An Evaluation of a New Approach in Dealing with High School Underachievement

Abstract

This study employed a method for improving the performance of underachievers that focused on a specific personality variable—namely, the internal versus external expectancy of how reinforcement is controlled. It was hypothesized that high school underachievers will perceive their successes or failures to be contingent on factors outside their control more so than normal achievers, and that underachievers will demonstrate academic improvement as indicated by grades if they learn to expect reinforcement to be due to their own behavior. In the first part of this study, 512 normal achievers were compared on Rotter's internal-external (I-E) scale with 179 underachievers. In the second part, high school underachievers who also scored high in externality were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: tutorial, study skill improvement, or computer. The computer group procedure was intended to maximize the expectancy of internal control by providing immediate reinforcement for each response. Underachieving seniors showed a near significantly greater externality than normal achievers. None of the experimental procedures produced significant changes in grades given to indicate academic performance levels.