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Student "success" may be viewed in terms of 3 domains. A "good" student is often referred to as being either "intelligent", or "well behaved", or "academically successful". But what, if any, are the connections between these domains? Is there a strong connection, for instance, between high "IQ" and academic performance? Do students with high "IQs" behave better for their teachers? Do students who behave better for their teachers tend to be the same ones who are ranked higher in terms of their academic performance? This study investigated the nature of such connections by comparing IQ scores with teacher perceptions of academic performance and general classroom behaviour.
Research indicating a close connection between intelligence and school performance is plethora. Gage and Berliner (1992) presented relevant research, and summarised it by stating that "from the historical sketch we've given, you might guess that intelligence correlates with school success, and you would be right" (p. 59). Such a proposition tends to verify empirically what the majority of teachers would probably have perceived all along as being a self-evident truth. However, what the majority of practitioners may not know is that significant research is now available which indicates that "one of Psychology's open secrets is the relative inability of grades, IQ or exam scores, despite their popular mystique, to predict unerringly who will succeed in life" (Goleman, 1996, p. 34). At best, Goleman concluded, IQ contributes about 20% to the factors that determine life success, which leaves 80% to other forces. Synthesising significant research, Woolfolk (2001) concurred, writing that "when the number of years of education is held constant, IQ scores and school achievement are not highly correlated with income and success in later life" (p. 117).
Epstein (1998) asked the blunt question - "How well do people with very high IQs fare in life?" and cited the work of Lewis Terman (1925) as providing the best answer to this question. Terman conducted a long term study starting with mentally gifted children, that is, ones with IQs over 140 or top 1% of the population. After his death, other researchers such as Holahan and Sears (1995) continued his project, tracing the children as adults even into their 50s. Epstein reviewed the research as follows:
As a group, they did considerably better than average, but there were exceptions. As adults they tended to be healthier, better adjusted, and more successful in their work than others. As for notable accomplishments, a high proportion is listed in Who's Who and in American Men of Science. Many others have received some other form of professional recognition or have obtained patents for inventions. Most, however, were simply somewhat more successful than average, not outstanding in any way. A few fell by the wayside, dropping out of school at an early age or unable to hold a job. This group was found to be poorly adjusted emotionally or socially or to be lacking in the motivation to succeed. This study informs us that a high IQ can be very helpful along the road to success in everyday life, but other factors, including social ability, emotional adjustment, practical intelligence, and motivation, are also important, and although there is a tendency for the very bright to be more creative and successful than others, a high IQ does not guarantee either (p.17-18).The teaching fraternity might also see it as patently logical that the more capable students tend to exhibit fewer behavioural problems in class - if for no other reason than that they receive greater recognition for their performance, which leads to increased motivation and enhanced self-esteem, and so predictably, greater conformity to the system which engenders that self-esteem. Such intuitive reasoning would also find strong support in the self-esteem (Harter, 1986; Lawrence, 1996) as well as motivational literature (Covington, 1992; Deci, 1975; Deci, et al., 1999; Dweck, 1983).
Finally, given the current concerns about the academic performance of boys vis-à-vis girls (Epstein, Elwood, Hey, & Maw, 1998; Francis, 2000); the recent evidence indicating that boys learn differently from girls (Gurian & Henley, 2001; Hawkes, 2001; Noble & Bradford, 2000); and the findings that boys inappropriate school behaviour is generally more physically and verbally abusive than that of girls (Besag, 1997; Martino & Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2001), this study has included gender as a variable for consideration. Significant results may further strengthen existing research which has highlighted the role of gender differences in the assessment of other variables.
The preceding debate in the academic literature forms the theoretical background to this study, proposing an investigation of the connections between this trilogy of intelligence, academic performance, and classroom behaviour. Related issues also tend to surface around this trilogy. For example, is there a connection between socio-economic status ("SES") and IQ? Does gender play a significant role? Finally, do differences surface when type of school (government or non-government) is factored into the equation? This study also investigated the role of such variables.
| Area 1 (lower SES) | Area 2 (higher SES) | |
| Average price of houses | $103,000 | $386,000 |
| % of Rental Properties | 43% | 14% |
| Median Weekly Rent | $68 | $203 |
| Most common educational level | Skilled vocational | Bachelor Degree |
| Most common occupations | 1. Clerical/Sales/Service 2. Tradespersons 3. Labourers | 1. Professionals 2. Clerical/Sales/Service 3. Associate Professionals |
It is evident from these demographics, that the schools were located in radically different SES areas. Moreover, each of the schools reported that the great majority of their students resided within a catchment area similar in profile to that of the suburb in which the school was located.
