The environment, which includes the immediate milieu of the child, influences the child in his totality. The environment has an influence in all spheres of the child's life, such as in the intellectual and mental, on those personality traits which will develop into dominant ones, the emotional sphere, which includes anxiety, his attitude and disposition towards other people and towards objects, his relationships with others and his level of academic achievement. The aim of this study is to determine whether an altered milieu - a change from the parental home to a special school - will have a verifiable influence on the personality and academic achievements of children with behavioural deviations. Available literature on the personality, intelligence and academic achievement of both the well-adjusted and maladjusted child, the origin of misbehaviour, the manifestations of misbehaviour and the milieu as both causative and therapeutic factor in behavioural deviations was studied. The sample consisted of all Standard 6, Standard 7 and Standard 8 pupils of both sexes who were referred to the special school from their parental homes in the course of the first term. A selected battery of tests, consisting of standardized psychometric tests was applied individually to the subjects upon their arrival at the special school. After a period of at least six months the subjects were given the same battery of tests in a group, with the exception of the intelligence test, which was taken down individually. The test and background data were then tabulated and some generally valid conclusions were reached which could be made applicable to the group as a whole. After a period of sojourn at the special school, for example, the subjects did better academically and fewer failures occurred than in previous years. Their average intelligence quotient improved, but their anxiety level increased and their general level of study orientation deteriorated. Personality traits which figured more prominently included selfconfidence, group dependency, dominance and activity. Lethargy as a result of increased ergic tension decreased and the subjects were less phlegmatic and diffident. One could then come to the conclusion that a changed milieu does bring about a change as r.egards the academic achievement and certain personality traits of the subjects. / Thesis (MEd)--PU vir CHO, 1981

Proefskrif--PU vir CHO

The purpose of this three-part study is to acquire greater knowledge of success in school and the factors that affects it, in order to better understand the school-related reality that students face every day. It is made up of a document study of some of the currently leading literature on academic and other types of success and of the Swedish steering documents that regulate the Swedish school system and a questionnaire based survey on what Swedish high school students believe it takes to succeed in school. Largely, the study finds that both inner factors, like personality traits and soft skills, and outer factors like school organization and good teachers, have a massive impact on academic outcome and therefore also adult outcome. The study largely finds that there are much empirical evidence suggesting that certain things affect achievement both positively and negatively. Nothing is left up to chance.

This novel study explores the catalytic experiences that demarcate the achievement of manhood and the means by which the participants knew this transition had occurred. Its significance is in its unique findings and contribution to a largely unexplored topic in the research literature. Qualitative methodologies, including narrative interviewing and thematic analysis, were used. Ten individuals were interviewed and asked to tell the story of when they became men and how they knew. Thematic findings include experiences that led to gaining attributes associated with self-reliance and changes related to fathers or fatherhood. The participants uniformly reported that the significance was known by virtue of experiencing a distinct ‘felt sense.’ Social validation was also noted as a key feature. Further research is recommended including the exploration of this same issue with specific populations and groups, with the larger goal of enhancing the current understanding of these issues by encouraging further dialog in effort to explore the meanings associated with manhood in the contemporary context. / Graduate / 2015-05-05 / 0519 / 0621 / coryklath@gmail.com

In this dissertation, the intersection between emotion and motivation was explored. Participants in this study were given a survey at two time points during the semester. Using this data, the factor structure for the motivation construct as described by Elliot and colleagues were explored using a MTMM model. Leading from the measurement model from the CFA, results indicated that emotion and motivation are highly related, but in different ways depending on if the students have had academic feedback. The academic feedback also may change some students’ motivational orientations, based on their emotional reaction.

A basic assumption held by media specialists is that the media center is an educational agency which provides supportive services to the educational process by contributing to the academic success of students. It is further assumed that the availability and use of media will aid students in formal educational pursuits. The existances of a high media-student ratio, if it does contribute to students' academic success, should then be reflected in recorded grade-point averages. Using college grade-point averages as the measure of academic success, this study was designed to determine whether or not a high media-student ratio contributes markedly to the formal education of students.Media's contribution to education is an area of media service which availability is but one of the many facets. However, the availability of media is a prerequisite to utilization and was therefore established as a basic variable in the design of the study.Specifically the following five major research questions were posed:1) Do students matriculating from Indiana high schools with a high media-student ratio achieve higher grade-point averages than students matriculating from Indiana high schools with a low media-student ratio?2) Do students matriculating from Indiana high schools with a high media-student ratio more often express satisfaction from study than do students matriculating from Indiana high schools with a low media-student ratio?3) Do students matriculating from Indiana high schools with a high media-student ratio more often express interest in assuming responsibility for their own learning than do students matriculating from Indiana high schools with a low media-student ratio?4) Do students matriculating from Indiana high schools with a high media-student ratio more often express the opinion that the library media program improved their ability to solve academic problems than do those students matriculating from Indiana high schools with a low media-student ratio?5) Do students matriculating from Indiana high schools with a high media-student ratio more often express the opinion that the library media program improved their ability to understand different views and philosophies than do those students matriculating from Indiana high schools with a low media-student ratio?The first research question was tested by means of analysis of covariance using the SAT Mathematics and English scores as the covariate and the grade-point-averages as the criteria.The last four research questions were answered from data gathered by means of a questionnaire which sought the opinions and values of students concerning the media programs which were available in the high schools from which they graduated.The questionnaire was sent to a sample of 200 students representing 20 Indiana secondary schools. Ten of the schools had a high media-student ratio and ten had a low media-student ratio. The schools were identified by means of the "Individual School Evaluation and Report-Instructional Materials Program." Access to this material was granted by the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Indianapolis, Indiana.The comparison of the high media-student ratio group and the low media-student ratio group did not indicate any marked differences in the academic records when the criteria of accumulated average grade-point was applied as a measure of success.The results of the last four research questions, upon which the questionnaire was based did not show any marked differences in opinions and values as stated by the students with a high media-student ratio when compared with the responses from the low-media-student ratio group.In this study the availability of a high media-student ratio group did not appear to reflect any marked differences in the academic successes of the high media-student group in comparison to the low media-student group which constituted the population sample utilized in the study.

