CHAPTER I.

THEORITICAL BACKGROUND

I.0 Introduction

Education plays a very important role in modern society. The economic;

social and cultural advancement of a country depends on its educational system. The
government is spending cores of rupees on improving the educational system of the
country. Our educational institute therefore has a prime duty to fully promote
academic excellence and achievement. For this purpose a thorough knowledge of the
correlates of academic achievement is a pre requisite.

The effectiveness of any educational system is gauged to the extent the pupil
involved in the system achieves, whether it be in cognitive, psychomotor domain. In
general terms, achievement refers to the scholastic or academic achievement of the
student at the end of an educational programme. It is to this concept that the term
achievement is referred to here. To maximize the achievement within a given set-up
is, therefore, the goal of every educationist, a teacher or an educational
administrator. It has been thus indicated that a good number of variables, such as
personality characteristics of the learners, the socio-economic status from which a
pupil hails, the organizational climate of the school, curriculum planning, etc., to
mention a few, influence achievement in different degree. These variables are
generally referred to as correlates of achievement. Heads of institutions, curriculum
planners, teachers, and others who are involved in the task of helping students to
achieve better would like to have knowledge of the influence these correlates exert
on achievement.1

I.1 Meghalaya

1
Buch, M. B., 3rd Survey of Research in Education 1978-1983, NCERT, Pg 648

13
 Meghalaya is a state in the north east of India. The name means "The Abode
of Clouds" in Sanskrit and other Indian languages. As of 2011, the state has a
population of 2,964,007 and is the 23rd most populous in the country. Meghalaya
covers an area of approximately 300 kilometers in length and about 100 kilometers
in breadth. This state is bounded to the north by Assam and by Bangladesh to the
south. The capital is Shillong, known as the "Scotland of the East" and which has a
population of 143,007
About one third of the state is forested. The forest encompasses the state; its
mountain forests are distinct from the lowland tropical forests to the north and south.
The forests of Meghalaya are notable for their biodiversity of mammals, birds, and
plants. It was previously part of Assam, but on 21 January 1972, the districts of
Khasi, Garo and Jaintia hills became the new state of Meghalaya.
Meghalaya has predominantly an agrarian economy. The important crops are
potatoes, rice, maize, pineapples, bananas, etc. The service sector is made up of real
estate and insurance companies. The state has become a hub of illegal mining
activity. Meghalaya's gross state domestic product for 2004 was estimated at $1.6
billion in current prices.
Shillong, the capital of the state, is a popular hill station. There are several
falls in and around Shillong. Shillong Peak, also known as the "abode of the gods" is
the highest in the state.

History
Meghalaya was formed by carving out two districts from the state of Assam:
the United Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills, and the Garo Hills on 21 January 1972.
Before attaining full statehood, Meghalaya was given semi-autonomous status in
1970.
The Khasi, Garo, and Jaintia tribes had their own kingdoms until they came
under British administration in the 19th century. Later, the British incorporated
Meghalaya into Assam in 1835. The region enjoyed semi-independent status by
virtue of a treaty relationship with the British Crown.
On 3 January 1921 in pursuance of Section 52A of the Government of India
Act of 1919, the governor-general-in-council declared the areas now in Meghalaya,
other than the Khasi states, as "backward tracts." Subsequently, however, the

14
government of India Act of 1935 regrouped the backward tracts into two categories:
"excluded" and "partially excluded" areas.
At the time of Indian independence in 1947, present day Meghalaya
constituted two districts of Assam and enjoyed limited autonomy within the state of
Assam.
In 1971, the Parliament passed the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganization)
Act, 1971, which conferred full statehood on the Autonomous State of Meghalaya.
Meghalaya attained statehood on 21 January 1972, with a Legislative Assembly of
its own.

Demographic

Population Growth

Census Pop. %±

1951 606,000 —

1961 769,000 26.9%

1971 1,012,000 31.6%

1981 1,336,000 32.0%

1991 1,775,000 32.9%

2001 2,319,000 30.6%

2011 2,964,007 27.8%

Source: Census of India

Meghalaya is one of three states in India to have a Christian majority with

70.3% of the population practicing Christianity the other two (Nagaland and
Mizoram) are also in the northeast of India. Hinduism is the next sizeable faith in the
region with 13.3% of the population practicing it. A sizable minority, 11.5% of the
population, follow traditional animist religions (classified as other on the census).[4]
Muslims make up 4.3% of the population. In 1991 when Christians made up 65% of
the population of Meghalaya, the 1.1 million Christians made it the state in Northeast

15
India with the most Christians. At that point more Christians lived in Meghalaya
than there were people in Mizoram.

Education
Meghalaya has a literacy rate of 62.56 as per the 2001 census and is the 27th
most literate state in India. This however has rapidly increased to 75.5 in 2011.2

I.2 Mawphlang
Mawphlang is a village in the East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya state in
north-eastern India, 25 kilometers from Shillong. The word maw means "stone",
Mawphlang means "grassy stone," and is one of many settlements in the Khasi hills
named after monoliths.
Mawphlang was the centre of Presbyterian Church of Wales missionary and
medical activity in the Khasi Hills during the 1890s. A dispensary and then clinic
were established in 1878 by Dr. Griffith of Brynmawr, Aberdaron who died at
Mawphlang, April 22nd, 1892. After Griffiths came William Williams (missionary)
who also died at Mawphlang. Mawphlang is the site of one of the Khasi Hills sacred
groves.3
Mawphlang is one of the Block that fall under one of the District of
Meghalaya that is East Khasi Hills District and it is one of the Block that the
investigator felt the needs to carry out the task of investigation as most of the
students here are facing with different kind of problem that make them not to
perform well in their studies.

I.3 Academic Achievement

Academic achievement is of the paramount importance particularly in the
present socio economic and cultural context. Obviously in the school great emphasis
is place on achievement right from the beginning of formal education. The school
has its own systematic hierarchy which is largely base on achievement and
performance rather than ascription or quality. Thus the school tends to emphasize

2
Web-Meghalaya-wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm
3
Web- Mawphlang- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm

16
achievement with facilities, among other things, the process of role of allocation for
the social system. The school performs the function of selection and differentiation
among students on the basis of their scholastic and other attainment and open out
avenue for advancement, again, primarily in terms of achievement.

The students at school are trained to accept the hierarchy based on

achievement. This left him to be released from the family status in certain ways. His
personal status is inevitably a direct function of the function of the position he
achieve, mainly in the formal classroom setting. Acceptance of the system of
hierarchy in term of achievement help also to integrate the school system in so far as
there obtains congruence between the value of a family and those of society.
A considerable number of students from school go to colleges and institution
of higher learning. It is very important to ensure that such students acquire the
requisition competence so as to benefit most of out of higher education. Setting the
stage for achievement of the youth is thus a fundamental obligation of educational
system at school.4

I.4 Factors in Academic Achievement

In a study considering the factors of school achievement one possibly ignores

those aspect in which individual differ from one another. The starting point may be
academic achievement itself where wide ranging variation occurs the point of non-
performance to the point of outstanding achievement. If we consider a group of
students, few students are found to be high achiever on one hand and a few are low
achiever on one hand, while a sizeable number of students always appear as
moderate achiever. Various investigations have explored numerous factors which are
found responsible for academic success or failure. Such factors seem to be under two
general heads that is i) Intellectual and ii) Non- Intellectual.

i) Intellectual: Intelligence has been recognized as an inherent quality with

unified and stable characteristic distributed un equally among individual. It may be
explained as the capacity of knowledge and understanding especially as applied to
the handing of novel situation. In case of school children intelligence is the ability to
learn and succeed in school education. Therefore there has been a reason to believe

4
Buch, M. B., 3rd survey of research in education 1978-1983, NCERT, chap13, Pg 648

17
that more intelligence pupil could learn more quickly retain for longer period of
time, perform better in all academic affairs and so can attain high position in their
classes compared to the less intelligent pupil. Highly intelligent students are bound
to be high achiever even if he subjected to unfavorable conditions.

