Thesis (MPAM.) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / The purpose of the study was to investigate the causes of underachievement on the annual performance plan targets in the Limpopo Department of Basic Education Head Office, and to identify possible strategies to improve the current situation. The study was guided by three objectives and secondary data were analysed to answer the research question. This study utilised a qualitative research design as it allowed the researcher to identify and develop procedures necessary to undertake this study. The study used secondary data, a desktop study to investigate the causes of underachievement in the Limpopo Department of Basic Education. Literature points out that strategic planning affects all organisations and it is considered to be the most complicated stage in the strategic management processes as it requires discipline, commitment and sacrifice. If desired goals are not achieved as planned, the organisation might be doomed to failure. The researcher managed to achieve the objectives of the study. Based on the findings of the study, underachievement on annual performance plan targets is influenced by the following major factors. The study points out that, Firstly, that lack of monitoring and support followed by insufficient budget allocated to programmes’ implementation contribute to underachievement of planned targets. Secondly, lack of commitment from top management have an impact on achievement planned targets. Finally, budget is not allocated according to the needs, inadequate leadership to oversee implementation of plans and high vacancy rate contribute to underachievement on the planned targets. In conclusion, the Departmental performance plan and individual performance plan should be directly linked to ensure improved performance and quality service to the public. Based on the findings of this study it is therefore recommended that firstly, the department should strengthen alignment of budget and plans of the department to ensure successful implementation of programmes, secondly, capacity building and skills development programmes should be enhanced to ensure a skilled workforce and improved performance.

In finding ways to help students achieve their goals and become productive members of society, mere categorization of students as successful or unsuccessful is insufficient. Hence, in this report, I explore the literature to understand the connections between the construct of underachievement and other such aspects as motivation, anxiety, attitude, cognitive ability, self-efficacy, and learning strategies that are also related to underachievement and may play a crucial role in its reversal. I propose an organization of a lesson plan based on the use of the mother tongue in order to reverse low achievement while specifically delving into the Indian context when learning English as a second language. / text

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and describe the educators’ experiences of English learner underachievement. The overall aim was to discover and illuminate the essences of this phenomenal experience. The essences embody what is immanent and universal to the phenomenon, what makes the phenomenon the way it inherently is, and what cannot be removed from the phenomenon. This study sought to reveal the general essential features educators’ experiences of English learner share. Furthermore, it was an attempt to arrive at a deeper understanding of the world of everyday human experience. The school system where the study took place is located in southeast Georgia, United States. The group of elementary, middle, and high school educators who participated in the study consisted of eight professional women of diverse cultural backgrounds. All of them had extensive experience of working with English learners in the environment where English was the primary medium of instruction. Data were collected using in-depth interviews and essays. Participant confidentiality was maintained throughout the data collection and analysis. The collected data were organized and analyzed using Moustakas’s modified version of the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method that utilizes the processes of the epoché, phenomenological reduction, imaginative variation, and synthesis. Several textural and structural categories emerged from the analysis of the data. The textural thematic categories included: underachieving English learner performance in school, emotional and psychological barriers, language and cultural change, prior educational experience, family’s socioeconomic status and parental involvement, educational practices and teacher attitudes. The structures underlying the educators’ experience of English learner underachievement were represented through evaluation, observation, communication and interaction, development of professional awareness and accountability, examination of students’ backgrounds, professional collaboration, and examination of educational practices. The totality of what the educators experienced in relation to English learner underachievement reveals that no aspect or quality of this phenomenon can be singled out to prevail in this phenomenal appearance. What makes the phenomenon of English learner underachievement intricately complex is its multi-dynamic character which emerges amidst educational, cultural, and socioeconomic inequities. English learner underachievement is ingrained in the structures of school and society. The key findings from the study suggest that educators need to create effective learning situations to accommodate individual needs of underachieving English learners. Similarly, educators need extensive support from the school, district, and policy in ways that help them gain professional knowledge of approaches, strategies, and programs to provide quality education to all English learners. The study has contributed to the overall understanding of the phenomenon of English learner underachievement and drawn attention to the importance of the educator voice in educational decision making.

