UNDERACHIEVEMENT
IN GIFTED INDIVIDUALS
GATE Family Session
May 12, 2015
Questions for Tonight
• Why do some students, who seem capable of outstanding
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performance, fail to realize their potential?
What causes some gifted students to underachieve in
school?
Can we predict which gifted students are at the greatest
risk for underachievement?
What can we do to reverse a student's academic
underachievement?
Others?
Process for our Conversation
Research/Readings ~ Table Discussion ~ Sharing
What are the Causes of
Underachievement in Gifted Individuals?
• The big myth of gifted children
• The big myth of motivation
• The three main causes of underachievement:
1. Physical reasons
• Learning disabilities, reading disorders, other physical
issues
2. Social/emotional reasons
• Poverty, complicated lives, anxiety, anger, bullying, etc.
3. School reasons
• Inappropriate or irrelevant curriculum, disorganization or
poor study habits, undeveloped resilience, etc.
Can we predict which gifted students are
at the greatest risk for underachievement?
• Contrary to popular belief, gifted underachievers do not
typically suffer from low academic self-perception
• Differences between gifted students who achieve at high
levels and those who don’t, lie in…
• Attitudes toward school
• How does he feel about school?
• Attitudes toward teachers
• How does she feel about his teachers?
• Motivation/self-regulation
• Does he have “self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions which are
systematically oriented toward the attainment of goals”?
• Goal regulation factors
• Does she value the goals of education at school and therefore engage
in and do better in academics and expend more effort on work?
McCoach and Del Siegle (2003)
Self-Regulation and Goal Regulation:
“Teachers and counselors who work with gifted
underachievers should assess whether gifted
underachievers value the goals of school and whether they
are motivated to attain those goals. Students must either
value the work they have been given or value the outcome
(extrinsic rewards) of that work. If they value neither the
task nor the outcome, they will not possess the motivation
to put forth their best effort when completing the task. We
believe that many students underachieve because they find
no intrinsic or extrinsic benefits to school. Therefore,
interventions for bright underachievers should include goal
setting and future planning activities. In addition,
interventions that make classes more enjoyable and
intrinsically motivating for students may help to reverse
academic underachievement.”
McCoach and Del Siegle (2003)
Underachievement Is…
• Content- and Situation- Specific
• Rather than say an “underachieving student” – identify a child as
“underachieving in math.”
• In the Eye of the Beholder
• A grade of B might elate one person and devastate another. The
definition of “underachievement” varies with each person.
• Tied to Self-Image Development
• “Why should I even try? I’m just going to fail anyway.”
• “Even if I do succeed, people will say it’s because I cheated.”
• “Nothing I do is ever good enough, so why bother?”
• Linked to Adult Disapproval of Child’s Behavior
• Underachievers disappoint adults and therefore assess their
abilities relative to what they have NOT accomplished instead of
what they’re capable of doing.
Underachievement Is…
• Taught
• When a child lives in a system of “one size fits all” grade-level
norms with little regard for individual rates of learning (aka
“underachieving curriculum”), there will be underachieving
behaviors.
Teachers told me I was rude,
Bumptious, overbearing, shrewd.
Some of the things they said were crude
I couldn’t understand.
And so I built myself a wall,
Strong, solid, ten feet tall.
With bricks you couldn’t see at all.
So I couldn’t understand
What can we do to reverse a student's
academic underachievement?
• Examine the Problem Individually. Since underachievement is
such a varied and complex phenomenon, each case must be
examined individually – with no preconceptions. This leads us to
the understanding, then, that intervention and remediation of
underachievement must be individually developed and
implemented.
• Create a Teacher-Parent Collaboration. Teachers and parents
need to work together and pool their information and experience
regarding the child. Some of the questions teachers and parents
can explore together are:
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In what areas has the child shown exceptional ability?
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What are the child’s preferred learning styles?
What insights do parents and teachers have about the child’s
strengths and problem areas?
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What does the child say about self-needs, interests, and school
experiences, and how is this information to be interpreted?
What can we do to reverse a student's
academic underachievement?
• Stay Focused on the Child’s Gifts. When examining a
child’s underachieving behaviors, always begin by
focusing on strengths; a deficiency approach encourages
the child to focus on weaknesses even more than before.
At each point the investigation needs to find the most
effective ways to involve the child in the pursuit and
exploration of personal talents and interests. This builds
the confidence and strength the child needs to manage
problem areas.
• Create an Individual Plan for the Child. The plan
designed for the child has to emerge from the nature of
individual gifts and the root causes of underachieving
behaviors. Also, we need to consider whether factors
such as cultural difference and impoverishment have led
to underachievement and the kinds of interventions
children need to overcome the barriers that have isolated
them from their own talents.