Binnet Simon and Terman (1916) made investigation taking their

intelligence test as predictors of scholastic achievement. Their findings are similar to
those revealed extremely large number of subsequent studies using different test and
different criteria of scholastic achievement. The coefficient of correlation commonly
fall in the range of .40 and .50, today we call these predictive studies or investigation
as measured value of academic aptitude.

Continuous effort have been made in recent years also to correlates students
mental ability with achievement in studies made by Rastogi (1964), Leffer (1973),
Ennis(1973), Reddy (1973), Kishan (1978), Deshpande and Lodhi (1981) and Shah
and Kishan (1982), it has been reported that academic achievement of the students is
positively correlated with the intelligence of the students. It also seen that the result
of the group mental test which were first used for correlating intelligence with
academic achievement of the students are almost similar to the present intelligent
results. Thus it maintained that the intellectual abilities of the students appear to have
positive association with their scholastic achievement. 5

ii) Non Intellectual: It has been observed that in the absence of intellectual
abilities high scholastic achievement is not possible. At the same time near present
of superior intelligent does not ensure higher achievement many empirical studies
base on scientific investigation have shown that even pupils of superior intelligent
are under achievement while some pupil with average intelligent achieve more than
what is expected of them. Gowan reported that a sizeable proportion of gifted pupils
were found to be under-achievers in secondary school. Some researchers who have
tried to show the relationship between mental ability and academic achievement
have found only a moderate degree of a correlation. For example, Eysenck has
pointed that only a moderate degree of accuracy is to be expected out of his
prediction base on intelligent scales. Hence, the important of intellectual factors is

5
Deka. U., Chapter. I, Factors in Achievement, Glimpses of academic achievement, Omson
Publication 1989, Pg 21

18
undeniable. For a satisfactory performance it is therefore it is obvious that a certain
amount of intelligent or scholastic aptitude, necessary for academic achievement
must be possesses of by the student along with some favorable on intellectual
variable. The more favorable such non-intellectual factors are the higher would be
the academic attainment.
It would be worth mentioning here that different investigators have used
different methods, different tools at different levels of education to explore diverse
non intellectual factors associated with academic achievement. Therefore an attempt
has been made to discuss some specific non intellectual variables like:
Personality variables: It focuses to have intimate relation with academic
accomplishment. Various studies have been made using psychological test to
correlates personality variables with achievement of the pupils. Reviewing the
literature on the relationship personality to academic aptitude and achievement
Stagner point to the fact that personality factors influence achievement by affecting
the degree to which the use of individual potentialities is made. The role of
personality dynamic with regard to college achievement is significant and thus
Garrette proclaim that although admirable progress have been in discovering and
attempting to measure the factors which contributed to scholastic success in college,
all writers agreed that there still remain a unique immeasurable factors or perhaps
factors lost in the unpredictable of human personality. Investigating this hypothesis
Hinkelman find a positive correlation. He concludes personality trait relationships
are considered with the basic factors of intelligence, we can predict academic
achievement better. Thus, these studies reveal the significance of personality
variables with regard to academic achievement.
Persistence: It has been observed from different investigation that
persistence appears to have an association with the academic success and failure.
Various students have persistence correlated with academic achievement, though the
attempt to develop persistence nature to predict school achievement is not greeted
with appreciable success. Students of superior intelligence also fail or achieve poorly
if there is a lack of perseverance in them. Terman and Oden contended that
underachievement on the part of the gift children was the result of lack of
perseverance. Persistent attempt to do a difficult work, particularly more complex
academic problem is utmost importance the lack of which may have adverse of
academic result. In this connection bond reported ‗lack of persistent work at difficult

19
task‘ as a prominent reason follow marks for all the groups of students with poor
scholarship. Hence persistence appears to have significant role in the academic
achievement of the student.

Motivation: Motivation also plays a very important role in students‘

achievement. Different studies have been made to correlate motivational variables
with academic success and failure. Some studies have examined motivation
independently, while others collectively with other factors. Lowell combined the
scores obtained unto occasions to achieve an achievement score for each subject.
Dividing the distribution of overall achievement score into high and low halves at
the mean, Lowell obtained the mean word output for 10 two minute periods for each
of the distribution.
It is evident that high achievement is bound to have a better learning and
superior performance. McClelland and his associates have asserted ―pupils with high
achievement score show evidence of better learning and performance. There is
definite and statistically significant evidence for superior learning in high as
compared with low achievement group‖. Not only in academic achievement but also
in the achievement in other direction motivation plays an important role. Pointing
out the importance of motivation in economic achievement McClelland et al. in
‗motivating economic achievement‘ have written that pupils with certain disposition,
chiefly a high achievement, are more likely to take advantage of economic
opportunities.
Though intelligence is a vital factor in academic achievement the importance
of motivational variables can in no way be over looked. In the summary of all the
investigation on factors related to scholastic success in college, Garrett wrote that
closer correlation existed between intelligent and college grades in the students
motivated by similar goals. It has been observed from some other studies that the
high achievers have a high need for academic achievement and they take it as a
challenge they also tend to become ego-centric. They have a high level of aspiration
too.
Educational and vocational goals: Definite educational and vocational goals
are conducive to high scholastic achievement. Goals are expected to have certain
motivational effects on the performance of the students. Unlike the low achievers,
high achievers are always future – goal-oriented they care little to fulfill their goals

20
immediately. In the words of David and Sidman, high achievers are more future
oriented in their fantasies and imaginable processes and are less concern with
immediate gratifications. They are better able to plan future goals. It is often seen
that the thinking, reasoning and academic behavior of the student are chiefly guided
by their definite goals of aspiration. Research studies have proved that selection of
vocation is related to scholastic achievement. Thus, in the line of Sharma it can be
contended that adolescents of high scholastic achievement show their preferences for
such vocational group which are related to the subject in whom they normally excel.

Socio-Economic status: Socio-Economic status of the family not only helps a

student in getting higher education, but also in academic achievement. It is important
in achievement because higher the socio- economic status better the educational
facilities available together with more intellectual stimulation which is not present
with the socio economically deprived children. Socio economic status seems to
influence a student‘s attitudes, interest, value, motivations etc. and thus his academic
accomplishment. In this respect Vernon writes that social class is so closely
associated with cultural level and with attitude towards education that it has a
marked effect on educational progress. Occupational status is an important socio
economic characteristic that goes together with educational accomplishment.
Likewise economic status of the parents plays an important role in this connection,
because under economic deprivation smooth continuation of study become difficult.

