Underachievers at Schools

The term ‘underachievement’ is common in contemporary educational debates and most often in relation to a failure to reach ‘potential’.

Underachievement therefore, means a failure to attain potential, mainly in terms of particular educational outcomes.

Now identifying the criteria for achievement and potential is massively difficult consequently, identifying underachievement or failure to reach potential is similarly problematic. Moreover, the judgements made about potential and achievement are socially constructed and therefore, need to be applied with due attention to cultural norms.

Some students drop out having been labelled as underachievers, even though teachers at times fail to found that whether such students underachieve in a particular subject or in all subjects.

Gallagher (1985) indicated the danger of using intelligence tests for some gifted students who are labelled underachievers because of poor academic performance. This is because less is known about their intellectual functioning.

Student performance varies at different times, and could be better depending on the degree of preparation before examinations. However, the same student with the same amount of preparation may not perform as well as at other times.

Literature offers various intervention programs to help underachievers to learn. Dowdall and Colangleo (1982) and Butler-Por (1987) suggested two different types of intervention, using counselling and instructional materials, which they believed to offer rich opportunities in changing personality and behaviours. For instance, instead of compelling gifted underachievers to be more successful, counselling interventions can help them to make decisions on goals and to unlearn habits that have been disruptive to learning.