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It is likely that high achievers are more engaged in learning opportunities and take

advantage of the teaching practices that take place in smaller classes, or that they create

opportunities for their own learning in smaller (Konstantoupoulos) Journal reference:Spyros Konstantopoulos "Do Small Classes Reduce the Achievement Gap between Low

and High Achievers" Evidence from Project STAR" Elementary School Journal 108:4

Children with high expectations of control do better in schoolthan their peers with low

perceived control.This finding is based largely on cross-sectional research and

longitudinal research with long time intervals.Little attention has been paid to short-term,within-child variability in this important construct. Informationabout intraindividual

change in perceived control,behaviour, and performance is critical to determiningthe

processes by which the link between perception and outcomeis affected. In this study,short-term variabilityin childrens perceived control, perceptionof task demands, and

school performance was assessed and the concurrent and lagged relationships among

these

variables were considered. High-achieving and

low-achieving children werecompared. Results of dynamic factormodels suggested that both the concurrent andlagged relationships among these variables arestronger and better organised for the high-

achieving children.Implications for perceived control theory arediscussed.

International Journal of Behavioral Development, Vol. 26, No. 6, 540-547 (2002)

http://jbd.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/6/540

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%2Bcomparison%2Bof%2Bhigh%2Bachievers%27%2Band%2Blow%2Bachievers%27%2Battitudes%2C...-a076770274

The purpose of this study was to compare high achieving and low achieving adolescents'attitudes toward school, attitudes toward teachers, goal-valuation, motivation, and

general academic self-perceptions. Specifically, we sought to determine whether high

achievers really differed from low achievers on these five factors, and to ascertain which

of the five factors were the best predictors of students' status as either a high achiever or a

low achiever. The comparison of the scores of high achievers and low achievers onattitudes toward school, attitudes toward teachers, goal-valuation, motivation, and general

academic self-perceptions revealed large differences between high achievers and lowachievers on all five factors. However, two factors, academic self-perception and

motivation/self-regulation, predicted students' achievement status as well as the five-

factor model did. Using these two subscales were able to classifystudents' achievement status correctly over 85% of the time. These results suggest that

high achievers and low achievers differ in both theirmotivational patterns and their
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academic self-perceptions. uture research should continue to explore the relationships

between these student characteristics and academic achievement.

Every teacher knows at least one student who "could do better." These are thestudents who come to school without books or homework, the students whoappear to choose not to study for exams, the students who seem unphased byparents' and teachers' pleas that their grades now will affect the rest of theirprofessional lives. We commonly dub these students "underachievers."

Underachievement is most commonly defined as a discrepancy

between potential (or ability) and performance (or achievement) (Reis & McCoach,

2000). Therefore, a student who appears capable of succeeding in school but is

nonetheless struggling is often referred to as an underachiever. Factors commonly

associated with underachievement include low academic self-concept (Schunk, 1998;Supplee, 1990; Whitmore, 1980), low self-efficacy (Schunk, 1998), low self-motivation

(Weiner, 1992), low goal-valuation (McCall, Evahn, & Kratzer, 1992), and negativeattitude toward school and teachers (Colangelo, Kerr, Christensen, & Maxey, 1993; Ford,

1996; Rimm, 1995). Most of the literature on underachievement suggests that

underachievers have lower academic self-perceptions, lower self-motivation and self-regulation, and less goal directed behavior, and more negative attitudes toward school

than high achievers do (Reis & McCoach, 2000). However, the majority of research

investigating the common characteristics of underachieving students has employed

qualitative, clinical, or single subject research methodology. Very few large-scalequantitative studies have examined the legitimacy of these hypotheses (Reis & McCoach,

2000).

The purpose of this study was to compare high achieving and low achieving adolescents'

attitudes toward school, attitudes toward teachers, goal-valuation, motivation, and generalacademic self-perceptions, using the School Attitude Assessment Survey-Revised

(SAAS-R). Specifically, we sought to determine whether high achievers really differed

from low achievers on these five factors, and to ascertain which factors were the bestpredictors of students' status as either a high achiever or a low achiever.