Some studies report that difference in socio economic status does not show
any evidence in the difference of achievement. But it has been observed from the
studies that merit scholar tend to come from higher socio economic status compared
with non scholar. In other words, Ramaji Roa contended that socio economically
disadvantaged children were poor in academic achievement due to poor study habit
lack of proper teaching facilities in the school in which they study and shorter tenure
of teacher handling their classes it is, thus, apparent that socio economic status is
positively associated with the academic achievement of the students.

School behavior: In school achievement must also be laid upon the student‘s
school behavior. The behavior of the students with his classmate, whether he
accepted or rejected by them, his attitude or relationship with his teacher, are matters
of importance in his achievement. Again the student must be free from different

21
types of anxieties so that he can accept easily the counsel offered by his teachers in
different classes he should have capacity to adjust to different school condition
because his anxieties and maladjustment may affect his performance adversely. Even
by fulfilling some important variable, like intelligence, persistence, education goals,
SES etc, a student may not achieve the expected result if he fails to adjust or behave
properly in the school environment. In the words of Stern, Stain and Bloom, ―once
the question of minimal intellectual competence have been resolve, critical important
would then be attach to such matters as the manner in which a student could get
along with his classmate, the extent to which he is accepted or rejected and the
significance which he attach to such responses from others, the character of his
relationship with his teacher and the extent to which he might be free from sources
of anxiety and concern which might interfere with his capacity to observed and
integrated the academic experiences being offer by them.‖ It is therefore, important
to think of normal behavior of the students especially in the school complex which
appear to have a positive association with scholastic achievement of the student.6

I.5 Academic Achievement: A Review of determinants

A formal beginning to explore the determinants of academic achievements

was made with Binet‘s attempts to predict children‘s academic achievement from
their intelligence scores. There is an overwhelming evidence establishing
intelligence as the most significant predictor of academic achievement. (Stead, 1925;
Taylor 1033; Eysenck 1960; Ghosh 1961; Vernon 1961; Rao 1963; Green and
Farquhar 1965; Dibble, 1967; Pandey and Singh 1970; Powel 1971; Lange, 1974;
Kundu, 1975; Mohan et al. 1976; Dhaliwal and Sharma, 1976; Hertlage and Steele,
1977; Gakhar and Wahi, 1978; Jastak and Jastak 1978; Basu and Bose, 1979;
Pandey, 1981; Narang, 1081; Dhaliwal and Sidhu, 1984; and Karnes et al., 1984.

However, in spite of this well established relationship there is no ‗a priori‘

justification to expect as Thorndike (1963) pointed out, an exact correspondence
between intelligence and achievement. Researchers have discovered that non-
intellectual variables viz. personality, motivation, adjustment, values, self concept,
environmental factors, teachers personality and school climate etc. were equally

6
Deka. U., Chapter. I, Factors in Achievement, Glimpses of academic achievement, Omson
Publication 1989, Pgs 22-31.

22
important predictors of academic achievement. Hence for maximum accuracy in
predicting academic achievement a multidimensional model employing both
cognitive and non-cognitive variables should be employed.

From the perspective of non-cognitive variables we must identify those

personality and motivational characteristics which are conductive to academic
success. A few generalizations can be made regarding there. There is a lot of
evidence that extraverted children perform better in school till the age of 13 or 14,
after which introverts gain a progressive advantage (Eysenck and Cookson, 1989).
Anthony (1977) observed that this switchover could because introverted children
adjust better to solo studies needed a the higher academic level, or because more able
and intelligent children develop introverted patterns of behavior as they grow older.
In his study he found evidence for both types of observations.

According to Eysenck and Eysenck (1985), the relationship between

neuroticism and academic achievements a conjectural one. Same is true for the
relationship between anxiety and academic achievement, as neuroticism and anxiety
have a significant positive correlation with each other (Eysenck, 1964)

Eysenck and Eysenck (1985) tried to sort out the relationship between
Neuroticism and academic achievement in the following manner. They said that in
groups which have not been subjected to a selection process (e.g. school children),
Neuroticism is negatively correlated with achievement. Savage (1972) and Goh and
Moore (1978) had earlier reported similar results in school children. At the
university level, Neuroticism facilitates achievement. It is said to be autonomic drive
having motivational potential for achievement. Therefore being bright, the university
students find academic work easy hence high Neuroticism facilitates their academic
achievement.
Some studies have been done to relate cognitive style with academic
achievement. Field independent subjects were found to be higher on achievement,
than field dependent subjects. (Vaidya and Chausky, 1980; Sharma and Ahuja, 1982;
Chatterjee and Paul, 1984 and Halpin and Helen, 1986).

Generalized expectancies developed by students also play a crucial role in

their achievement. Internality (belief in internal control) is positively related with
academic achievement. (Rotter,1966; Nowicki and Strickland, 1973; Tesing et al.

23
1980; Barbara, 1983; Findley and cooper, 1983; Dhaliwal and Sidhu, 1984; Barbara
et al, 1985; Ismail and Wai, 1985; and Sehgal and Gujral, 1988;

A number of studies have reported a positive relationship between motivation

and achievement. Sinha (1970), Jowa (1972), Singru(1972). Kohli (1975) Mehta and
Mohta (19175), Rai (1975), Parikh (1978) and Narang (1981) reported a significant
positive correlation between motivation and achievement.

Adjustment is a core mental health dimensional and good adjustment leave to

improvised academic achievements (Rao, 1972, Kohli, 1975, Rai,1975, Narang,
1981, Devi 1982, Gulati 1982, Mohan and Gulati 1983 and Royer 1984. Narang
1977 and Sharma 1983 however did not adjustment to be a significant contributor to
achievement.

The teachers‘ personality and style of interaction with the students has been
reported to be a crucial variable in students achievement, Sharma and
Santhanem1972 reported that peoples like non – authoritarian teachers better, feel
free in expressing their difficulty with them and achieves higher result in their
classes. Hsu 1983 found similar results. Teachers who are successful in creating a
climate of warmth and support can extract greater pupil achievement. Adjustment in
School, at home and with peers generates greater class room trust (Mehta and
Kanada, 1969, Jangira 1975, and Patel 1975). Wayne et al. (1979) reported that
positive evaluation of teacher was associated with higher achievement in school
children.

Murray and Stabler 1974 and Porte and Cohen 1977 reported that a teacher‘s
score on locus of control was directly directed with student‘s achievement. Among
students with opposite sex models, teacher‘s attraction was not related to student‘s
growth, Marshal and Weinstein 1986 reported that teachers‘ communication patterns
and his differential treatment to students as perceived by students were very
important determiners of students achievement.

Review of personality characteristic with academic success reveals that there

is no simple straightforward relationship between personality and achievement as
there are other relevant intervening variables like teaching strategies, age, sex, and
arousal level of the learner etc. When Teachers and researchers wanted to discover

24
the reasons for the superior achievement of introvert, a few pack emerge which can
be useful in enhancing the academic achievement of extravert also. It was felt that
the low achievement of low extravert could be due to their low arousal, which make
it difficult for them to maintain concentration for long periods required for
successful academic study.

