Abstract
D.Ed. (Educational Psychology)
Too many students worldwide, also in South Africa, underachieve scholastically. This
state of affairs (high scholastic underachievement) in many schools, particularly in Black
rural schools in South Africa, is a matter of grave concern amongst educators. These
scholastic underachievers do not realise their potential, do not acquire skills for any
decent job, are jobless, fiustrated, make no meaningful contribution to society, render
the state's effort of having financed (subsidised) their education meaningless and
uneconomical and are viewed as failures as human beings and of society as such.
To address this problem, it is extremely germane for specialists and the community to
join hands, pool knowledge, expertise and experience in order to investigate the causes
of scholastic underachievement and what precautionary measures can be taken to curb
scholastic underachievement. Every effort must be made to understand the causes of
scholastic underachievement in order to develop prevention strategies to counteract this
phenomenon.
The aim of this study is to explore the phenomenon of scholastic underachievement
within the context of rural Black South Africa and, based on the results of the study, to
develop a prevention strategy to be used for scholastic underachievers in rural Black
South Africa which would meet both the internal and external needs of the scholastic
underachiever.
In this research an exploratory and descriptive, qualitative approach which is a generative
design is mainly used and is based on the model of theory generation of Chinn &
Kramer (1991). The aim of this approach is to develop new insight into these
phenomena and to increase understanding. Through focus group interviews, the
researcher has been able to explore and describe the viewpoints of principals of schools,
parents of scholastic underachievers and fellow learners of scholastic underachievers
appertaining to what causes scholastic underachievement and what precautionary
measures could be taken to curb and counteract scholastic underachievement.