INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction
1.1 Who are Underachievers
1.2 Causes of Underachievement
1.3 Affective Characteristics
1.4 Environment Factors
1.5 Socio-Economic Status
1.6 Remedies of Underachievement
 1.0 INTRODUCTION

Individuals can be easily distinguished from one another by their

gestures, their ways of talking, acting and watching their appearance. And,
these changes cause every man to be himself and nobody else. The richer the
personality, the greater the individual differences.

Thus, it is an established fact that the individuals differ in

mental abilities as well as in physical abilities and personality traits. These
are variations not amongst individuals, but these are variations within the
same individual among his own abilities.

There is a large numbers of individuals of a very high intelligence

who do not perform at the required levels to indicate that general intelligence
alone does not ensure performance commensurate with ability. The problem
of the grossly underachieving individuals among the brilliant is one of the
social concerns as well as of the individual welfare and happiness. Concern
about underachievers reflects the concern about the waste of human
potential which India as a developing country need to avoid.

The present study is an attempt to find out the incidence of

underachievers in science and arts faculty at higher secondary level and the
reasons responsible for/ causing underachievement.

1.1 WHO ARE UNDERACHIEVERS1.11

Lewis (1941) : Called those children underachievers whose educational ages

are one year or more, lower than their mental ages.

Pringne (1956) : Related underachievement or under functioning solely to

the capacity of the individual pupil and distinguished this backwardness
which relates educational attainments to chronological ages.

Holmes and Finley (1957) : Described underachievement in terms of grade

placement deviation (GPD) as
1
1.1 Maitra, Krishna : Gifted under achivers : A challenge in edncation, New Delhi,
Discovery Publishing House, 1991
GPD = AGP – CAGP + R where,

AGP = Actual grade placement

CAGP = Grade placement expected from chronological age.

GPD = Grade placement Deviation

R = constant of 0.5 intended to give all values a positive sign.

Hildreth (1966) : Called those as underachievers who stand in the upper

third or quarter of their class in ability a measured by adjective tests, but fall
in the middle or , lower segment in achievement either in a particular subject
or in his school work as a whole.