Strategies to Improve Student Achievement

What Is Academic Achievement?

Academic achievement or academic performance is the outcome of education. It is the extent to which the student, teacher, or institution achieves their educational goals.

Academic achievement is one of the phenomena that has preoccupied many Educators in general and educational psychologists in particular, because of its importance in the student’s life and others who surround him as parents and teachers. Academic achievement is of increasing importance because it is the most important criteria for assessing students

Educational psychologists have identified several factors that influence learning and academic achievement. They are divided into subjective factors, family factors, and school factors. You can also find out Quiz Tools for Educators at takethiscourse.

What Factors Negatively Affect Academic Achievement?

1) Personal Factors

1. Mental factors
2. Physical factors

These factors directly affect:

• ِAbsense of motivation
• Ambition
• General satisfaction Positive trends towards the educational institution
• Positive habits of studying and learning
• Personal Experience.

2) Family Factors

– Parental relationship

– The cruelty in treating the student

– The student’s feeling of being ostracized and neglected

– Failure to respect the student’s opinions and ridicule him –

– Continuous punishment for no reason

– Unequal treatment

– The non-suitable environment in the home

Some educational and psychological studies have confirmed that the social environment in which the student lives occupies a prominent position in the educational process. The excellence of Japanese students is due to:

• Parents’ interest in educating their children.
• The constant motivation of parents for their children.
• Homework time.

3) School Factors

Through observation and student’ opinion poll, it is revealed that there are many reasons negatively affect students in academic achievements, such as:

• The harshness of teachers
• The teacher’s lack of proper attitudes in dealing with children which usually results in them asking essay writers for help
• Frighten the child from failure 
• Some lessons are based on conservation rather than understanding
• Overcrowded classrooms and lack of an environment for activities
• Difficulty, complexity and rigidity learning subjects
• The intimidation, the irony, and bullying that a student faces from his colleagues
• There is no cooperation between the school administration, student counselor, and teachers regarding student behavior. 
• Bullying in the school administration and its centralization, which leads to the rebellion of the student and his departure from the instructions.
• The relationship between some teachers and students is very limited 
• There is no positive spirit among some teachers in the follow-up initiative, some bad behavior of students.
• Punishing the students by non-pedagogical means
• Lack of qualification of teachers in the aspect of guiding students and guiding them.

It is essential to note that the Learning management system (LMS) is an important tool for improving school achievement, as it helps to manage the learning process. It contains tools and features that enable monitoring the appropriate student style of the learning process, analyze their skills, and thus sketch each person’s educational curve and levels. Also, one of its most important features is enabling communication and cooperative work between the parties of the learning process.

How Could We Solve Students’ Academic Underachievement?

As we noted that all parties to the learning process (school-teacher-parents) are the ones who are causing academic underachievement as a result of their negative practice. They also have the solution by creating the right environment – according to their respective roles – to raise the level of academic achievement of students.

1) Schools

The first educational institution in human life, it affects student personality, either negatively or positively. The school, where the student spends most of his day, not only in learning the various sciences but learning to make social relationships more confident, aware and interactive, It is another integrated home whose role is to assess and discipline the student.

How does the school contribute to improving school achievement?

• Developing plans and forming workshops to raise the level of academic achievement
• Preparing training programs for teachers
• Get benefit from other schools’ experience that has raised their level of academic achievement
• Addressing parents to solve students’ problems and urging them to follow the academic development of their children and participate in raising the level of achievement of them
• Encourage collaborative learning through projects
• Providing a healthy and positive environment to enhance learning ability through observing the way to deal in the classroom with some of the immature children’s behavior, and monitoring the behavior and feeling of students within the educational institution.

2) Teachers

The teacher can make a positive impact on his students, as motivating the student and pushing him to succeed in matters makes him eager to accomplish tasks and succeed in them,

The teacher also helps his students to achieve their highest level of study and to have a major role in society, as they contribute to preparing generations for a better future.

The teacher is a role model for his students, so it is necessary for the teacher to be kind, respectful, and humble, and to have a positive impact on his students.

How the teacher contributes to raising the achievement performance of students

• Good pre-preparation of the session, while presenting the information in an easy, simple, and clear way.
• Diversifying teaching aids, and choosing appropriate learning methods that suit students, their capabilities, and their preferences
• The teacher’s understanding of the student’s psyche is one of the most important conditions for a successful educational and pedagogical process. Listening to students because many have psychological problems and pressures that may negatively affect their academic achievement
• Engaging the family by communicating with parents for assistance and cooperation.
• Conducting various tests and discussing with students with low scores on the results of those tests by debating with them why they obtained those scores Low.
• Following-up on the ongoing assessment of vulnerability, see progress, encourage, and award them.
• Honoring, always, outstanding students as role models for others.
• Likewise, the relationship between the student and the teacher must be a good, sympathy and tolerance, as the curriculum of authority and intimidation often does not work in enjoining some of the students ’behavior, but only increases rebellion and rioting, just as the teacher should guide and teach students the correct approaches and methods of learning, because often Students lack the correct curriculum for a good achievement

3) Parents and The Family

The most important and influential climates to educational achievement are the family and parents. The level of family culture, it’s potential and ability to help students achieve their academic achievement, the family atmosphere created for achievement, based on positive interactions between the student, his parents, and his brothers, and the care and positive guidance of the family, all the conditions and factors of its existence, lead to excellence.

In a survey by Colangelo and Dutmancolangelo & Dutmak on studies of the families of high-profile students, with attention to the characteristics of these families and the relationship between parents and children, It has been shown that superior families are characterized by promoting creative interests and activities, giving children sufficient freedom to make decisions, positively by parents toward school, teachers, and mental activities, and by parental involvement in some non-systemic or systematic activities.

How the family contributes to raising the level of academic achievement of their children

• Providing the appropriate environment for students to study at home
• Organize student time so that there is time for study and another time for entertainment
• Develop motivation and ambition in students
• Follow-up daily assignments and keep in touch with the school to follow the students’ level
• Liberating the concept of superiority in the sense that parents deal with children’s stumbling quietly.  this calm allows them the opportunity to support their children in overcoming this stumbling, improve their school level, and allows them the opportunity to take care of other strengths, which is also positively reflected in their school achievement
• To be interested in clarifying the impact of effort and achieving academic excellence on his life and career prospects.
• Diligence in connecting what he learns with practical reality in life.
• Pay tribute, praise, and reward him as he improves his collection, no matter how small.
• Avoiding expectations beyond his capabilities; So that he does not get frustrated. 
• Stay away from criticism, blame, and repeated reprimand, which may lose his self-confidence.
• Avoid comparing him with other peers, and if it is, it must be compared to himself in previous periods in which it achieved successes.
• Providing a safe family climate.

The integration of the above-mentioned elements is important for the success of the learning and educational processes