Studies being reviewed can be used effectively in maximizing the

achievement of the students. Classroom atmosphere is an important determiner of
achievement. If students are happy in the class, relation with peers is friendly there is
no friction ions the class high achievement levels are evident. Students above
average in academic achievement are significantly more popular and admirable than
rejected or isolates. Student below average in achievement were significantly more
often rejected and isolated. Teachers thus should try to promote healthy and friendly
interaction in the calls and minimize friction among students.7

I.6 Ability and Achievement

Before one proceeds to an examination of particular method of evaluation it

is necessary to consider the relationship of achievement to such matters as ability,
attitude, potential, since as a common argument goes the mount of achievement must
be limited by potential of the pupil for learning, It seems that one of the common
complain about pupils is that they do not work up to their ability. When those who
complain are asked how these abilities or capabilities have been assessed they
usually refers to scores on so call intelligence, mental ability, or attitude test or
describe pupils performance in class at some previous time. Thus they seem to
suggest that on relative brief sample of performance on a test or regular class work
dictates the standard that can be expected by the pupils at all time in the future.
Those who say that pupils are not working up to their abilities should note that no
test measures ability or attitude. If the terms ability, capacity, attitude or potential are
used when speaking of test scores there should be recognized as inferences that may
or may not be dependable for a particular pupil.

The practice of comparing a pupil performance with some vague potential

ability or attitude based on scores of general mental ability test is virtually

7
Mohan., Jitendra., Educational Psychology, Wiley eastern limited Publication, 1993, Pgs 228-
234

25
outmoded. To say that a child is or is not achievement up to his ability or potential
when that ability is only a scores on a test suggest erroneously that the test score is a
stable measure for some overall potential that can be mastered to accomplished
objective in any subject at any time and that the potential is highly correlated with
achievement, Studies of evaluation procedures, in which a child achievement is
always expected to be up to some vague potential, suggest that an objectives of some
school is to keep up pupils working just short of the point of collapse.

Regardless of the stand one takes on the issue noted above, the practice of
basing instruction on some vaguely determined potential for each students is not
particularly useful to educators. If a pupil is not making progress toward an
objective, it is expected that the teachers will do his uttermost to help the pupil to
make as much progress as he can in the time allotted. No mental test can define,
except in very broad term the words ―As He Can‖ as they are used in the previous
sentence. No mental test can determine the spot at which the teacher should stop
trying to help pupil towards goal that has been broadly conceived but are flexible
enough consider individual differences. It may be necessary to lower or otherwise
change objective for certain pupils or groups of students, but such changes should be
based upon observed performance of pupil under maximum condition of motivation
and effort rather than upon some vaguely define ability, capacity, ort attitude
inferred from the brief sample of performance obtained by administration of a so
called mental ability or maturity test.8

I.7 Competence and Achievement in Schools

All students possess a drive to achieve something, somewhere, sometime. A
major school problem, however may be to awaken that drive with reference to
education. Let us see how the principle we have discussed can be applied to school
learning:
If, as White suggests, there is a basic need to deal with the environment
competently, students should come equipped with a basic need to deal competently
with school environments. We do not have to instill such a need through promises of
reward- but we do have to be careful to be recognizing the true nature of the school
environment.

8
Skinner., C. E., Educational Psychology, Pgs 678-680

26
 The achievement needs of an individual students can be assessed- by a train
psychologist if necessary but also informally by teachers. Where academic
achievements needs same to below it may be helpful to contact fathers, since fathers
seem to be more willing than mothers to give low n Achievement children a push.
Achievements needs appear to be affected by social class and by more
general facets of modern culture. The current counter culture of many of teenagers
may signify a true shift in our society‘s orientation towards traditional achievement.
Consequently, schools should be on the alert for newer relevancies: How are
academic skills and concepts instrumental to new goals? Where teachers can help
adolescent make such connections, new achievement drives may be unleashed.
Another way of stimulating achievement drive maybe to led students set a
series of goals for themselves. Teachers can judge aspiration levels in such cases.
Are they realistic? Do students respond realistically to success and failure? If not, the
students in question may be characterized more by fear of failure than hope of
success.
When failure, frustration and/or depression occur, try to help the student find
equally satisfying alternate or substitute goals. Be on the watch for the spread of
depression that may follow failure of an alpha capacity.
When failure has occurred, renewed hoped and energy may follow
clarification of the programmed. Once a series of goal become cognitively available
to a student, his interest in achieving them may sharply increase.
The teacher‘s expectation for success in a student when these expectations
are realistically implemented can be effective and important. But magical
expectation will just lead to disillusionment on the part of both the students and
teachers.
Have the courage to let true competence develop in your students- the
competence to argue skillfully with their teacher.9

I.8 Social Factors in Academic Achievement: A brief review – by Peter H.

Rossi
A Brief Summary is presented below from the finding of researches on social
factors affecting the achievement of the students in Americans elementary and high

9
Farnham., Sylvia., Cognitive processes in education :A psychological preparation for teaching
and curriculum, Harper and Row., Publishers San Francisco, London., 1972,Pgs 215-216.

27
schools. The finding concentrates on the literature, glossing over the technical
details.

Students‟ characteristics related to achievement

The major finding under this category is that a student‘s intelligence relate
more strongly to his achievement level than any other characteristics. Surveying a
large number of studies, it is found that between 40 and 60 per cent of the variation
among students could be accounted for by variations in IQ levels. Furthermore,
holding IQ constant, the correlation between achievement and other characteristics
are uniformly reduced in size this finding holds both for the elementary and high
school levels.
Despite the importance of intelligence a considerable portion of the
difference among individuals must be accounted for in other terms. Part of the
remaining variation is taken up by socio economic status: the higher the occupation
of the breadwinner in the student‘s family, the greater his level of achievement.
However, it should be pointed out that, while the studies under review uniformly
find socio-economic status playing a role in achievement, it is not clear how it does
so. In fact it is characteristics of past researches on individual differences that they
have not gone much beyond measuring the association between characteristics of
individual students and their achievement scores, to specify the processes by which
these characteristics are translated into differences in achievements.
Attitudes towards school and school work also have been found to play some
role in achievement, but this role is considerably reduced when intelligence is taken
into account. Thus, students who are more favorably inclined to school are more
likely to get high achievement scores, but they are also more likely to be the able
students.
Teacher‟s characteristics and student achievement

A number of researches have tried to relate different characteristics of

teachers to the achievement levels of their students. Because we can expects that the
achievement of the student at anyone point in time is not likely to be strongly
affected by the teachers he happen to have at that time- being more a product of his
total educational experience- we can anticipate that the finding of this sort of
research will be very equivocal. In fact, such is the case perhaps the strongest

28
impression these researches make is that the teacher‘s contributions to his students‘
achievement, in the short run are minimal.

Most of the researches conducted on this topic have been rather poorly
conceived. Only one study held constant the IQ levels of the students involved. This
study found a number of surprising relationships between achievement and teacher
characteristics: for example, the higher the teacher‘s rank positions in their own high
school training the lower the achievement of their pupils.
Educational practices and student achievement
Because a student spend a relatively long time within a particular school, we
can anticipate that variables relating to the characteristics of schools and the
activities within them would be more important to the achievement of students than
characteristics of particular teachers. However this literature also has the distressing
characteristics of being contradictory in its results. By and large, no clear picture
emerges from the research to indicate that a particular type of school pursuing a
particular type of educational policy.
Researches on the total school size indicate that the difference between
school on this dimension are not considerable. In general, very large schools and
very small schools were disadvantaged when compared with schools in the middle
range. However, it may be the case that these size differences mask community
differences as well, indicating perhaps that the large urban school and the small rural
school do not have as good student as middle- sized schools located perhaps in
middle sized cities or suburban areas. Sizes of classes show a similar complicated
relationship between achievements. Students in small classes do better in some
subject than students in larger classes, but there are subjects in which the differences
accrue to the advantaged of the larger classes.
Researches on the relationship between educational practices and
achievement have in the main failed to reveal that differences among schools and
different educational practices contributes a great deal to the scores of students on
achievement tests. To some unspecified degree, this failure may be due to the lack of
ingenuity displayed by the researchers, who have measured only the grossest aspect
of either school or educational practices.

