This study examined the psychological well-being of gifted primary school children. From a screening sample of 233 children in Grades 1 and 2 across five schools in the Netherlands, 35 children achieving high scores on two out of three selection criteria (teacher nomination, creativity, and nonverbal reasoning ability) and 34 typically developing…

Over a 2-year period underachieving gifted students achieved at an accelerated rate when given attention to basic skills featured in the gifted education program of the San Diego Unified School District. (CL)

The article considers major issues, questions, and problems related to gifted females including underachievement, creative productivity, male dominance in mathematics and science, cultural stereotyping, sex roles and mixed messages, lack of planning, the perfection complex, the impostor syndrome, and counseling. (Author/CB)

This retrospective study of 31 professional successful adults who were academic underachievers during adolescence found underachievement associated with: under involved and non-encouraging parents and teachers, negative parental attitudes toward work, family conflict, lack of career direction, and family transitions. Both the adolescents and their…

This study of 10 gifted students (ages 14-20), who moved from chronic underachievement to academic success, identified 6 factors that students felt had a positive impact on their academic performance: out-of-school interests, parents, academic goals, classroom instruction and curriculum, the teacher, and changes in self. (Author/JDD)

Fifty junior high school students were compared on achievement subtests requiring either analytic/convergent or holistic/divergent cognitive processing. Underachievers performed as well as achievers on tasks requiring holistic processing but did not perform as well on detailed or computational tasks requiring precision, attention to detail, and/or…

This study examined whether gifted high school achievers (n=122) and gifted underachievers (n=56) differed in their general academic self-perceptions, attitudes toward school and teachers, motivation and self-regulation, and goal valuation. The two groups differed in all measured areas except academic self-perceptions. Group membership was usually…

This article reviews the literature on grouping and argues for flexible grouping of students according to ability and achievement levels and maintains that grouping gifted students heterogeneously and providing cooperative learning leads to lowered achievement and motivation and poorer attitudes toward school for gifted students. (DB)