NCJ Number
107696
Journal
Adolescence Volume: 22 Issue: 86 Dated: (Summer 1987) Pages: 333-345
Date Published
1987
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This study assessed the effects of failure on subsequent test performance of 51 seventh grade students identified as at-risk for school failure and 51 randomly selected classmates.
Abstract
Subjects were individually administered measures of intelligence, self-concept, problemsolving and coping ability, attribution, and locus of control. Teachers' ratings of mathematics ability and grades of the two groups also were compared. Students with a history of school failure, although of normal intelligence, were significantly less intellectually, academically, and affectively competent than their more successful peers. They were also rated by their teachers as significantly less able to deal adaptively with school stress. A discriminant analysis separated the two groups with 93-percent accuracy. When administered two equivalent mathematics tests under relaxed and under normal school test conditions, about 30 percent of both groups scored lower under the normal test condition. Implications for understanding and remediating stress-depressed school performance are discussed. 1 table and 22 references. (Author abstract modified)