Options
Psychological factors affecting underachieving express stream pupils in a top neighbourhood secondary school
Author
Noorjihan Karim
Supervisor
Lim, Kam Ming
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the psychological factors causing underachievement in a top neighbourhood secondary school. The factors are classified as Individual, Family and Friends/ School.
The Individual factor looks at students' lack of responsibility for their learning and the blaming of others for their underachievement. This external locus of control results in low self-esteem, lack of motivation and ultimately adopting poor learning strategies. The underachiever is easily distracted from his tasks. He expects higher goals for himself but is reluctant to adopt winning strategies to a point of being unrealistic in his academic pursuits. The underachiever also performs poorly because he sees himself as not intelligent and is disinterested in what the school programmes offer.
The Family factor for underachievement provides insights into the underachievers' families. Mothers rather than fathers feature more prominently in the lives of these students. Significantly higher proportions of the students are males and they tend to be the only sons or the eldest children. These underachievers tended to have over-indulgent parents, especially the mothers who have pampered their sons since they were in primary one. From discussions conducted with the underachievers, it was found that 11 mothers appear to think that there was something wrong with the school whenever, their children underachieve. These mothers tend to think that the school is not good enough for their children as they had hoped for their children to be posted to a better known school. This information stems from the fact that they did not choose the researcher's school as their first choice for their children. This appear as an emotional baggage which the mothers could have passed onto their underachieving children. An obvious fact that surfaced during interviews the researcher had with the parents was the differing parenting styles which couples had. There was an eagerness to show authority on their children but a lack of corresponding responsibility for the children's academic pursuits.
In terms of profiles of the parents, 33% of the parents come from English speaking backgrounds while 67% come from predominantly mother-tongue speaking backgrounds. The parents were aware of their children's underachievement problem and appear to help their children overcome the underachievement. The educational level and emphasis for high standards varied from parent to parent. The underachievers indicated that since they started secondary school they have had tuition for mathematics (59.2%), combined science (40.7%) and English (62.9%).
Friends/School factor for underachievement revealed that the underachievers (11.1%) were highly motivated, recognized their potentials, and would strive to maximize them. The underachievers (77.7%) in this study believe in-group identity, which had strong negative influence over each other. They tended to demotivate and discourage each other from performing for fear of being seen as achievers. By doing this, they appear to increase the number of underachievers. The need for peer endorsement is real, necessary and relevant for this group of underachievers. Belonging to a group and having close bonds with peers was more important to these underachievers. Another finding was that they only communicated with their family members when it was necessary (66.6%). The underachievers (59.2%) felt pressurized by peers to spend more time socialising rather than on studying or to complete their homework. There is a tendency to imitate what another underachieving friend is doing. This could also be seen in terms of courses that their friends choose for their future educational pursuits.
These findings could help the school relook at the instructional programmes and involve parents and students as partners in learning and teaching. Some strategies that the individual, the parent and the school need to adopt would include boosting the underachievers' self-concept, developing an internal locus of control, identifying suitable learning styles, while the school specifically could look into providing programmes on modifying the learning and coping strategies of these underachievers. Matching teacher with class for maximizing potentials could be another option to be considered.
Although these findings are situationally specific, they could provide an insight to other neighbourhood secondary schools, which are of a similar rank and who have underachieving pupils. It could provide a base for schools to pool their resources to tackle the problem on a broader base. The goal is to enable educators to collect accurate information on students so that they can make adjustments to teaching styles or curricula to gain measurable improvements. Students experiencing difficulty can be identified and helped earlier than is currently possible. Alternatively, the criteria, which measures the pupils future academic performance based on the pupil's Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) aggregate score, could also be relooked to provide a more realistic prediction of the pupil's academic performance at "O" levels.
The Individual factor looks at students' lack of responsibility for their learning and the blaming of others for their underachievement. This external locus of control results in low self-esteem, lack of motivation and ultimately adopting poor learning strategies. The underachiever is easily distracted from his tasks. He expects higher goals for himself but is reluctant to adopt winning strategies to a point of being unrealistic in his academic pursuits. The underachiever also performs poorly because he sees himself as not intelligent and is disinterested in what the school programmes offer.
The Family factor for underachievement provides insights into the underachievers' families. Mothers rather than fathers feature more prominently in the lives of these students. Significantly higher proportions of the students are males and they tend to be the only sons or the eldest children. These underachievers tended to have over-indulgent parents, especially the mothers who have pampered their sons since they were in primary one. From discussions conducted with the underachievers, it was found that 11 mothers appear to think that there was something wrong with the school whenever, their children underachieve. These mothers tend to think that the school is not good enough for their children as they had hoped for their children to be posted to a better known school. This information stems from the fact that they did not choose the researcher's school as their first choice for their children. This appear as an emotional baggage which the mothers could have passed onto their underachieving children. An obvious fact that surfaced during interviews the researcher had with the parents was the differing parenting styles which couples had. There was an eagerness to show authority on their children but a lack of corresponding responsibility for the children's academic pursuits.
In terms of profiles of the parents, 33% of the parents come from English speaking backgrounds while 67% come from predominantly mother-tongue speaking backgrounds. The parents were aware of their children's underachievement problem and appear to help their children overcome the underachievement. The educational level and emphasis for high standards varied from parent to parent. The underachievers indicated that since they started secondary school they have had tuition for mathematics (59.2%), combined science (40.7%) and English (62.9%).
Friends/School factor for underachievement revealed that the underachievers (11.1%) were highly motivated, recognized their potentials, and would strive to maximize them. The underachievers (77.7%) in this study believe in-group identity, which had strong negative influence over each other. They tended to demotivate and discourage each other from performing for fear of being seen as achievers. By doing this, they appear to increase the number of underachievers. The need for peer endorsement is real, necessary and relevant for this group of underachievers. Belonging to a group and having close bonds with peers was more important to these underachievers. Another finding was that they only communicated with their family members when it was necessary (66.6%). The underachievers (59.2%) felt pressurized by peers to spend more time socialising rather than on studying or to complete their homework. There is a tendency to imitate what another underachieving friend is doing. This could also be seen in terms of courses that their friends choose for their future educational pursuits.
These findings could help the school relook at the instructional programmes and involve parents and students as partners in learning and teaching. Some strategies that the individual, the parent and the school need to adopt would include boosting the underachievers' self-concept, developing an internal locus of control, identifying suitable learning styles, while the school specifically could look into providing programmes on modifying the learning and coping strategies of these underachievers. Matching teacher with class for maximizing potentials could be another option to be considered.
Although these findings are situationally specific, they could provide an insight to other neighbourhood secondary schools, which are of a similar rank and who have underachieving pupils. It could provide a base for schools to pool their resources to tackle the problem on a broader base. The goal is to enable educators to collect accurate information on students so that they can make adjustments to teaching styles or curricula to gain measurable improvements. Students experiencing difficulty can be identified and helped earlier than is currently possible. Alternatively, the criteria, which measures the pupils future academic performance based on the pupil's Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) aggregate score, could also be relooked to provide a more realistic prediction of the pupil's academic performance at "O" levels.
Date Issued
2002
Call Number
LC4661 Noo
Date Submitted
2002