"The Underachieving Elementary School Student - A Literature Review" by Anne Catherine Wiedower
 

Date of Award

12-1990

Degree Type

Master's Essay - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Robert A. Fox

Second Advisor

Terrence D. Wong

Abstract

Academic underachievement, because of its nature, is a very complex and difficult subject to study. Contributing to the complexity is the phenomenon that underachievers have a unique history. Each underachiever may exhibit different contributing factors and causes, age of onset, and degrees of difficulty. There is little agreement in literature as to etiology, assessment, or remediation approaches. Also confusion between the underachieving and the learning disabled populations has been a major stumbling block that has interferred with our understanding of the academic underachieving population. Academic underachievement (AU) has been studied sporadically during the nineteenth century, with the most recent surge occurring between the mid 1960's to 1970's. While previous research added much to the understanding of the subject, not until the 1980's has the complexity of the subject been taken into consideration in attempting to address the problem of underachievement. The 1980's has seen a different approach to the problem in that a multifaceted perspective is being used instead of the piecemeal approach characterized by previous decades. The multifaceted perspective is based on a realization that the causes of underachievement are contributed to and maintained by the child, the parents, and teachers. An important characteristic of this new perspective is that remediation is integrally linked to and a natural outgrowth of etiology.

Comments

An Essay Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master's of Education

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