This dissertation contributes to our understanding of the ‘class’ and gender dimensions of educational inequality. In doing this, it uses a “structure-disposition-practice” model that is rooted in Bourdieu’s theory of cultural and social reproduction but also draws from the theoretical formulations of subsequent sociologists to elaborate on the core concept, habitus, and make it more amenable to quantitative analyses. Habitus is a socialized set of dispositions that shapes how individuals orient to the social world, including their perception of their life chances and corresponding styles of thought and behaviour. The model posits that students’ habitus is a formative influence on how they react to their educational environments and affects their academic achievement. Furthermore, students’ habitus is affected by both their social ‘class’ and their gender, and these ‘class’ and gender differences help explain ‘class’ and gender disparities in educational achievement. Working with multilevel Canadian data from the linked PISA-YITS surveys, this study uses structural modeling to examine the relationships between family socioeconomic status, sex, habitus, academic practices, and academic achievement. As well, school contextual effects are included. A number of the findings were consistent with hypotheses. Most notably, the results provide some evidence that students’ family SES significantly affects their habitus and that their habitus significantly affects their academic achievement. For the most part gender differences in the model were modest, but a few differences were evident: the boys outscore the girls in math and science while the girls excel in reading, students’ SES has a relatively stronger effect on the girls’ academic achievement than on the boys’ achievement, while students’ habitus affects the boys’ academic achievement more strongly than the girls’ achievement. Finally, the average SES of the schools students attend affects both the boys’ and the girls’ academic achievement, but this effect is stronger for the boys, and the effect of the boys’ habitus on their academic achievement diminishes slightly as the average SES of the schools they attend increases; no such contextual interaction was evident for the girls. Overall, the results of this study give qualified support to Bourdieu’s framework and the potential of habitus and the “structure-disposition-practice” model to help us understand ‘class’ and gender differences in academic achievement.

The current study investigated the relation between academic rumination and achievement goal orientation using hierarchical regression. One hundred and ninety-six first year undergraduate students completed measures of depressive symptoms (BDI), achievement goal orientation (PALS) and rumination (MDRS). Analysis revealed that participants adopting performance-avoid goals were more likely to engage in brooding and reflective ruminative responses to stressful academic situations, while those reporting adopting mastery goal orientations were more likely to report lower brooding scores in stressful academic situations. Further analysis revealed that the relation between academic rumination and achievement goal orientation extended beyond a shared relationship with depressive symptoms. These findings are a first step in demonstrating a relationship between academic rumination and achievement goal orientations which may help to improve motivational intervention programs that assist students in adopting mastery goals as well as coping with stressful academic situations. / Graduate

This study investigated the self-perceptions of low and high achieving adolescent students in a rural community of Jamaica, W.I. The effects of achievement level and sex were considered. / The participants were 95 low achieving students and 100 high achieving students who were rigidly tracked into two separate schools. The survey instrument, "How I See Myself and Feel About Myself" was specially designed for this study. Student responses were compared to the subscales from Harter's Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (1988). / The results revealed twelve self-perception categories, four of which were unique to the Jamaican adolescents. High achievers referred more frequently to academic competence, romantic appeal, and close friendship. Low achievers referred more frequently to behavioral conduct. Overall, male students referred more frequently to scholastic competence, athletic competence and behavioral conduct. Female students referred more frequently to social acceptance, romantic appeal, close friendship and family relations.

It was hypothesized that girls would feel more negatively than boys about inequality of achievement within friendships. Using a questionnaire, 123 boys and 138 girls, aged 13 to 17, imagined that two close friends had performed better or worse than them in five domains. They then rated how much they would care, feel and think about the unequal outcomes, that were of equal value to both genders. They were also asked to rate how they felt the friends would feel towards them. Overall, girls' reactions to the inequality were more negative than boys'. The difficulty females face in integrating friendship and personal achievement is explored.