A descriptive study of underachieving grades III and IV pupils in selected public elementary schools in Tondo, Manila, 1983-84

• Main Author: Tiangco, Rosalina S.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1984
• Subjects: Underachievement; Academic achievement; Underachievers; Counseling; Education
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/1091
• Institution: De La Salle University

The major thrust of the study was to analyze under-achievement among the Grades III and IV pupils in 10 public elementary schools of Tondo, Manila, school year 1983-84. The research method used is the normative/descriptive method. Ninety-seven pupils of Grade III, 40 boys and 57 girls, were identified as underachievers majority had an average age of nine. Nine-two pupils of Grade IV, 39 boys and 53 girls, were also identified, majority of whom had an average age of 10. Majority of the pupil-underachievers in both grades, 80 percent, belong to the above average, very high average, and superior bracket under the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Test. Almost all the pupils from Grades III and IV are concentrated in the extremes - eldest and youngest, 38 and 37 percent, respectively - with the remaining percentage distributed insignificantly under the different ordinal positions in the family. The parents of the pupil-underachievers have low educational attainment: majority, 67 percent finished elementary education and secondary education, and only 16.4 percent reached college. Consequently, only 3.17 percent were businessmen and 6.34 percent were employed in government offices, the rest engaged in odd jobs, from ambulant vendor to laundrywoman to tailoring. The pupils confided that reading materials and learning media at home were not educational in nature so as to assist them in their academic classes. Subject areas of difficulty of pupil-underachievers are Mathematics, Science, English, Social Studies, Wika, and Pagbasa in that order. They gave varying and individual reasons for their difficulty, citing the factor of the subject, the teacher, and study habits as contributory to their performance in these subjects.The pupils attributed their poor performance in school to inadequacy of books, too much work at home, noisy surroundings, limited study period, difficulty of comprehension, strict and overexpecting parents, habitual latecomers and sickly. On the other hand, the teachers cited poor home environment, poor study