Community differences in Academic Achievement

29
 While individual differences are perhaps the strongest differences to be
encountered in a search of the literature on achievement, a close second are those
differences to be found among regions and communities in the United States. The
best and worst states in the Union are so far apart that they appear to have been
drawn from separate although overlapping universe.
Two strong trends appear: first, students in states and communities in the
south do not have achievement scores as high as students in the North. Second, the
achievement levels of the states or community are highly correlated with indexes of
economic well-being. Several investigators have suggested that this regional
difference has its source ultimately in the place accorded to intellectual matters in the
culture of the region.
Although these studies have pointed to important sources of differences in
achievement levels, it is only fair to point out that they have done little more than
document their extent and nature. Thus, it may be very well the case that the mental
abilities of southern students may be the cause of their low levels of achievements
rather than influences of the schools which they attend.10
I.9 Origin of Anxiety
The observation of Harry Stack Sullivan (1947), the great psychiatrist and
teacher, led him to the conviction that the initials experiences with anxiety occur in
infancy, when infants sense displeasure of emotional upset in their parents,
particularly their mothers. Sullivan noted that infants displayed such symptom as
restlessness, irritability, and feeding problem when their mothers were displeased or
disappointed, or even when their mothers were troubled by event that had nothing to
do with the child. So close is the emotional linkage between mother and infant,
according to Sullivan, that negative feelings on the path of the mother are likely to
disturb the infant‘s sense of security, that is, his need to be loved and to feel secure
in his mother‘s love. This feeling of insecurity and psychological isolation from the
mother is what Sullivan terms ―anxiety‖. (It is understood, of course, that negative
feeling and anxiety accrued in the best – ordered households and are part of the
normal process of human interaction. It would be as undesirable to shelter a child
from all negative feelings as it would be to overexpose him to such feelings).

10
Halsey, Jean Floud and Arnold Anderson. C., Education, Economy and Society: A reader in
the sociology of education., Collier MacMillan Publishers., 1961., Pgs 269-272.

30
 The anxiety we first experience as infants continues to have an effect on our
behavior throughout life. It appears whenever other criticizes, snub, or disapproved
of us – whenever we are ―rejected‖. The more important the rejecting individual is to
us, and the more power he has, the greater our anxiety. Our own behavior can arouse
anxiety as well, whenever we find our self-behaving in ways that are inconsistent
whit the concept we have of ourselves. Situations that are ambiguous or confusing
may also arouse anxiety. The future is a major source of anxiety because of its
uncertainty. Hence we lay plans and take precautions to make the future somewhat
more predictable and thus allay our anxiety to some degree.

According to Camilla M. Anderson (1950), a psychiatrist who has developed

a theory of human behavior similar to Sullivan‘s, all human behavior is based on the
avoidance of anxiety: ―Everything one does, every choice one makes, every reaction
one give, every item and detail of one‘s behavior is calculated to forestall anxiety or
to deal with it if it arises‖. Although some psychologists would find Anderson‘s
statement too sweeping and all encompassing, it is nevertheless likely that anxiety is
directly or indirectly involved in much everyday behavior, particularly the behaviors
that involves our relations with others.

Although we have stressed the unpleasant features of anxiety, there is no

question that it has positive values. Our wish to avoid anxiety is a major factor in
our learning to be careful and considerate on our relations with others, to conform to
the laws and customs and society, and to provide for the future. Anxiety that enables
us to behave like civilized individuals in a civilized society is what we shall call
―normal anxiety‖. A certain degree of normal anxiety is there for necessary as a kind
of goad or stimulus to keep us at the task of becoming more adequate. But an
overabundance of anxiety distracts us from the positive direction of development,
and leads us to develop forms of behavior concerned society with the avoidance of
reduction of anxiety. Hence the appearance of behavior that is not our basic interests.
It should be clear, then, that our basic need to become competent and adequate and
our tendencies to develop varying degrees of anxiety are both likely to have a
significant effect on learning.11

11
Lindgren., Henry Clay., Educational Psychology in the Classroom: Fourth Edition., John
Wiley and Son. Inc., Canada., 1972, Pgs 29-30

31
I.10 Early Conception of Anxiety

Man has always experienced anxiety, as long as he has existed as a species,

though the content of anxieties, and the way in which these affects are felt and
categorized phenomenally, as well as the kinds of circumstances that gives rise to
them, are no doubt to a considerable degree a function of the mores and assumption
of the cultures in which he has lived. Development of the ‗Concept of Anxiety‘, on
the other hand, apparently did not come about until well into the historical era, in the
classical Greek period and particularly in the Hellenistic era.

The theme of Anxiety not a delineation of the concept, but an awareness of

the affect appears in the first literary narrative, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is
believes to have reached its presents form in Babylonia at the beginning of the
second millennium, and parts of which go back to Sumerians myths of the third
millennium.

I.11 The Dimensional of Anxiety

Anxiety unfortunately is not an un-dimensional variables; it is implicit in the

construction of such devices as the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) that what
is being measured is in some sense univocal, but this is not so. Anxiety is conceived
as conditioned fear reaction and the strength of such conditioned fear reaction
depend on two independent variables not one: (a). degree of emotionality or
fearfulness, which determine the strength of the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and
(b).strength of conditioning which determine the degree to which the condition
stimulus(CS) and the UCS will be associated. In terms of personality theory
emotionality or fearfulness is measured as the personality dimension of neuroticism
(N), and conditionality is closely associated with the personality dimension of
extraversion and introversion. Thus people whose personality put them in the
dysthymic quadrant (high N or low E) are most predisposed to neurotic disorders and
anxiety generally both because of their strong fear reaction, and their ability to form
strong conditioned response. 12

I.12 Theories of Anxiety

12
McReynold., Paul., Changing Conception of Anxiety: A historical review and a proposed
integration University of Nevada., United States.

32
Freud‟s two conceptions

Although some crisis may rightly charge Freud with certain degree of
dogmatism once he had committed himself on a subject, he was nevertheless capable
of altering some of his views. This capacity for change is certainly reflected in his
approach to anxiety, since, in the autumn of his professional life he came forth with a
treatise on the matter that was at sharp variance with his earlier analysis. And
because most current theorists take Freud later stand as their point of departure in
analyzing anxiety.

Theory One: Anxiety as Response

Freud early conception of anxiety was both simple and incomplete. Basically,
the theory held that anxiety is a response- a response to a frustrated sexual life.
Anxiety appears when for some reason there is an incomplete sexual orgasm. The
inadequate orgasm in turn might be due to real condition or to neurotic inhibition. To
alleviate a patient‘s anxiety, Freud believes a therapist had only to suggest means for
securing a more adequate sexual discharge.

Theory Two: Anxiety as Response and Stimulus

Freud early recognized the close relationship between fear and anxiety, but
he did not make this relationship explicit until he published his revised theory of
anxiety in 1923. And in that revised theory, he makes it clear that a comprehensive
statement on anxiety must specify its properties both as a response and as a stimulus.

