On 6 Oct 2000 16:37:42 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (dennis roberts) wrote:
< snip >
> my main points are:
>
> 1. psychologically, the concept is not clean ... underachievement is
> possible ... overachievement is NOT possible ... logically speaking
> 2. the notion of over/under achievement is based on using ABILITY as the
> (gold) standard ... like, there is really something special about ability
> ... or IQ ... ? further, it assumes that your MEASURED ability is correct
> ... only your achievement has the flaw ...
> 3. over/under achievement are based on errors in the statistical model (no
> matter what things are in the model) ... NOT some characteristic of the person
> 4. over and under ABILITY make just as much sense or NONsense as over/under
> achievement
I think it is Ed-psych, not Psych.
It seems to me that the original use must have been by Academics. It
started as a piece of short-hand. And it is difficult to really
extend it, or use it generally, because of reasons like the ones
above. Plus others.
They invented a category of "underachievers" to describe kids with
high IQs who didn't make A's. IQ-type abilities are (considered to
be) less labile than grades. Aren't they?
If you don't agree that A's are the ideal achievement for people of
school age, then you might have trouble from the start. But there is
more trouble -- and irony -- when you try to apply "underachiever" to
business, and so on. For instance, Gandhi could have gotten rich,
RICH, if he had just returned to India made conventional use of his
Oxford or Cambridge training as a lawyer.
Academics didn't have trouble with "overachievers" but other people
do. The "compulsive overachiever" is a stock figure, isn't it? The
academic sees the contented, highly motivated student who makes fine
grades, where the classmates might see the sniveling teacher's pet,
who is also a weenie or a grind.
PS - I did not check this out with any reference sources.
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
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