poor grades may demonstrate mastery in standardized achievement testing situations (Colangelo, Kerr, Christensen, & Maxey, 1993; Lupart & Pyryt, 1996). How can a gifted student also be an under-achiever? - time management Students who seem to be unmotivated may have attention deficits. B., Mounts, N., Lamborn, S. D., & Steinberg, L. (1993). Curriculum compacting: A guide for teachers. 501-513). The definition of achievement in a particular subculture may be very different from that of the dominant culture. WebGifted underachievers are underachievers who exhibit superior scores on measures of expected achievement (i.e., standardized achievement test scores or cognitive or intellectual ability assessments). In general, these students display high verbal expressive ability and good conceptual understanding concurrent with significant academic underachievement and frustration or a lack of motivation (Crawford & Snart 1994). Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 21, 169-186. What happens when the student reenters the regular class and is once again faced will unstimulating schoolwork? Ford, D. Y. Planning and implementing programs for the gifted. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 13, 4-21. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 14, 221-233. Although this may be a suitable method for identifying underachievers from the general school population, such an age/performance discrepancy may only identify the most severely underachieving gifted students. Since the identification of gifted underachievers depends on defining both underachievement and giftedness, discussing criteria for identification is no less complicated. In a recent study, researchers used self-selected Type III enrichment projects as a systematic intervention for underachieving gifted students. Both Whitmore and Supplee designed their programs to effect immediate change in student behaviors, as well as to research the construct of underachievement. Gifted underachievers : a review of the past and Mather, N., & Udall, A. J. 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. The report entitled A Nation at Risk: The Imperative of Educational Reform was prepared by the National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983). Although these profiles may provide educators with convenient categories for various underachievers whom they encounter, they also illustrate the difficulty in trying to create a coherent profile of a typical underachiever. Jeon, K. W., & Feldhusen, J. F. (1993). The participants in Emericks study believed that a specific teacher had the greatest impact in reversing their underachievement behavior. Holland, V. (1998). The absence of any clear, precise definition of gifted underachievement restricts research-based comparisons and hinders the quest for suitable interventions. ( p. 5) The Davidson Institute bears no responsibility for the content of republished material. Unmotivated underachievers may see no compelling reasons for becoming better students. In addition, participants were most likely to develop achievement-oriented behaviors when they were stimulated in class and given the opportunity to pursue topics of interest to them. Cultural relativism also becomes a factor when identifying underachievement in diverse groups. One would expect a gifted students performance to be above grade level in some subject areas, especially those areas in which that student has been identified as gifted. Rimm and Lowe studied the family environments of 22 underachieving gifted students. B., Loeber, R., Christ, M. A. G., Hart, E. L., & Tannenbaum, L. E. (1991). Renzulli, J. S., & Reis, S. R. (1997). Another area for research involves studying whether and how gifted underachievers differ significantly from non-gifted underachievers. (1991). These factors were the relationship with the teacher, the use of self-regulation strategies, the opportunity to investigate topics related to their underachievement, the opportunity to work on an area of interest in a preferred learning style, and the time to interact with an appropriate peer group. First, we must recognize the talents in culturally diverse youth. Baymur, F., & Patterson, C. H. (1965). Baum, S. M., Olenchak, F. R., & Owen, S. V. (1998). Does the underachievement of the child create problems in the family unit? Obviously, factors other than ability, such as motivation, personality characteristics, family environment, school environment, and peer pressure, influence achievement. Two methods can help reduce heterogeneity of the criterion variable (Raph et al., 1966). Watertown, WI: Apple. If tests provide invalid inferences about a students ability or achievement, they must, by extension, be invalid indices of underachievement (Ford). In M. Kornrich (Ed. Certain responses to these questions may lead to the conclusion that underachievement does not exist or is not a problem that adults should remedy. The remainder of this article assumes that underachievement exists and merits attention and research; however, the authors recognize that even this most fundamental concept evokes value judgments and debates. Counseling interventions may include individual, group, or family counseling (Jeon, 1990). This article reviews and analyzes three decades of research on the underachievement of gifted students in an attempt to clarify the present state of research. Oxford: Pergamon. As you can see, intelligence and high achievement are two of the big winners. ), Handbook of gifted education (2nd ed., pp. (1998). Many of these studies have found qualitative differences between gifted achievers and gifted underachievers. Definitions of gifted underachievement are inconsistent and sometimes incompatible. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81, 329-339. Dowdall and Colangelo (1982) observed that gifted underachievers seem to share more characteristics with underachievers than they do with gifted achievers. 108-415). (1998). In addition, as many as 25 to 30 percent of high school dropouts may be gifted individuals. In other words, one can stipulate with 95% confidence that this students IQ places him or her in the top 5% of the population on this measure. However, because standardized achievement tests do not directly reflect the actual school experience, they may not be indicative of a students classroom performance. An examination of the NELS: 88 data revealed that students with friends who cared about learning demonstrated better educational outcomes than those with less educationally interested or involved friends (Chen, 1997). Underachievement in Gifted Children - Verywell Family In their recent study of gifted urban underachievers, the family dysfunction that characterized the lives of the gifted underachievers contrasted with the happier home lives of the gifted achievers (Reis et al., 1995). Case studies of talented students who achieve and underachieve in an urban high school (Research Monograph 95120). Students whose gifts and subsequent underachievement go unrecognized are sometimes called hidden underachievers (Ford, 1996) who underachieve because educational systems do not recognize their potential. Schweitzgebel (1965) alluded to this phenomenon when he observed that underachievers, in contrast to slower learners, may in fact learn rapidly and well, but what they learn may not coincide with the content of our examinations (p. 486). Because the passive-aggressive behavior of such children is usually directed against their families, family counseling interventions may also help reverse passive-aggressive underachievement. 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. Reasons why the gifted adolescent underachieves and some of the implications of guidance and counseling to this problem. Students who achieved in school participated in multiple extracurricular activities, both after school and during the summer. In a culture that generally prizes both childhood and adult achievement, we label as underachievers those students who do not perform as well as we might expect them to perform. We need to individualize programs for underachieving gifted students at least as much as we individualize programs for achieving gifted students. Sylvia Rimm. Toward a new paradigm for identifying talent potential (Research Monograph 94112). Delisle, J. This finding does not imply causality, since students often select friends whose characteristics are already similar to theirs (Berndt, p. 18). M. (1995). Further research and inquiry into this area should address the need for clearly defined, well-researched, and effective interventions for gifted underachievers. What is prized in one culture may not be valued in another, and it is difficult to impose one belief system on a culture that may define achievement and underachievement differently. Paper presented at the First Southeast Asian Regional Conference on Giftedness. Therefore, future researchers in this field should posit coherent, complete models of gifted underachievement and design interventions in accordance with their proposed models. A longitudinal study of 35 culturally diverse, gifted urban high school students compared successful students to a similar group of high-ability students who did not achieve (Reis et al., 1995). When working with this type of underachiever, a counselor should find ways of implementing reward systems that will encourage the students scholastic efforts and reinforce academic successes. Gifted underachievers. Second, the psychometric or standardized tests that are used to screen for gifted underachievement may not be valid or reliable indices of the abilities of students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut, The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. Therefore, one might expect counseling approaches to effectively address the problem of underachievement. Author: Reis, S. & McCoach, D. 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. 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. 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. From potential to performance: Motivational issues for gifted students. However, although operational definitions provide clarity, they sacrifice flexibility and inclusiveness in a quest for precision. Kedding, R. E. (1990). In other words, if we predict that students will not succeed, and then they fail, they have not performed below our initial expectations. This approach (Renzulli, 1977) specifically targets student strengths and interests in order to help reverse academic underachievement (Baum, Renzulli, & Hebert, 1995b). High-achieving parents often provide positive role-modeling of achievement-oriented behavior; (Rimm & Lowe; Zilli, 1971). The 20 Biggest Underachievers in Sports - Bleacher Report ), Understanding the gifted adolescent, (pp. WebThis is a professional development presentation to help teachers recognize and teach gifted underachievers.
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