Freud saw fear and anxiety as being closely related because they are both
reaction to danger. Fear, or objective anxiety is a natural response to a danger
outside the person and it expresses the ego‘s instinct for self-preservation. Anxiety in
contrast is a response to a danger arising within a person.

Anxiety as a learned response

Most present day psychologists agree with Freud that an anxious person is a
threatened person, but many disagree with his suggestion that the threat stems from
concern about primitive impulses. Instead they hold that anxiety is a learned
response that can be developed in an innumerable ways. This kind of formulation is
usually emphasizes that we all have many motives both innate and acquired and that

33
anxiety may become attached to any of them through learning. There is also in this
position although ordinarily not much attention is given to this fact at least an
implicit recognition that anxiety is dependent upon an innate fear reaction. That it is
the innate fear response that provides the basis for the development of anxious
behavior through the learning process.13

I.13 Reduction of Anxiety

Defense mechanism is usually used to cope with anxiety. In addition people

use a variety of other means to obtain relief from this distressing condition, these can
be considered briefly in this section:

Increasing competence in the anxiety provoking situation

Many people feel anxious when they must undertake some new and
unfamiliar task. Complaints of tension and nervousness are common under novel
circumstances such as learning to drive a car or going away to school for the first
time. But with experience in driving, a person acquires confidence in his ability
sometime too much and speeding down a highway becomes a pleasure rather
than an anxiety ridden affair. In general, then when a person has attained
competence in some skill and is familiar with the demand that will be made on
his abilities his level of anxiety tends to be reduced.
Support from others
Competence does not always guarantee freedom from anxiety; however
for example if you ask a friend who is highly competent football player how he
feels just before the game, he is likely to admit that he is anxious. In situation
like these we often turn to other persons for support. We might say that anxiety
stimulates affiliated behavior because; somehow association with others is
reassuring.
Drugs
One of the oldest methods for reducing anxiety known to man is the use
of drugs. No one knows who first discovered the effects of poppy, hemp or
fermented beverages, but recorded history contains many references to their use.
We are especially likely turn to drugs when neither our increased skill nor the

13
Baughman., Earl. E., Personality: The Psychological study of the individual., Practice-Hall.
Inc., NewJercy., 1972., Pgs 511-514

34
support offered by others. Is effective in keeping our anxiety levels within
tolerable bounds. And, of course, taking a pill, a shot, or a drink often seems to
be the easiest way out of a distressing condition.
Psychotherapy
Anxiety has become too great a burden to carry is a basic reason that many
people seek psychotherapeutic help. However the existence of a basic difference
between the so called ―uncovering‖ or depth therapies such as psychoanalysis
and the behavior therapies. Behavior therapist believes that understanding the
historical origin of anxiety is a necessary part of the treatment process.14

I.14 The Effect of Anxiety on Behaviour

The psychological needs that we have been describing may serve as the basic
for understanding a great deal of human behavior, particularly those kinds of
behavior that are in our own best interest that much behavior that we observe in
others (as well as in ourselves, to be honest) is obviously not in our best interests and
cannot easily be accounted for by needs to become competent or adequate.

Although the term ―anxiety‖ takes on different shapes of meaning as it

appears in the writing and research of psychologists in various fields of
specialization, there was general agreement that it refers to a complex and sometimes
chronic emotional stage generally characterized by fear, apprehension, or tension. As
such, it is associated with failure to meet our needs, anticipation of such failure, or
even merely awareness possibilities of failure. The more we are concerned with our
vital or biological needs, the more likely we are to experience and display fear or
anger, whereas the more we are concerned with our ability to function on a
socialized or intellectualized level, the more likely we are to experience some form
of anxiety or tension. Fear and anger are ―primitive‖ emotion: they are the
spontaneous and sometimes dramatic accompaniment to situations involving (1)
immediate or present danger to ourselves or (2) some direct and drastic interference
with ongoing behavior. But frustrations that threaten meets at more abstract and
socialized levels are likely to be of a more subtle, indirect nature. Not only are they
harder to identify, but they also involve behavior that is highly complex behaviour

14
Baughman., Earl. E., Personality: The Psychological study of the individual., Practice-Hall.
Inc., NewJercy., 1972., Pgs 518-520

35
that is a part of the intricate web of our relation with others. Perhaps we feel irritated
when someone in authority accused us of carelessness but our anxiety about our
anxiety leads us to shallow our anger. Or perhaps we feel that we are being left out
of lands made by our groups but are really not sure and would feel silly bringing it
up. Hence we feel awkward and insecure in our relations with the group; we have a
feeling of emptiness whenever we think about the problem. It is bothersome,
exclusive feelings, and it will not go away.

This is the quality of anxiety. It is elusive, bothersome, and hard to identify.

It commonly develops within the content of face-to-face relations with others – what
psychologists call ―interpersonal relations.‖ In its most intents form, it can be quite
painful – so painful that we are usually willing to go to great lengths to avoid.
Because anxiety is so painful, we sometimes do things that are not in our best
interest in order to avoid or reduce anxiety. We do not know what the source of
Howard‘s anxiety is, but it appears to be so strong that he is willing to suffer
physical pain in preference to the pain of anxiety. For her parts Lucy is willing to
suffer the disgrace of poor marks rather than face and deal directly with her
anxieties.15

I.15 Anxiety as a Basis for Problem Behaviour

According to the development scheme of behavior that we presented in
Chapter, human behavior may be viewed in terms of attempts to meet basic needs or
to cope with real or anticipated frustration of these basic needs. When we feel
apprehensive (perceive threat) about our ability to maintain satisfactory relations
with others (n AFF), the felling that ordinarily results in anxiety, anxiety may appear
in other contexts, of course, but our relations with others is perhaps the commonest
source. One group of researchers found that elementary school children who were
least chosen by others on a sociometric test scored high on the Children‘s Manifest
Anxiety Scale (had high anxiety), whereas the more popular ones scored low
(McCandless, Castenada, and Polermo, 1956). In another study, the Children‘s
Manifest Anxieties Scale, or CMAS, as it is commonly called, was used with nine-
years- olds in the Rochester, New York, city schools to examine the relationship
between anxiety and various sociometric, cognitive and physical health variables. On

15
Lindgren, Henry Clay., Educational Psychology in the Classroom: Fourth Edition, John
Wiley and Son. Inc., Canada., 1972., Pgs 28-29

36
the other hand, the less anxious child not only was more likely not to receive these
negative evaluations, but was also more likely to get better grades, to have a high
verbal IQ, and to score higher in reading comprehension.
Anxiety is a form of tension. When things are dull we may risk a little
anxiety in order to living things up, but once we get involved in a tense social
situation, we may have more anxiety than we can handle for the moment and may
make use of some more or less immature ways of coping with it without realizing
that we are doing so.
Running for political office arouses anxiety. We wonder how we stand with
the voters: will they accept us or reject us? Velma‘s way of handling or avoiding
anxiety is to talk with her friends at Hamburger Heaven and to consume hamburgers.
Although there is no logical relationship between the needs for status and acceptance
and eating hamburgers, there is for Velma and emotional or psychological
relationship. Velma kept saying that she did not care whether she won or not, but her
behavior during the week tells us a different story. She did say that she worried ―a
little‖ about her homework and wondered once or twice why her dresses were
getting tight. Hence she really had no great amount of insight into the causes of her
anxiety.
Of course, there is nothing unusual or pathological about Velma‘s behavior.
It is the kind of thing that could happen to almost anyone. Our purpose in discussing
it here is to show how the real significance of our behavior is hidden from us, and
how we often do seemingly irrational things as a way of avoiding anxiety. 16

I.16: The influence of Anxiety on Learning

Although there are a number of theories regarding the nature of anxiety,

psychologists generally agree that arousal and tension play an important part.
Moderate levels of anxiety seem to facilitate general effectiveness. After all, we are
better able to attend to problems when we are aroused and alert than when we are
drowsy or apathetic. At high levels of anxiety, arousal and tension are at such a peak
that we are more likely to be concerned about our own state of disturbance than we
are about dealing with tasks or problems.

