Underachievers Essays - Educational Psychology,

Underachievers This paper addresses the issue of how a negative self concept can effect achievement of gifted students. it specifically focuses on the effect of academic achievement, discusses what it means to be both an underachiever and have a negative self concept, how to identify these students and what family and teachers can do about this. PAPER Many academically gifted children underachieve in school classrooms as a result of the fact that they do not know how to achieve higher a or they feel they cannot achieve a task that they are expected to be able to but find it too difficult. Underachievement is a pervasive problem which results in a tremendous waste of human potential among our most able students. In fact, in 1972 the U.S. Commissioner of Education estimated that 17.6% of gifted ( both academically and non-academically) students drop out of high school, and that percentage is probably even higher today. (Schnieder, 1997) and to add a New Zealand perspective, Moltzen (in McAlpine and Moltzen, 1996) suggest that 10-20% of students who do not graduate are gifted. These students hold a negative self concept of themselves as they have not received the support necessary to be able to work and achieve at their own level. There are many different contributing factors to the establishing of self concepts and how they effect gifted children. . This paper addresses how gifted children form negative self concepts of themselves and how can effect their achievement in an academic school setting. First it is necessary to provide the background knowledge and the definitions on areas that are to be discussed. For the purpose of this paper the definition of self concept is a persons view of self, in relation to their perception of feed back from others. This view occurs in both academic and non-academic areas. (Fox, 1993 in Rawlinson, 1996) To specifically focus on the academic area of self concepts which is being addressed in this paper , an academic self concept is a relatively stable set of attitudes and feelings reflecting self evaluation of ones ability to successfully perform basic school related tasks such as reading, writing, spelling and maths. (Boersma & Chapman,1992 in Rawlinson, 1996) Self concepts tend to be domain specific, meaning that pupils have different self concepts towards different areas of the curriculum (Schunk,1990) but to avoid complications throughout this paper all academic subjects will all be inclusive with each other. The definition of underachievement is not as straight forward as that of self concept as many people have different ideas on what it means to underachieve. Wellington and Wellington (1965) suggest that under achievers have a low level of aspiration. In its simplest form it can be defined as a unfulfilled potential (Moltzen in McAlpine and Moltzen, 1996) but neither of these definitions provide much capture the essence of underachievement in gifted children as they do not provide enough detail as to the difference between what they are achieving and what they could achieve. The definition of the purpose of this assignment is provided by Davis and Rimm( 1994 in Moltzen, 1996) who define underachievement as a discrepancy between the Childs school performance and some index of his or her actual ability such as intelligence, achievement, or creativity score or observational data. Because a gifted student underachieves it does not mean that they are failing in the school system. Gifted students are generally capable of performing at least two levels ahead of their age peers. If they are not identified as being gifted, they are seldom challenged to perform in accord with their potential. In fact, these capable students may be considered underachievers even when they get"good" grades.( Schneider, 1997) All children are natural learners and begin life with a drive to acquire knowledge, understand it and make use of it according to their abilities. Children do not begin school with the intention of seeking failure or frustrating their teachers. (Schnieder, 1997) And gifted children definitely do not go out to seek failure. How pupils use this newly found information that they have learnt and how teachers react to how they use this information or how well they achieve, contributes to the forming of self concepts. An individuals self concept is formed as a result of interactions and experiences with others and is learned and acquired over time. (Rawlinson, 1996) In reinforcement to the idea that self concepts are learned, Scheirer & Kraut (1979) suggest with specific reference to academia that a self concept is a product of interactive outcomes with ones academic environment with

AP Physics Extended Essay Sample - How to Use the Writing to Succeed in Your AP Exam

AP Physics Extended Essay Sample - How to Use the Writing to Succeed in Your AP ExamUsing physics extended essay sample topics is a great way to improve your grades on AP Physics. The topics provide a wealth of material that can be used to supplement the textbook. It is a useful way to learn how to structure an essay.To help you with your essay, there are other ways to study as well. You can use an AP-level essay writing software like FreeCell. Using FreeCell, you can build up an essay on topics that will work for AP Physics.AP Physics Extended Essay Sample is the perfect way to practice the skills and techniques that you will need to create a good, readable essay. This kind of material is exactly what you need to pass the AP exam. When you use the material found in an AP extension study book, you are going to come up with some great ideas that will help you when you sit for the exam.Using FreeCell to practice is a great way to help you become more familiar with the subject matter. I t also helps you to understand it better and make sense of the material. It is possible to run a FreeCell exercise with a topic from the AP Extended Essay Sample book to get some idea of how you will look in the real exam.When you begin working on your essay, it is important to write first thing in the morning and keep it simple. As you get better at it, you can move your reading time forward. But remember, the goal here is to write a strong introductory paragraph and then move onto the 'body' of the essay. Then you will want to continue to write and polish that piece before moving on to the conclusion.Writing a longer essay on AP Extended Essay Sample topics is not necessarily a difficult task. Remember that there are alot of different themes to choose from. You can use a variety of terms to make your essay easier to read and easier to understand.The AP Physics Extended Essay Sample books are written in a way that can be easily understood. The good news is that they do not use comp licated writing principles to present the material. They use concise and easy to understand language that will help you succeed.FreeCell provides a great introduction to writing essays and being familiar with AP Extended Essay Sample topics. Just imagine how different you will feel when you take your AP exam knowing that you have taken advantage of the reading materials. There are plenty of things to learn and AP Exam Review is a great resource for tips, tricks on how to master the AP exam.