Forty of the students in the study came from schools in the lower SES bracket, 47 from schools in the higher bracket. Forty-four students came from the two government schools and 43 from the two non-government schools. Forty-five students were male and 42 female (Table 2).
| School | SS | SES | School Type | Gender |
| A | 21 | L | NG | 12M-9F |
| B | 19 | L | G | 12M-7F |
| C | 23 | H | NG | 10M-13F |
| D | 24 | H | G | 11M-13F |
| Total | 87 | 40-L, 47-H | 43-G, 44-NG | 45M-42F |
| L = lower; H = higher; G = government; NG = non-government; M = male; F = female | ||||
In Term 4 of 2001, when it was considered that the teachers really knew their students, they were requested to rank each member of their class, according to the students' general behaviour and academic performance throughout the year. This formed the basis of what would constitute expert opinion.
With reference to academic performance, teachers were asked: "On the basis of your knowledge of each child, please rank your class members in terms of overall academic performance (top student = no.1, through to the lowest ranked student)."
For general behaviour, the teachers were asked to complete a Likert-type ranking for each child in their class (Table 3).
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It was possible to achieve a maximum of 32 points using the above system, which provided a basis for teacher ranking. All measurements involving teacher rankings were undertaken on a within-class basis, as it could not be assumed that one teacher's ranking was comparable to another's, and especially across different schools. Thus, when comparing IQ with academic performance, the student's rank order in their class only, on both parameters, was incorporated into any analyses.
It is important to emphasise, therefore, that this study compares "objective" measures - IQ, socio-economic status, type of school, gender - against more subjective measures, namely, the teacher's perception of the students' general behaviour (GBR), and academic performance ranking (APR). It was considered that this more subjective expert evidence could assist in explaining the data gathered by the more objective measures.
| A | 96 |
| B | 90 |
| C | 110 |
| D | 111 |
| A | 0.378 |
| B | 0.226 |
| C | 0.636** |
| D | 0.503* |
Table 6: IQ Ranking & Teacher's GBR
| A | 0.098 |
| B | -0.138 |
| C | 0.491* |
| D | 0.287 |
Table 7: GBR & APR
| A | 0.322 |
| B | 0.126 |
| C | 0.642** |
| D | 0.687** |
The correlations between IQ Rank and APR were far stronger in the higher SES schools (0.636** Catholic and 0.503* government) - compared with the lower SES schools (0.378 Catholic and 0.226 government). Similarly, the correlations between IQ Rank and General Behaviour Rank (GBR) were far stronger in the higher SES schools (0.491* Catholic and 0.287 government) compared with the lower SES schools (0.098 Catholic and -0.138 government). The dichotomy also applied to how the teachers' ranked the students' academic performance and general behaviour. In the higher SES schools the connections were particularly tight (0.642**Catholic and 0.687**government), compared with the lower SES schools (0.322 Catholic and 0.126 government).
Similar to SES, IQ seems to have been a better indicator of performance in the two Catholic schools studied. The correlations between IQ Rank and APR proved to be stronger in the Catholic schools (0.378 and 0.636**) compared with the government schools (0.226 and 0.503*). The correlations between IQ and GBR showed a similar across-system pattern: Catholic schools (0.098 lower SES and 0.491* higher SES), State schools (-0.138 lower SES and 0.287 higher SES). The connections between the teachers' GBR and APR, however, were not as clear cut (Catholic schools 0.322 and 0.642** respectively; State Schools 0.126 and 0.687** respectively).
In terms of gender, the connection between IQ Rank and APR was a little stronger for girls than boys (0.529 vs. 0.430 respectively). The IQ Rank vs GBR connection, however, was a little stronger for boys than girls (0.188 vs. 0.075 respectively). Neither result, however, was significant. The linking of GBR with APR was slightly stronger for boys than girls (0.414 vs. 0.327 respectively). It would seem, therefore, that gender had little overall impact on the strength of the correlations between the parameters investigated. Certainly, the connections seem to be nowhere near as dramatic as for SES, where similar results have been recently reported (Peck, 2001).
An overall positive relationship between academic performance and general behaviour (r = 0.444, p < .05) should not be surprising, especially in view of the fact that each was determined according to rank-ordering by the same teacher, thus possibly setting into motion a Halo-type effect. As a general pattern, students who were ranked highly in terms of their behaviour were more likely to be ranked highly in terms of their academic performance.
