Self-concepts and anxiety levels of achieving and underachieving upper elementary gifted students of the ANW Education Cooperative.

Abstract

A non-random, intact group sample of 45 fourth, fifth, and sixth identified gifted students from the Allen, Anderson, Neosho, Wilson, and Woodson Counties' (ANW) Special Education Cooperative was exposed once to a personality inventory, THE PIERS-HARRIS CHILDREN'S SELFCONCEPT SCALE, to assess self-concept and anxiety level. The null hypothesis tested in this study was fourth, fifth, and sixth grade identified gifted achieving and underachieving students from the ANW Cooperative have high (positive) self-concepts and each of the two student groups demonstrates a lack of anxiety. The comparisons of the two groups were made using the mean and the standard deviation for each of the six clusters of the self-concept scale (behavior, intellectual and school status, physical appearance and attributes, anxiety, popularity, and happiness and satisfaction). The results showed very little discrepancy between the underachievers' self-concepts and the achievers' self-concepts in terms of mean scores. The data supported the null hypothesis. Neither student group (achievers/underachievers) described itself as needing curriculum adjustment to the self-concept. Similarly, neither group described itself as anxiety-ridden.