Factors Associated with the Achievement of High School Pupils of Superior Intelligence
Why do intelligent pupils often fail or do mediocre school work? This study of 297 Baltimore high school pupils has been set up to answer this problem. Pupils of superior intelligence are defined as pupils who have an I. Q. of 120 or more, as measured by the Otis Self-Administering and the Henmon-Nelson Tests of Mental Ability. It would be desirable to study the relation of every possible variable to the discrepancy between promise and performance in pupils of superior intelligence. Time, however, has limited this study to two fields of related vari ables, personality and home backgrounds. Educators have long realized that attention and special help should be given to superior children. Du Pont de Nemours stated in 1800 in his "National Education in the United States" that "a single day of an educated man of genius is of more value to the world than the labor of 100,000 men for a year." Many educators since that time have struggled to help our superior pupils so as to reduce the lag that so often exists between promise and performance.