Non-academic Performance Research Articles

Predicting performance on academic and non-academic tasks: A comparison of adolescents with and without learning disabilities

Previous research suggests that adolescents with learning disabilities (LD) are less accurate in predicting academic performance than normally achieving (NA) adolescents and display a tendency to overestimate their level of performance (e.g., Klassen, 2007). However, no studies have been conducted investigating whether this overestimation is specific to academic contexts or a phenomenon that extends across domains. Ninety-four adolescents (46 LD, 48 NA) predicted their performance on a spelling task and on a ball-throwing task. Results revealed group differences in performance calibration across domains with adolescents with LD showing an overestimation of ability on the spelling and ball-throwing tasks, and NA adolescents demonstrating more precise self-appraisals. Additionally, the accuracy of non-academic performance predictions remained stable with increasing difficulty in the NA group whereas the adolescents with LD demonstrated a decrease in accurate performance prediction as the difficulty level increased.

Parents’ Observations of the Academic and Nonacademic Performance of Children with Strabismus

In this study, children with strabismus, as a group, had significantly more academic and nonacademic difficulties than did children without strabismus. However, since not all the children with strabismus had academic difficulties, other factors that are associated with strabismus, such as headache, eyestrain, perceptual difficulties, and frustration, may affect learning in some children with strabismus.

Gauging interest in community service: a retrospective review of admission files.

By considering applicants’ humanitarian interests, medical schooladmission committees play a crucial role in helping medical schoolsfulfill their social contract with the public—the selection of com-petent and caring future physicians. Validly assessing such diversequalities, however, remains problematic. Admission committees useundergraduate grade-point average and Medical College AdmissionTest scores as markers of intelligence and aptitude. Applicants’ hu-manitarianism or altruism is less amenable to valid measurement.Usually, such characteristics are expressed through the applicant’sself-reported participation in community service activities. Becausedetails regarding these experiences are often sketchy, the scope anddepth of an applicant’s community service experience remain dif-ficult to ascertain and quantify. Admission committees rely on com-munity service experience information in selecting applicants whomay have altruistic inclinations. Little is known about the predic-tive capacity of this non-academic performance variable as it relatesto behavior in medical school, or future medical practice.This study addresses three questions related to the use of appli-cants’ community service experience for selection and predictionpurposes by an admission committee. First, using key medicalschool admission file materials, can reviewers reliably assess appli-cants’ experiences with, and orientation toward, community ser-vice? Second, do reviewers use specific aspects of community serviceto determine their overall assessments of community service in-volvement? Third, can these assessments predict students’ voluntaryparticipation in a new first-year service–learning elective?

Dimensions of Adolescent Employment

Work during adolescence, including part‐time work during the school year, has been viewed as vocational behavior with mixed effects on other behaviors and attitudes. Using two different samples (West Point cadets and high school seniors who qualified for ROTC membership), we examined possible positive and negative correlates of adolescent work as a function of work dimensions, and both concurrent and subsequent performance criteria. Results indicated that concurrent costs and benefits of adolescent employment may depend on dimensions of work as well as adolescent characteristics. Similarly, adolescent employment was found to be generally related to subsequent work motivation and nonacademic performance.

Providing effective occupational therapy services: data-based decision making in school-based practice.

Educational practice is moving away from an "eligibility-oriented" student-problem approach toward a problem-solving approach that connects evaluation and interventions. This approach involves the identification of variables used to frame interventions, and, ultimately, it permits evaluation of intervention effectiveness. This article describes a problem-solving model developed and used within the Heartland Area Education Agency. This model relies on collecting baseline data and ongoing data, producing a basis not only for decision making, but also for evaluating the chosen intervention. This systematic and collaborative approach is used by the educational team to identify concerns about students' academic and nonacademic performance, to plan interventions, and to establish measurable outcomes.

Responsibilities of nursing education: the lessons of Russell v Salve Regina.

In August 1985 Sharon Russell was dismissed from Salve Regina College just before her senior year of nursing education. The reasons given for her dismissal focused on Russell's obesity and her inability to lose weight. The issues raised by this case pose important questions that nursing programs and nurse educators must address. This article explores the questions raised by Russell: (1) What constitutes substantial compliance with both academic and nonacademic performance criteria in a contract between a student and an educational institution? (2) What duties to preserve the privacy interests of students may be imposed on programs and educators? Ms Russell's case has been settled. She established that she had met the terms of the contract and substantially complied with the academic and nonacademic criteria of the nursing curriculum. She was awarded monetary damages for the college's breach of contract in nonperformance of an agreement to educate. She did not prevail in her claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress or invasion of privacy. She did, however, put nursing education programs on notice that colleges and universities are not immune from these contractual challenges and must demonstrate respect and consideration for student's personal concerns.

Influence of Self-Concept on School Adjustment among Middle-School Students

The view that children's self-concepts influence their school adjustment and behavior is widely accepted, but the strength of the influence and the contribution of specific self-concept dimensions to children's nonacademic performance in school are uncertain. This issue is important in view of evidence that behavior problems are acute among minority children in inner-city public schools. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between specific self-concept dimensions and school adjustment in three areas: (a) general classroom behavior, (b) group participation, and (c) attitude toward authority, as assessed by teachers. The sample consisted of 142 American middle-school children who attended four inner-city public schools. The results showed that significant bivariate correlations existed between each self-concept dimension on the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale and the three behavioral domains studied. Stepwise multiple regression procedures also indicated strong individual and combined predictive power among the self-concept dimensions.

Stimulant Drugs and Learning Problems

This review of stimulant drug research highlights the perennial problem of experimental procedures being prematurely applied despite a lack of proven treatment efficacy. This intriguing area of research is summarized as it relates to learning problems. Critical analysis indicates (a) no satisfactory support for the efficacy of stimulants in improving academic learning and performance or behavior problems, and (b) no data regarding the possibility of long-term negative side effects. Thus, widespread use of drugs for learning problems is seen as premature and, until possible side effects are clarified, perhaps dangerous. Amphetamines administered to persons with learning problems are seen as producing the common effects usually attributed to such stimulants. These include mild to moderate improvement in nonacademic performance, concomitant reductions in activity, and shortening of response latency on tasks characterized as repetitious, mechanical, regulated by an external agent, and requiring concentration and sustained performance. Evidence has not clarified the generalizability or state dependency of such effects. Complex behavior, such as reasoning, problem solving, and socioemotional functioning, do not seem affected.