Academic competence is a fancy word referring to the set of skills and attitudes required for successful academic pursuits. It is often the main focus of instruction, particularly for pre-teens and teens. In the United States, academic performance is a major concern for students, parents and teachers alike. A recent study examines the relationship between academic competence and social capital among African American children in an urban context. The researchers also discovered that boys have more optimistic self-perceptions than their sisters.
While there have been many studies on academic achievement, few have looked at the impact of low self-esteem and self-efficacy on students' academic performance. This may be especially true for girls, who are more likely to underestimate their own academic prowess. They are also more apt to adopt attributional biases. Hence, efforts to improve academic performance in maltreated children should focus on boosting self-esteem and improving their self-efficacy.
What is academic competency, and how can it be measured? Academic proficiency is achieved through a variety of methods, some of which are more complex than others. Some examples include the use of multitasking, such as listening to a lecture while taking notes. Others include time management, such as working on two projects at the same time. Ultimately, it is the combination of these factors that determines the quality of work produced.
One way of measuring a student's abilities is through the use of a questionnaire called the Academic Competence Evaluation Scale (ACES). ACES is a quick and easy questionnaire, allowing parents, teachers, and even teachers to evaluate a child's curricular strengths and weaknesses. Using the scale, the authors compared the academic abilities of a sample of 457 children aged 4 to 5 years from Hong Kong and a control group of 41 non-maltreated children from the same age bracket. These findings have implications for academic performance as well as for future research and development of education technologies geared towards improving educational outcomes.
The authors used the requisite tools to identify the most important elements, including the ones mentioned above. For the most part, the main goal of this study was to prove the feasibility of the aforementioned questionnaire, which was accomplished by conducting a number of studies. To validate the aforementioned questionnaire, the authors conducted a large-scale multi-center survey among 457 preschool children from Hong Kong and a control group of 40 non-maltreated children from the same age cohort.
While the aforementioned questionnaire yielded a few notable findings, a larger study is needed to fully understand the relationship between academic competence and socioeconomic factors. Researchers should explore whether or not children with poor socioeconomic status are less able to engage in the appropriate cognitive and behavioral practices aimed at enhancing their academic achievement. Additionally, it is necessary to reexamine the role of gender and race in the academic achievement equation.
Although the study did not find a significant difference between maltreated and non-maltreated children, it does suggest that a small sample of African American children living in urban contexts are likely to be behind in their quest for academic success.
Very interesting