Review of Related Literature

Motivation and Self-Regulation

The relationship between motivation and academic achievement is complex. However, self-regulation may hold the key to understanding student achievement. Self-regulation refers tostudents' "self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions which are systematically orientedtowards the attainment of goals" (Zimmerman, 1994, p. ix). Self-regulation comprises processesby which people are metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in theirown learning (Zimmerman, 1994). Self-regulation comprises three major stages: forethought
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that when underachievement relates to personality and motivational characteristics, studentsexhibit negative attitudes toward school. Majoribanks (1992) found that children's cognitiveattitudes toward school demonstrated moderate, statistically significant associations withachievement. Interestingly, in his study, affective

attitudes toward school and achievement were correlated

for girls, but not for boys. As with academic self-concept, although there appears to be arelationship between attitude toward school and achievement, this relationship does not suggestor determine any flow of causality between the two variables.

Attitude Toward Teachers and Classes

Because it is difficult to separate the confounding

effects of attitudes toward teachers and attitudes toward the classes they teach, the attitudetoward teachers factor of the SAAS-R encompasses students' interest and positive affect towardtheir teachers and their classes. Students' interest in theircoursework

is related to their use of self-regulatory strategies in the academic domain as well as theirmotivation (Scheifele, 1991; Wigfield, 1994) and their academic achievement.

Students who have positive views of their teachers are more likely to demonstrate achievement-oriented behaviors. Many underachievers exhibit problems with authority, including problems withteachers and school personnel (Mandel & Marcus, 1988; McCall et al., 1992), and they mayexhibit hostility toward authority figures, including teachers (Mandel & Marcus, 1988). Therefore,students' attitudes toward their teachers and courses should be positively related to theiracademic achievement.

Method

We compared the response patterns of high achieving students and low achieving student onthe five factors of the School Attitude Assessment Survey -Revised (SAAS-R): attitudes towardschool, attitudes toward teachers, goal-valuation, motivation, and general academic self-perceptions. The sample for this analysis consisted of 244 ninth through twelfth grade studentsfrom a mostly white, suburban high school in the Northeast. Participation in the study wasvoluntary. The sample for this study was drawn from a larger sample of 942 students,representing over 90% of the school, population. The SAAS-R employed a 7-point Likert-typeagreement scale. Examples of questions from the SAAS-R include "I put a lot of effort into myschoolwork" (motivation/goal-valuation), "I am confident in my scholastic abilities" (academicself-perceptions), "My teachers make learning interesting" (attitudes towards teachers), "I am

glad that I go to this school" (attitude toward school), and "I want to get good grades in school"(goal-valuation). Students also provided a self-reported GPA

For this study, high achievers were defined as those who self-reported that they had at least a3.75 GPA in high school. Low achievers reported a GPA below 2.5. We chose to categorize
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low achievers as those who reported having a GPA at or below 2.5 because they representedthe bottom 15% of the school in terms of GPA. Less than 5% of the school had GPAs at or below2.0. There were 96 high achievers and 148 low achievers in the present study. The SAAS-Rexhibited adequate evidence of reliability; Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients the fivesubscales ranged from .82 to .94. An analysis of the data from the entire school populationrevealed significant differences among the grade levels. Goal valuation and attitudes towardschool were lower for seniors than for freshman (p [is less than] .05). In addition, juniors attitudestowards school were lower than those of freshman. There were no significant differences bygrade level for academic self-perceptions, attitudes towards teachers, or goal valuation.

Results

A comparison of the low achievers and the high achievers as determined by self-reported GPArevealed that there were statistically significant differences between the high achievers and thelow achievers on all five factors. (Hotelling's multivariatet-test, p [is less than] .001). We thenconducted five univariate t-tests, using a Bonferroni adjustment to control the type I error rate.The t-tests of the five factors indicated that high achievers and low achievers exhibitedstatistically significantly different scale scores on each of the five factors (p [is less than] .001). Inevery case, high achievers had higher mean scores than low achievers. Furthermore, the meandifferences of high achievers versus low achievers on all five factors exhibited large to very large

effect sizes. Table 1 depicts the results of the univariate t-tests, including effect sizes for each ofthe factors.

For Tables 1,2, 3

see issue's website http://www.rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/sump.htm

A direct logistic regression with achievement status as the outcome and the five factors of theSAAS-R as the predictor variables indicated good model fit (discrimination among the groups) onthe basis of the five factors of the SAAS-R (Hosmer & Lemeshow, 2000; Menard, 1995). Table 2presents the beta weights for the logistic regression analysis using all five factors. The five factorsolution correctly classified over 85% of the students in the sample according totheir achievement status.

