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Journal of Education & Social Sciences - Volume 8, Issue 1 2020
By Salima Barkat Ali, Anjum Ara Jahangir
10.20547/jess0812008105
Keywords: Academic achievement, underachievement, academic self-perception, goal valuation, self-regulation, attitude towards teachers, attitude towards school.
The purpose of the contemporary research was to study the school-related factors of academic underachievement and academic high-achievement among 8th -grade students of school. The sample of the study comprised of 245 students (132 boys and 113 girls). The entire sample was selected from 8th standard of various private schools of Karachi through convenience sampling method. The age of the participants ranged from 13 to 16 years with the mean age of 13.142 years. The Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM, 1983) was used to measure the general cognitive abilities of participants and the last exam cumulative percentage was used to gauge the academic achievement of students. Additionally, the School Aptitude Assessment Survey-Revised (SAAS-R) by McCoach and Siegle (2003) comprised of five subscales: academic self-perception, goal valuation, self-regulation, attitude towards teachers and classes and attitude towards school was used to measure the school-related attitudes of students. The SPSS 18.0 was used to analyze the data. For classification, percentiles of SPM scores were calculated to select high achievers and underachievers. Based on percentile scores of SPM test, 61 high achievers and 121 underachievers were selected for analysis. The independent sample t-tests were done to measure the difference of school-related factors and academic achievement between high achievers and underachievers. Results showed significant difference of cognitive abilities, academic self-perception, and goal valuation among high achievers and underachievers, showing considerably higher scores for the high achievers. Implications of present study for parent, teachers and school authorities are further discussed.