The identification of the student at-risk for failure

Investigated the classroom teacher's ability to identify which students are at-risk for future school failure and how students so identified differ from their most able classmates. The intelligence, academic ability, and cognitive and affective competence of 337 Grade Six students, age 11 to 13, were assessed with standard group measures. Two hundred and eighty-four of these students had been identified previously by their teachers as being at-risk for failure to cope with Grade Seven because of a history of problems in school. The remaining 53 had been selected by their teachers as the most able students in their classes. Correlations between the teachers' ratings and standard measures of intelligence, cognitive ability, anxiety, self-concept, and academic achievement were all highly significant, as were correlations between these ratings and grades earned the following year in high school. Discriminant Analysis generated a function that separated the groups with 95.6% accuracy. The at-risk students, although of normal intelligence, were significantly less intellectually, cognitively and academically able, were more anxious, and had lower self-concepts.