16
Lindgren. Henry Clay., Educational Psychology in the Classroom: Fourth Edition., John
Wiley and Son. Inc., Canada., 1972., Pgs142-141

37
 The use of the term ―anxiety‖ is often confusing because, as Charles D.
Spiegelberger (1966) has pointed out, the same term is used to refer to both a trait of
personality and a state.

Anxiety is also used to refer to responses to a specific event. Some situations

generate considerable anxiety because they are more threatening or merely because
they are more complex or confusing. Situations that are reassuring or are simple and
unconfused produce little anxiety. In situations that characteristically are anxiety
arousing, individuals in the high-anxiety category may find themselves so upset that
they are less effective than usual, whereas low-anxiety individuals in the same
situation may find the higher level of arousal beneficial.

Anxiety may furthermore be explained in terms of the energy-system model

of behavior. Input leads to arousal; the more input, the higher the arousal. If the
system becomes overloaded with input and has more than it can handle,
transformation processes cannot function normally and efficiently, and responses
tend to become less effective. A high anxiety person is one who is more sensitive to
the stimuli in his environment. He is in a relatively high state of arousal because
there is more input, more transformation, and more response. A low-anxiety person
tends to disregard potential stimuli. There is less input, less transformation activity,
and less response.

A great deal of learning takes place because individuals seek to avoid or

reduce anxiety. This is particularly true of the learning that occurs within the context
of social situations. Children learn to modify and control their behavior in order not
to offend and disappoint parents, playmates, and other people who are important to
them. Even those skills classified as ―intellectual‖ are learned, at least in part, as a
means of reducing or avoiding anxiety, In other words, many children learn to read
partly because all their friends are learning to read and they do not want to
experience the anxiety of feeling different or left out of the group. Furthermore, their
parents and teachers expect them to read, and they do not want to disappoint these
powerful adults whose good will is so important to their well-being.

James B. Stroud (1946) theorized that anxiety is a factor not only in learning
to live with others but also in mental development generally.

38
 The term ―Normal Anxiety‖ is sometimes used to refer to anxiety at
moderate levels, particularly anxiety that promotes the acquisition of social skills
and helps to smooth out interpersonal relationships. Individuals who
characteristically function at a very low level of anxiety tend to be careless of the
rights and feelings of others and to ignore the long-range implications of their
behavior.

High levels of anxiety seem to be generally disabling. Seymour Sarason

and his co-workers (1960) have developed an instrument to measure what he calls
―test anxiety‖ – the kind of anxiety that prevents people from doing well in stress
situations. Children scoring high on his test Anxiety Scale tend to score low on
intelligence and achievement tests.17

I.17 The Teacher as an Anxiety reducer

One of the importance functions of the teacher, or of any leader for that
matter, is that of reducing anxiety some minimum of anxiety is essential for most
learning but so much anxiety has a disturbing affect on group. It may arouse hostility
and provoke aggressive behaviour, or it may cause a class to draw into collective
shell and refuse to participate in any positive learning experience. Over-anxiety also
has distorting affect it prevents individual from saying the facts as they really are and
interferes with affective communication.

One of the outstanding characteristic of experience, affective teachers is the

ability ―anxiety level‖ of the classroom group. They are aware that little learning will
take place if the group was more concerned about its anxiety than it is about
learning. As we have indicated previously, individuals who are very anxious are pre-
occupied with their anxiety. The things that they want most are to do something
about the anxiety they are relatively unconcerned about participating in experiences
their teacher may have prepare for them.

Effective teachers generally move to help students reduce anxiety when it

rises to a level that threatens to interfere with positive learning. Without necessarily
being aware of the theoretical implications of what they are doing, they are acting in

17
Lindgren., Henry Clay., Educational Psychology in the Classroom: Fourth Edition., John
Wiley and Son. Inc., Canada., 1972., Pgs 232-234.

39
accord with the findings of Ned A. Flanders (1951) that ―student behavior associated
with interpersonal anxiety takes priority over behavior oriented toward the
achievement problem.‖ In other words, students who are troubled by anxiety and are
not concerned with the learning task before them. Thus they are not able to develop
the task imposed discipline which is conducive to good learning and are less
responsive to the pressures of group imposed discipline. By helping students reduce
the level of the anxiety, teachers are making it possible for them to become involve
in the task of learning and are facilitating the development for more matured
standards of behavior.

There is a wide variety of methods that can be used in helping students

reduce the anxiety. Here are two of them. Sometimes reduction maybe accomplished
through the medium of a ―gripe session‖ whereby the group ―gets in trouble of its
chest‖, and sometimes it can be reduce through a change of sense or a restructuring
of the learning situation.18

I.18 Rationale of the Study

Individual differ from one another. This is true not only on the physical
characteristics but also of the inherent psychological traits, as well as their
intellectual attainment and non-intellectual skills and performances. A teacher, too,
notices a wide range of difference in the academic achievement pupils. His
assessment of their performances reflects a wide scatter of the level of attainment of
pupils. Quite a few come out as a low and high achievers and a good number of
students show moderate achievement.

Academic achievement of a child is a complex phenomenon which influence

a number of variables acting singled of coupled with certain other variables. While it
is cognitive characteristics of personality which is most directly and obviously
related to educational success, there is another factor which is known as Anxiety that
take place regularly or occasionally in development of personality or life of the child
that makes them to suffer and impossible to achieve their goals.

18
Lindgren., Henry Clay., Educational Psychology in the Classroom: Fourth Edition., John
Wiley and Son. Inc., Canada., 1972., Pgs 277-279.

40
 The study has been designed to measure the achievement related to anxiety
of secondary school students. It was indented to find out the academic achievement
of secondary school students in relation to academic anxiety how achievement is
taking place when it is related to anxiety.

Anxiety is one of the major factors that bring about a discouragement and
unsuccessful in the activities of every child, therefore, the study was undertaken to
compare achievers and low achievers in high school.

This study is an exploratory one and the researcher aims at finding out the
level of these variables. The objectives are to dig up the relevant data on the basis of
which further meaningful works can be done in the area.

During the recent years there have been a great number of students in the
area of academic achievement in relation to academic anxiety, intelligence, and
motivation.etc. But the findings of the studies are not uniform, as some have showed
significant relationship between the variables taken for investigation and some others
not. This demand for more efforts on the part of the researchers. The problem gets a
greater attention when it is applied to students studying in Meghalaya, a state where
the majority of the people are tribals and which is still to develop in the field of
education when compared to other advanced states. The present study is an attempt
in this direction

So the researcher is giving special attention to analyses the level of academic

achievement in relation to academic anxiety.