However, the results of the Wald testrevealed that academic self-perceptions (ASP) andmotivation/self-regulation (MOTwere the only significant independent variables in the model.Therefore, we conducted the logistic regression with only the two significant predictors. Both theCox and Snell[R.sup.2] ([R.sup.2]=.46) and the Nagelkerke [R.sup.2] ([R.sup.2]=.63) indicated that the twofactor model explained a large amount of variance within the data. Table 3 presents the betaweights for the logistic regression analysis for the two-factor model

.

As a result of this analysis, we found that after controlling for the effects of

motivation/self-regulation, for each point gain in academic self-perception, a student was

over 4 times more likely to be a high achiever. After controlling for the effects ofacademic self-perceptions, for each point gain in motivation/self-regulation, a student

was over 2.7 times more likely to be a high achiever. The two-factor solution correctly

classified almost 86% of the students in the sample according to their achievement status.Almost 89% of low achievers and over 81% of high achievers were correctly classified

by the two-factor logistic regression model.
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Discussion

High achieving students exhibited more positive academic self-perceptions,motivation/self-regulation, goal valuation, attitudes toward school, and attitudes toward

teachers than low achieving students. However, academic self-perceptions and

motivation/self-regulation appear to be stronger predictors of academic achievementstatus than attitude toward school and attitude toward teachers. The goal valuation factor

was highly correlated with motivation and self-regulation; therefore, although goal-

valuation did not make a strong contribution to the logistic regression model, it ismoderately correlated with self-reported GPA. The results of this study suggest that

students who possess high self-motivation and self-regulation and who have positive

academic self-perceptions are much more likely to be high achievers than students who

possess lower academic self-perceptions and lower motivation/self-regulation. Theresults of this study were strictly correlational in nature; therefore, one cannot infer

causality from these results. It remains to be seen whether increasing students' academic

self-perceptions and motivation/ self-regulation will translate into achievement gains for

low achieving students. Future research should explore whether programs that seek toincrease these attributes in underachieving students can effectively reverse their

underachievement. This study suffers from one large limitation: the use of self-reportedGPA as a measure of academic achievement. Future research should compare the results

of the SAAS-R to actual achievement data (such as GPA). In addition, researchers should

investigate whether remediating any or all of these five factors can help increase student

achievement.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this study sought to examine differences between high achieving and low

achieving high school students' academic self-perceptions, attitudes toward school,

attitudes toward teachers, motivation/self-regulation, and goal valuation. There werelarge differences between high achievers and low achievers on all five factors. However,

two factors, academic self-perceptions and motivation/self-regulation, predicted students'

achievement status as well as the five-factor model did. Using these two factors, we were

able to classify students' achievement status correctly over 85% of the time. These resultssuggest that high achievers and low achievers differ in both their motivational patterns

and their academic self-perceptions. Future research should continue to explore the

relationships between these student characteristics and academic achievement.Specifically, researchers should investigate whether interventions that increase students'

academic self-perceptions or their self-regulatory skills can also improve their school

performance.


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Utilizing a reliable and valid instrument to measure a studentsapplication of energy and effort

towards a goal (diligence)or the ability to reach goals (achievement) would enable dental

educators to anticipate academic performance. This knowledgecould be used to better distribute

faculty and educational resources,as additional tutors could be provided for students who score

low on diligence and achievement instruments. In this study,fourth-year dental students

completed the Diligence Inventoryand the NachNaff Scale (which measures desire to achieve)immediatelyprior to graduation. The scores from both inventories were correlatedwith nine

measures of academic performance. For males, the NachNaffScale positively correlated (p


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diligence and achievement are both broadly defined, it islikely that they are not mutually

exclusive characteristics,and therefore some crossover may exist in their measurement.

Jasinevicius et al. applied the Diligence Inventory-Higher Education(DI-HE) to four classes of

dental students at one time at aprivate university.6There were no significant differences between

the diligence scores among the four classes The authors foundsignificant relationships betweengrade point averages and DI-HEscores only in males and advised further investigation of the

instrument with other dental student populations and especiallyto examine the gender differences,which were an "unexpectedfinding."

The purpose of this investigation was to compare senior dentalstudents scores on the DI-HE,

which measures diligence,and the NachNaff Scale, which measures achievement, with nineareas

of student performance to determine if either instrumentpredicted academic success. The DI-HE

was selected because itis targeted toward higher education and it had been tested withdental

students at another university. The NachNaff Scale appealedto us because it purported to measure

achievement motivation,which paired well with the simultaneous measure of diligence,both

characteristics thought important when applied to dentaleducation.

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