Underachievement in Gifted Students

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Underachievement of Gifted Students The problem of underachieving students is very complex and the research into causes and interventions is at times confusing and contradicting. Before getting into a discussion on underachievement, it needs to be defined and there’s no real consensus on a definition. There are three different descriptions often cited when talking about underachievement (Schultz). First, underachievement can be defined as a discrepancy between potential achievement and actual achievement. A second common description is a discrepancy between predicted achievement and actual achievement. The third description describes a failure to develop or use their potential. There are countless more ways to define or describe an underachieving gifted student but they all attempt to define a very gray area. Trying to address the underachievement by looking at potential and actual results can ignore many factors. It is known that standardized tests are not perfect indicators of knowledge for all students and can have a measurement error. Teachers using grades as a criterion for identifying underachievers based on the first description also ignores many problems found in both school curriculums and classrooms. For example, there are many assignments given in a class that do not accurately judge whether a student has mastered the assigned curriculum. Another issue with using classrooms grades as a guide for determining underachievement is that many gifted students will never be discovered if the underachievement begins at an early age in school. The second description above mentioning predicted achievement and actual achievement is a difficult definition to use, though it may be very accurate given enough data. Standardized tests do have their faults but a child consistently scoring well above average does not happen without intellectual

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