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Learned helplessness and level of underachievement among deaf adolescents
Author(s) -
McCrone William P.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
psychology in the schools
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1520-6807
pISSN - 0033-3085
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6807(197907)16:3<430::aid-pits2310160322>3.0.co;2-z
Subject(s) - psychology , learned helplessness , test (biology) , developmental psychology , multivariate analysis of variance , multivariate analysis , clinical psychology , statistics , paleontology , mathematics , biology
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a helplessness experience on the subsequent performance of deaf adolescents functioning at mildly underachieving or severely underachieving levels. Sixty deaf adolescents meeting the experimental subject criteria were separated into mildly underachieving or severely underachieving groups of 30 each on the basis of the discrepancy between their individual IQs and 1976 achievement scores. Group members were then randomly assigned to one of three pretreatment situations: a solvable Block Design test; an unsolvable Block Design test; or no pretreatment. A 2 × 3 multivariate analysis of variance posttest only group design then examined the solvable posttest performance of all 60 subjects. Results indicated significantly high posttest error scores among severely underachieving deaf adolescents experiencing an unsolvable pretreatment situation. Recommendations are offered for the practical applications of this research in the classroom.