Do you know what I'm thinking? A comparison of teacher and parent perspectives of underachieving gifted students' attitudes

Abstract

The Achievement Orientation Model posits students are motivated to do well in school when they believe they have the necessary skills to perform a task (self‐efficacy), find the task meaningful (goal valuation), and see their environment as supportive. When these factors are present, students self‐regulate and achieve. We examined these factors from underachieving gifted students', their parents', and teachers' perspectives. Results indicated teachers recognize students who are confident and not confident about their abilities to be academically successful; however, they are less able to recognize when students value the work they are encountering in school. Parents' perceptions of students' attitudes more closely correlated with students' perceptions than teachers' perceptions correlated with students' perceptions. Teachers and parents appeared to base their perception of the importance students hold for school on their perception of students' self‐regulation. Furthermore, gender differences existed in students' perceptions. Females' self‐efficacy scores were statistically lower than males' self‐efficacy scores, and males' self‐regulation scores were lower than females' self‐regulation scores. We provide suggestions for how school psychologists may use these findings to (a) collect important information from students, teachers, and parents, (b) interpret these data to identify underlying influential factors, and (c) guide the development of appropriate interventions to address student underachievement.

What Do We Know about Giftedness and Underachievement? A Bibliometric Analysis

“…Results from this study allowed us to explore and comprehend the trends in the field, as well as to illustrate and organize the field to researchers interested in the topic. Underachievement of gifted students is a complex issue, which can affect students from different socioeconomic levels and backgrounds (Cavilla, 2017;Matthews & McBee, 2007) and can cause that students with high abilities cannot develop their potential (Siegle et al, 2019).…”

“…What is clear is that underachievement can cause several negative consequences, especially when this issue is not addressed on time. These consequences could be at an emotional or academic level (Damian et al, 2016;Moon, 2004), and could end in school dropout (Renzulli & Park, 2002), which represents a significant loss for society (Siegle et al, 2019;Kaur & Bhalla, 2020).…”

Motivational and personality variables distinguish academic underachievers from high achievers, low achievers, and overachievers

“…Support from family and peers, as well as persistence in setting ambitious goals despite the difficulties, appear to be crucial factors for this to happen (Peterson, 2000;Hwang et al, 2014;McCall, 1994), making it all the more important to recognize underachievement as such and not mistake it for an unalterable lack of ability. This is not a trivial task: Rost and Hanses (1997) found that teachers in their study could not identify underachieving students in their classes very well; in a more recent study, teachers had only a moderately accurate impression of their students' attitudes towards school-in particular, they often underestimated their students' goal valuation (Siegle et al, 2020).…”

Conceptualising Gifted Student (Dis) Engagement through the Lens of Learner (Re) Engagement

“…One approach to identify levels of disengagement is through student underachievement. This can be measured by looking at the difference between a gifted student's ability and their performance and achievement [21]. However, this is unreliable at best given that disengaged gifted students can fly under the radar [21], achieving satisfactorily (e.g., achieving Bs and Cs), but not demonstrating what their parents and some teachers know they can do.…”

“…This can be measured by looking at the difference between a gifted student's ability and their performance and achievement [21]. However, this is unreliable at best given that disengaged gifted students can fly under the radar [21], achieving satisfactorily (e.g., achieving Bs and Cs), but not demonstrating what their parents and some teachers know they can do. Since disengagement and underachievement often begins in primary (elementary) school it is important to be able to recognise and intervene early with appropriate pedagogical practices and support strategies.…”