What is of greater import, is that APR-GBR correlations for the higher SES schools are significant at an alpha level of .001 whereas those for the lower SES schools failed to reach significance at even the 95% interval level. It would appear that SES is a significant predictor of the relationship between academic performance and general behaviour. A further but less compelling explanation for this result may be related to what we would consider to be the high SES schools' exceptionally well coordinated behaviour management policy. An alternative explanation might be that there exists greater parental pressure on teachers in higher SES schools to perceive their children as well behaved and academically capable. This is akin to the principle of vicarious conditioning, in that behaviour and performance expectations are modelled by parents which teachers then feel obliged, consciously or unconsciously, to ascribe to the children of those parents. Failing to do this means that teacher reinforcement may be potentially withheld, thereby creating an undesirable situation for the teacher. Along the lines of this reasoning, Keyser and Barling (1981) found that people often relied heavily on modelling as a source of self-efficacy information. The important role of self-efficacy will be further developed later in this paper. It must be noted, however, that results may have been influenced by small sample sizes. A replication study with larger a larger sample size may yield different results with regard to schools within the lower SES area.
An overall positive relationship between APR and IQ (r = 0.436, p < .05) should also not be surprising given that most IQ tests are designed to predict achievement. Little wonder then, that such a relationship finds consistent support in the literature (Ceci, 1991; Sattler, 1992).
It is curious, however, that the overall relationship between IQ and GBR, in terms of the two findings above, is not strong (r = 0.185). It would seem logical to assume that if a relationship exists between IQ and academic performance, and a relationship exists between academic performance and general behaviour, then a connection between IQ and general behaviour might be expected. Two explanations for this result are offered. The first is from within the realm of motivational theory.
The self-worth theory of achievement motivation (Covington, 1984, a modification of Dweck & Elliott, 1983) suggests that a student's perception of performance may be as important as the performance itself in regulating behaviour. Thus, if the student feels that the performance was not in accord with a predetermined perception of the self schema, the student may respond in a behaviourally inappropriate fashion, regardless of how others have assessed the performance. Such a situation has also been explained via self-concept integration theory (Berlach, 1996; Hattie, 1992; Swann, 1983), namely the need to self-verify, i.e. to preserve firmly held self-views by soliciting self-verifying feedback, in this case, doing so by manifesting negative behaviour. Concomitantly, if the performance is perceived as bringing with it socially undesirable consequences, then misbehaving may be a way of succeeding while still maintaining the affections of the reference group. This may be the response of 'acting out' to gain a desired self-esteem payoff, albeit a negative one (Good & Brophy, 1997). Regardless of preferred explanation, the student has seen it as being undesirable to behave positively as a result of possessing a higher IQ, which has mediated the higher level of performance.
The counter-intuitive findings regarding the relationship between IQ and GBR may also be explained in terms of self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1995, 1997). Basically, this theory suggests that individuals with a high sense of efficacy work harder, have greater levels of persistence, and believe in themselves. It may be the case that students in lower socio-economic areas (where much lower correlations were evident, see Table 6) perceive themselves as being essentially disadvantaged and powerless to do anything about it, so developing a low sense of efficacy. This is akin to what Seligman (1975) described as "learned helplessness", and which Weiner (1994) insisted "dumbs down" the child for expected failure. This then manifests as a type of self-fulfilling prophecy that reasons "I am stupid, so there's no point in trying". The child is then not perceived as being badly behaved, quite the contrary, they may indeed be seen as being well behaved. Unfortunately though, such 'good' behaviour may be the manifestation of a situationally induced despondency.
The second explanation for the correlational disparity between IQ and GBR may be termed the factorial analogy argument. If one were to discover a strong connection between squares and rectangles, and then discover another strong connection between squares and four-sided-figures, one may perhaps expect there be a strong connection between rectangles and four-sided-figures as well. A strong relationship between A and B, and another between A and C, however, need not necessarily imply a strong one between B and C. By the same reasoning, APR and GBR may well share in a common factor that forges the strong correlation between them. There is also a factor that forges a strong relationship between APR and IQ. The key point, however, is that the factor forging this latter connection is not necessarily the same as that forging the former. What both these factors may be remains purely speculative, and certainly warrants further investigation. In a nutshell, there is no logical problem in suggesting that while students with high IQs tend to receive high APRs, and students with high GBRs tend to receive high APRs, students with high IQs may not necessarily receive high GBRs.
Summarising the above argument, a low correlation may be found between general behaviour ranking and academic performance ranking because of the influence of other significant factors such as personal attribution; the influence of SES; and speculative factors underlying the concepts under investigation. Further research needs to be undertaken to determine the validity of these results across a larger and more general population.
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| Authors: Dr Anthony Imbrosciano, Senior Lecturer, University of Notre Dame Australia Phone: (08) 9239 5555 Email: aimrbosciano@nd.edu.au Dr Richard G. Berlach, School of Education, Edith Cowan University Phone: (08) 9273 8402 Email: r.berlach@ecu.edu.au Please cite as: Imbrosciano, A. and Berlach, R. (2003). Teacher perceptions of the relationships between intelligence, student behaviour, and academic performance. Issues In Educational Research, 13(1), 1-12. http://www.iier.org.au/iier13/imbrosciano.html |