This is the study on literature which has analyzed in several aspects the factors affecting underachievement centered on primary education. Underachievement is somewhat differently defined by scholars, but 'it means reduction of achievement including ...
This is the study on literature which has analyzed in several aspects the factors affecting underachievement centered on primary education. Underachievement is somewhat differently defined by scholars, but 'it means reduction of achievement including 3R's despite normal intelligence.' In Korea an intelligence test, an achievement test and an attention test are now used as instruments for discriminating underachievement. This study investigated factors of underachievement with their broad division into the three domains such as cognitive domain, affective domain and environmental domail. First, various studies could generalize that intelligence in cognitive domain was a variable affecting achievement most greatly. Another cognitive factors affecting underachievement can become basic learning skill and cognitive entry behavior. Secondly, in affective domain, an underachiever tended to attribute to external attribution low self-concept, inappropriate learning habit and attitude, lack of achievement motivation, weak attention, lack of self-regulated learning ability, high anxiety and success or failure of school achievement. Thirdly, and environmental factor was divided into home environment, school environment and social environment. Home environment has an important meaning as a place where man is fundamentally formed, and status variable in the environment affects underachievement, but a process variable in the environment affects underachievement, but a process variable can be said to affect it more greatly. It is sad that as a factor of school environment physical environment such as the width of a classroom, lighting, temperature and the sizes fo a desk and a chair influences learning. It is also said that a teacher's behavior, language and zeal for teaching activity affect not only a student's underachievement but also his or her personality. And it is said that primary children come to form positive self-concept through positive interaction with their peers, but that avoidance and exclustion from their classmates have a negative effect on their development and furthermore an effect on underachievement. It will be said that as a factor of social environment mass media such as radio, television and bad cartoon have a negative effect on learning. It will be also said that underachievement results from social pathological phenomena that noneducational social environment such as an entertainment district and saloons around a school dims student's values and causes distrust between a teacher and students. Traditional studies on variable related to underachievement clarified only one factor among cognition, self-concept, learning habit, home environment and the relation with a teacher, making comprehensive and systematic study of various aspects lacking. Thus, it will be said that the results of this study exploring various factors of underachievement comprehensively and systematically are significant in that they enable us to consider plans for preventing underachievement in primary classes and in that they can be used as basic data for educational programs in underachievement. The research tasks for improving the limitations of the study are presented as follows. First, the study comprehensively examined cognitive, affective and environmental factors related to underachivement. However, since it was limited to a study on literature it could not actually prove whether the factors were related to underachievement. Thus, it will have to be followed by an empirical study proving the factors comprehensively and systematically. Secondly, the factors related to underachievement were comprehensively dealt with broadly in three domains, but causal relation among them or their influences could not deeply dealt with. The following study will have to comprehensively and deeply deal with what causal relation there is among the three domians and subvariables, what variables are more influential and so on. Thirdly, i