14%, 10=13%, 11=19%, and 12=25%; and for math 9=16%, 10=19%, 11=21%, and 12=26%. These scores are based on the Standford Achievement test administered in 1988. The majority of the students in the school are black or Hispanic. Many of the students are considered low achievers and are, at one time or another, placed in remedial classes.
Academic failure is one of the major problems confronting counselors and teachers in schools and college. Mental or intellectual ability is not the exclusive determinant of academic achievement. The discrepancy between potential and achievement identifies a group of students who are known as underachievers. Underachievement is both a problem to the individual, who may suffer from the sense of failure and low self-image, and to society which loses the full potential contribution of unestimated numbers of its members.
Researchers (Fenn & Iwanicki, 1983; Hayes, et al., 1985; Davidson & Greenberg, 1976) have emphasized the importance of a positive self-concept in order for learning to take place. In recent years studies on the causes of lower class children's failure in school have described such antecedents as the absence of the father, lack of identity, feelings of helplessness, perceptual difficulties, and inadequate language experiences. In some way each of these causes has been the subject of a school intervention program.
Clauset & Gaylor (1982) describe the necessary factors they used to change the motivation of these students. The authors explain that to change motivation, teacher expectations, appropriateness and intensity of instruction must change in order to put pressure on the student to change his/her level of motivation. Similarly, Marshall & Weinstein (1985) compared two types of classrooms which serviced the underachieving students. The authors found that the classroom where students were showing improvement had more strategies which hindered comparison between student a...