Navajo school students, it is believed, underachieve at school in terms of school attendance, dropout rates, and standardized performance tests. Among the many reasons proposed to explain the persistent school underachievement is that school culture is largely based on individualism, interpersonal competition, and other Western norms and values. These, it is argued, are an anathema to Native Americans. Hence, school culture may predispose many Navajo High School students to failure. To test this belief I constructed a model of school achievement motivation drawn from Western conceptualizations of achievement motivation described Navajo High School students achievement motivation. Using confirmatory factor analyses tests of equivalency were conducted that contrasted non-traditional Navajo students and females with near traditional Navajo students and males. Using structural equation modeling, I examined the relations of the language, location, and gender variables on the achievement goal factors, mediated by school measures of achievement, ability beliefs, social goals and achievement goals. I concluded that non-traditional and near traditional Navajo students are more similar than dissimilar. Clearly this raises concerns regarding the making of policy based on assumptions regarding presumed differences between non-traditional and near traditional Navajo High School students. I also concluded that, school achievement measures, the ability beliefs, and the social approval and social concern goals are important factors that influence the school achievement goals Navajo students emphasize. This has implications for the manner in which schools and teachers emphasize these factors in classrooms. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>Despite decades of research attention given to academic underachievement, longitudinal and developmental investigation of this phenomenon has been sparse. To address this shortcoming, the current study used a longitudinal, person-centered approach to identify latent subgroups of growth in the joint development of underachievement and four motivational beliefs (self-concept, task importance, psychological cost value, and self-worth) from first through sixth grade. Two types of underachievement latent classes emerged: one characterized by sustained underachievement and the other by growing underachievement (an Achievement class was also consistently found). Sustained, chronic underachievement was not associated with declines in self-concept or task importance, but was related to moderately lower levels of psychological cost value and self-worth, and was also related to lower middle school academic achievement. Growing underachievement was associated with lower and declining self-concept and task importance. Although differential class membership by gifted status was hypothesized, no such effects were found. Gender effects were found for the Task Importance and Self-Worth models in the hypothesized direction, but this effect was not as robust as in prior research. Findings from the current study build on prior research highlighting heterogeneity among underachieving students.</p> / Dissertation

The main purpose of the present dissertation was to dismember and reconstruct some aspects of the complex relationship between literacy development and self-concept. Two main principles were included in the general design of the longitudinal investigation. The first principle involved an increasing level of specificity in three steps where the starting point was an overall picture of 700 pupils' reading acquisition and self-concept. The second step was a more detailed analysis with the focus upon 80 pupils. The third step finally entailed intense case-oriented analyses of a few students. The second principle required both a description of the situation for pupils in general and a mapping of pupils with learning disabilities. A multiple-method strategy as a set of converging operations was used to capture the underlying structures in the large bulk of data from 9 years. The results indicated a weak but significant relationship between reading acquistion and self-concept with classroom achievement standard as a moderating factor. LISREL-analyses supported those hypotheses suggesting a reciprocal causality between self-concept and reading acquisition. The influence from performance to the self-concept of ability was shown to be much stronger than the influence from the self-concept of ability to performance. Furthermore, the best fitting models indicated that the influence from self-concept of ability is probably stronger on reading comprehension than on reading and spelling in general. The hypothesis of strategic behavior as a mediating factor between selt-concept and later reading and spelling performance was partially confirmed. Comparisons between two groups of pupils with approximately the same cognitive level, one with underachievement in reading and/or spelling and the other group without such problems, revealed that the former group had significant lower self-concept in grades 1-6. As a group these underachievers did not catch up in reading and spelling during the whole school-period. Attention and strategic behavior seemed to be critical factors distinguishing learning disabled pupils from normal achieving ones and unsuccessful underachievers from successfuI " underachievers ". In comparison with normal achieving pupils and with pupils who managed to overcome their early reading problems, pupils with persisting problems were shown to have a lower self-concept and more negative memories from school. At the end of the school-period, they had lower aspirations and expectations for the future and were less inclined to consider school subjects as important and also less inclined to use their reading ability to read books. Thus, self-concept, reading acquisition, aspiration and strategic behavior are connected, and this dissertation is an attempt to reveal the pattern of these relations. / digitalisering@umu

This study addressed the problem of the disproportionality of African Americans in special education by conducting critical white research. A review of literature revealed that research using this methodology had not been conducted with this problem in mind and that critical white theory might be a wise choice in order to understand this issue more fully. This study sought to fill that gap by providing information on the perspectives of white general education teachers regarding the referral and potential placement of African American students in special education. White teachers were selected in order to explore this phenomenon from a critical white perspective. Since most teachers are white, this population is critical in the development of an understanding of the problem of disproportionality. The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions of white general education teachers regarding the: 1. ability, behavior, and school readiness of African American students; 2. instruction, referral, and potential placement of African American students in special education; 3. gaps that exist in the preparation of general education teachers regarding the instruction of African American students. The constant comparative (Glaser & Strauss, 1965) technique resulted in the identification of six themes. These themes supported the current research and confirmed that a lack of cultural responsiveness, a deficit view, and a misunderstanding of the special education referral process and potential services contributes to the gross disproportionality of African Americans in special education. The added perspective of my being a special education administrative practitioner and parent added a depth of understanding to this crisis that has not been previously explored in-depth literature. Also, a useful model called the pipeline to special education was developed to understand what occurs between general education and special education. Finally, a critical white perspective revealed that dominant white values in the classroom may perpetuate marginalization in the form of privilege on the part of the teacher to be permitted to abdicate responsibility for struggling African American students by referring them to special education.