I.19 Statement of the Problem

Academic of a child is a complex phenomenon which is influence by a

number of variables acting singly or coupled with certain other variables. While it is
a cognitive characteristic of personality which is most directly and obviously related
to educational success, there are certain other factors such as Anxiety, Motivation,
Intelligence, Language as medium of instruction.etc that promote or hinders
Academic Achievement.19

19
Dave. P. N., Anand. C. L., Correlates of Achievement, A Trend Report., in M. B. Buch,
Second Survey of Research in Education, Society for Educational Research and Development
(SERD), Baroda., 1972 – 1978., Pg 334

41
 It is evident that change in the human component particularly change in
Students‘ mental outlook, interest, attitudes etc, is a pre- requisite qualitative
improvement in their performance in particular and education in general. The human
component which is vital in pupils‘ education need special attention, particularly
with regard to their personality and other factors that affect their performance as
students. Hence, it is evident in this context, that any attempt on the qualitative
improvement of students learning personality who is the key factor of education, this
can be done first by peeping into the present conditions of students and then
identifying the problem they face.

So regarding this study a researcher attempt to find out the Academic

Anxiety of Males and Females of Secondary Schools in the Mawphlang Block and
also to find out their Academic Achievement and to study the relationship between
Academic Achievement and Academic Anxiety of Secondary Schools Students. The
researcher also attempts to study the relationship between Academic Achievement
and Academic Anxiety of Secondary School Students in Government Aided and
Government Unaided Secondary Schools.

I.20 Title of the Study

The title of the present study has been decided and kept as “A Study of
Academic Achievement in Relation to Academic Anxiety of Secondary School
Students of Mawphlang Block”

I.21 Delimitation of the study

The location is one of the most important factors in research studies. In this
study, data collected are from a particular Block of East Khasi Hills District. Thus
the study is delimited in term of area that is to Mawphlang Block Area, it is also
delimited to the Secondary Schools with different type of management such as
Government Aided Secondary Schools and Government Unaided Secondary
Schools. Further more, the present study is delimited to only the students of class
IX. However, since there are no full- fledged Government School, thus the same
cannot be taken as sample of the study.

42
 It would have been more desirable if the study was designed to cover the
entire state of Meghalaya. But due to time and other constraint only schools in
Mawphlang block have been taken for the source of sample.

I. 22 Objectives.

A specific result that a person or system aims to achieve within a time frame
and with available resources. In general, objectives are more specific and easier to
measure than goals. Objectives are basic tools that underlie all planning and strategic
activities. They serve as the basis for creating policy and evaluating performance.
Some examples of business objectives include minimizing expenses, expanding
internationally, or making a profit. And another definition of objective may be state
as Neutral (bias free), relating to, or based on verifiable evidence or facts instead of
on attitude, belief, or opinion.20

The Objectives of the present study are discuss below:-

1. To find out the Academic Achievement of Secondary School students

according to the following:
i. Overall.
ii. Male.
iii. Female.
iv. Government Aided Secondary School Students.
v. Government Unaided Secondary School Students.
2. To compare the Academic Achievement of Secondary School Students
between the following:
i. Males and Females.
ii. Government Aided Secondary School and Government Unaided
Secondary School Students.
3. To find out the Academic Anxiety of Secondary School students according to
the following:

20
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/objective.html#ixzz2jrciPmvD

43
 i. Overall.
ii. Male.
iii. Female.
iv. Government Aided Secondary School Students.
v. Government Unaided Secondary School Students.

4. To compare the Academic Anxiety of Secondary School Students between

the following:
i. Males and Females.
ii. Government Aided Secondary School and Government Unaided
Secondary School Students.
5. To study the relationship between Academic Achievement and Academic
Anxiety of Secondary School Students.

I.23 Null Hypothesis

Once the selection and definition of the problem have been accomplished, the
derivation of hypothesis is the most important step in research process. A research
hypothesis can also take the null form of hypothesis.

In the null form of hypothesis, the researcher makes a statement that no

relationship exists. The hypothesis, ―There is no significant difference between the
academic achievement of high school athletes and that of non-athletes,‖ is an
example of null hypothesis. Since null hypothesis can be tested statistically, they are
often termed as ‗Statistical‘ hypotheses. They are also called the ‗Testing‘
hypotheses when declarative hypotheses are tested statistically by converting them
into null form. Sometimes null hypothesis is rejected only when the quantity of the
outcome is so large that the probability of its having occurred by mere chance is 1
time out of 100 or .01 time out of 1.21

So null hypothesis of the present study are mention below:

1. There is no significance difference in Academic Achievement between Male
and Female Secondary School Students.

21
Koul, Loukesh; “Methodology of Educational Research” Vikash Publishing House Pvt.Ltd;
New Delhi;2009 Pg 197

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 2. There is no significance difference in Academic Achievement between
Government Aided Secondary School Students and Government Unaided
Secondary School Students.
3. There is no significance difference in Academic Anxiety between Male and
Female Secondary School Students.

4. There is no significance difference in Academic Anxiety between

Government Aided Secondary School Students and Government Unaided
Secondary School Students.
5. There is no significance relationship between Academic Achievement and
Academic Anxiety of Secondary School Students of Mawphlang Block.

The above five are the major hypothesis tested in the study. For testing the
difference with reference to the entire above classifications suitable separate
hypothesis were framed. These hypotheses are provided while presenting the
analysis of data in Chapter - IV.

I.24 Operational Definition of the Terms Used

Academic Anxiety: Anxiety can be either a trait anxiety or a state anxiety. A trait
anxiety is a stable characteristics or trait of the person. A state anxiety is one which
is aroused by some temporary condition of the environment such as examination,
accident, punishment, etc. Academic Anxiety is a kind of state anxiety which relates
to the impending danger from the environments of the academic institutions
including teacher, certain subjects like Mathematics, English etc.22

In view of I. G. Sarason (1972) said that anxiety may be conceptualize, as

proneness to emit self – center interfering responses when confronted with
evaluative conditions.23

Academic Achievement: This means accomplishment of a particular work most

accurately and within the prescribe time. It is the act of accomplishing or finishing

22
Singh, A. K and Sen Gupta, A., Academic Anxiety Scale for Children, National Psychological
Corporation, Agra, 1971.
23
Sarason, I. G., Experimental approaches to test anxiety: Attention and the used of
information, in C. D. Spielberger‟s (Ed.), Anxiety: Current trends in theory and research (vol.
2), Newyork: Academic Press, 1972.

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something. Something accomplished successfully, especially by means of exertion,
skill, practice, or perseverance.

According to Good (1959) defined Academic Achievement as ―Knowledge

attained or skill developed in the school subjects, usually designated by test scores or
by marks assigned by the teacher or both‖24

Secondary School Students: It means students who passed middle school and
reached class-IX under the Meghalaya Board of School Education is called a
Secondary School Students. So the level from class IX to class X is called Secondary
School Level.

Conclusion

Thus this study is an exploratory one that aims at finding out the levels of
different variables. The objectives are to dig up the relevant data, on the basis of
which further meaningful works can be done in the area.

24
Good, C. V. “Dictionary of Education” McGraw – Hill Book company Inc. Newyork,
Toronto, London, 1959.

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