What can we do to reverse a student's
academic underachievement?
• A Cry-Out for Creative Children!!! In a number of cases, a
difference in learning style has hindered the progress of a
gifted child. Creative children have a tendency to underachieve
because their thinking style diverges so drastically from the
convergent style rewarded by schools. Schools “tend to reward
the less original students and may, indeed, exacerbate the
problems of some creative children” (Peterson 2001). Avoiding
competition and acceleration, these underachievers often
improve once they find themselves in classes where they can
use their talents in creative thinking, learning, and expression.
Creative students need solutions that give them both the
freedom to create and the support in skill and organization
areas where they are weak. Research bears out that
underachievers — particularly those whose problem is schoolbased — change for the better when they have a differentiated
curriculum with a variety of learning styles and a supportive
teacher who values learning over performance (Emerick, 1992;
Dweck, 1986).
What can we do to reverse a student's
academic underachievement?
• Encourage children to pursue excellence, rather than perfection. Adults can model
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acceptance of their mistakes while striving for excellence. Gifted students should not be
expected, or expect, to complete every task, in every area, with 100% accuracy.
Help students plan tasks. This serves two functions. First, it develops a mindset that the
task is doable. Young people are often reluctant to begin a task because they are unsure
how to begin. Second, it minimizes the unknown. Through planning, children can visualize a
task coming to fruition.
Help students set realistic expectations. This involves setting goals that are difficult
enough to be challenging, yet not so difficult as to be unachievable and discouraging.
Learning occurs best when new material cannot be mastered without assistance, but can be
mastered with minor direction from someone more knowledgeable
Student's perceptions of the friendliness of the environment may or may not be accurate.
The first step is to determine whether students' perceptions are distorted. If they are not, then
changes need to be made in the environment. These changes must be implemented with
input from the student. For example, if a child feels it is too noisy to study at home, ask the
child what needs to be done to make it quiet enough. It may be as simple as asking, "What
would it take for you do well?" Students must be involved in helping find solutions to the
environmental roadblocks they perceive.
Encourage and promote your child’s interests and passions.
Help children see beyond the immediate activity to the long-term outcomes. A school
assignment may seem unimportant, but pursuing a dream career may be an outcome that
your student is willing to strive toward. Parents and educators may wish to share how they
use various skills learned in school.
What can we do to reverse a student's
academic underachievement?
• Help children set short and long-term academic goals. Small, short-term goals
work better for younger students. It is essential that the goals are meaningful to
students. Talk with them about possible goals. Remember, goals that adults value
may have little meaning to children.
• Students are more likely to become engaged with material that is optimally
challenging. Ensure that all students are challenged (but not frustrated) by
classroom activities. “Safe academic struggle” is key and it must start early.
• The way we compliment young people has an impact on how successful
they perceive themselves. Students are able to better cognitively appraise their
progress when feedback is specific or when we've helped them be aware of
specific things they do well. Of course, compliments must be genuine and earned.
See article “How Not to Talk to Your Kids,” by Po Bronson.
• The most compelling finding of a study was that involvement in creative
productivity reversed the cycle of underachievement. Of the 17 students, 14
improved academically during that year and in the year following the intervention.
Unlike remedial approaches or traditional admonishments (“Learn how to get
organized, and you will achieve” or “Work hard, and you will be rewarded”), the
successful approaches tend to center on students, accentuate students'
strengths, and value their interests. Several of these studies report that
completing a meaningful project increases self-esteem, academic self-efficacy,
and overall motivation
Teacher’s Role
• The role of the teacher is critical to the success of this
approach. Teachers are most effective in reversing the
underachievement pattern. And, building relationships
with students is the most important factor.
• What do teachers observe? What behaviors does the
student who is underachieving exhibit as s/he works on a
project? Using these observations, devise strategies for
overcoming problems.
• Understand that students need to act like practicing
professionals and share their products with real-world
audiences – aka relevant, meaningful work!
• Consistently demonstrate patience and believe in the
student. High expectations and high support!
Design An Action Plan
What does the child, the family/community, the teacher and
the school/district need to
do?
Helpful Resources:
Motivating Gifted Students Who Are Not Achieving
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/publications/TeachingExceptionalMakingADiffer
ence.pdf
Tips for Parents: What You Can Do To Reverse Underachievement in the
Classroom:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10290.aspx
Using Self-Regulated Learning to Reverse Underachievement in Talented
Students
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/general/faculty/reis/SelfRegulated_Learning_Reverse_Underachievement.html
Thank you for attending this session and
contributing your questions, ideas and time!
Trina Hira
GATE Coordinator
651.604.3749
trina.hira@isd623.org