This study draws upon a wide range of research to examine underachievement in UK schools. With underachievement continuing to be present within the UK’s educational system, it is essential that a remedy is found. The notion that physical activity is linked to an increase in academic performance is not a new concept; however researchers are still trying to determine the scope of such a claim. There is a widespread belief that sport can be used as a vehicle to promote positive youth development. In particular, using sport to teach adolescents various life skills has become popular over the previous decade. However, little research has looked at the transfer of life skills into other academic and life domains. Therefore the overarching purpose of this study was to determine if an after-school, sports based life skills programme had any impact on male underachievement within the UK education system. The Transfer-Ability Programme (TAP) was a multi-faceted intervention, which sought to teach twenty underachieving, male students life skills through sport. The results have been presented in three phases with Phase 1 determining the impact of TAP on academic performance in Science, Phase 2 examined the perceptions of the twelve-thirteen year old participants on whether they transferred life skills from the sports hall into the classroom during TAP, and Phase 3 explored the enablers and barriers that facilitated or prevented life transfer. Statistical results indicate that the intervention groups’ academic grades significantly improved during the intervention to a level above teaching prediction. This suggests that teaching life skills through sport may reduce male underachievement. T-tests show that the participants in the intervention group perceived their learning of life skills to significantly increase pre-post TAP. Interview data also supports the notion that the intervention group participants perceived to have learnt the life skills and then transferred them into other academic domains. Phase 3 highlighted five themes that enable or prevent life skill transfer; Support from peers, Pride, Opportunities, Rewards and Transfer experience. These themes are collectively referred to as the SPORT model. The results show that young adolescent males can learn and transfer life skills if deliberately taught to do so. Finally, the findings are discussed with reference to how teachers and physical educators may teach life skills within their lessons, and how life skill transfer may be supported.

This thesis explores the experiences of school for gifted and talented adolescents in New Zealand. The foci of inquiry are a) what it is like to be gifted and talented in a New Zealand schooling context, and b) the understandings of a group of students, their parents and teachers, about the achievement and underachievement of gifted learners. The research relates specifically to a group of 11 gifted and talented students, their experiences and ideas about what it means to be gifted and talented and to achieve as gifted and talented learners. Adopting a qualitative, phenomenological methodology, the voices of the students were prioritised in the research process and thesis writing. Semi-structured interviews are the main source of data. Multiple interviews were conducted with the adolescent participants over a period of 18 months, within their first two years of secondary schooling, and with their parents and teachers. Written reflections by the students provide supplementary data. The thesis explores and problematises understandings of achievement and underachievement that are presented in literature and were held by the research participants. The implications of these understandings on the decisions that gifted adolescents make, about what constitutes achievement and whether and how they seek to achieve in school, are highlighted. The essences of the lived schooling experiences for the gifted and talented adolescents in this study are drawn together and summarised in three main themes. The first theme relates to culture and context and how this influenced the students’ understandings about what it meant to be gifted and talented within the particular socio-cultural milieu of a New Zealand school. The participants showed an understanding of the preferred New Zealand values of modesty and the downplaying of any perceived advantages. The second theme relates to the concept of ‘potential’ as an enigma and a nebulous term that is assumed to mean different and particular things for gifted and talented learners. It is argued that it is not theoretically sound to structure definitions of underachievement for gifted learners around the idea of ‘not reaching your potential.’ The third theme relates to the negotiation of adolescent identities. Being gifted and talented added to the complexities around identity development for the students who participated in the study, as they worked to find their fit within the socio-cultural context of a New Zealand school. Four different identity profiles are developed to provide an illustration of the variation and complexity of gifted and talented students’ identity negotiations. There is little research literature that centres on the lived experiences of gifted students within New Zealand society. This study seeks to address this gap. The research and theorising from this thesis will add to the growing research base in New Zealand on educating gifted and talented learners. Readers of the thesis, who may include a range of education professionals, are invited to draw implications from the study about the experiences and achievement of gifted adolescents and relate the findings to their knowledge and understanding of gifted and talented learners, within their own work situations and cultural contexts.

Academic underachievement potentially redirects the future of adolescents. The specific sample for this research was Grade nine learners. Grade nine is when subject choices are made and the last year of compulsory education. Academic underachievement during Grade nine becomes a barrier to career enhancing subject choices. Subject choice is a first step to greater specialisation of skills and a future career path. This study focused on the investigation of factors that could possibly contribute to the academic underachievement of Grade nine learners to the extent that they would fail. The findings will make teachers more aware of the influence that the internal and external fields of Grade nine learners have on their academic achievement. From the results it was found that academic underachievement is influenced by peer acceptance, parental involvement, cognitive development, the ability to handle examination anxiety, the Grade nine learner's perception of academic identity as well as other factors. A mixed method approach was used. Interviews with underachieving Grade nine learners, Grade nine teachers and Grade nine parents, as well as questionnaires completed by a cluster sample of the general Grade nine population of this study indicated the influence of the underachievers' external and internal fields on academic performance. / Thesis (M.A. (Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.