1. INTRODUCTION:

All individuals learn from each and every moment of their life. They also learn from the incidences occurring in their routine life. The education of an individual continues depending upon the functions of sensory and motor parts of its body. Society, home, friends etc. are also interacting with individuals through which they learn. In school, student-student interactions, student-teacher interaction, in addition to books and other co-curricular materials also enable individuals to learn and gain experiences and sanskaras or rituals. Sometimes these experiences are direct: most of the times they are indirect. These experiences during schooling are appropriate or what is also to be thought out.

“To gain information” cannot be the only objective of education. To think properly and to adjust with the changing environment should also be the objectives of education.

Education is a process of living by reconstructing the experiences continuously gained by an individual. Education brings changes in the abilities and competencies of an individual in a such a way that the individual can have a control over the factors from surrounding environment. It also enables the individual to satiate the most of the needs.

Education is related with the entire personality of an individual. The education system aims at making the individuals able such that they can accomplish the aims of the society in which they live. Such able individuals have to have intellectual, civic, economic, moral and social qualities. Education and psychology generally discuss about intellectual capacity, attitude, physical and social competencies. An individual having such competencies is considered to be a complete personality. Education thus is mainly related with ends rather than means.

Education therefore is considered as a change through experiences. Education thus is a means of progress in life.

We describe an education in different ways such as a process causing change in certain direction, or a change causing development, a change related to process of curbing our thought processes. We try to acquire such changes with the help of ways and means created by us.

So education can be considered as a natural process of harmonic growth of information and discipline in an individual.

Education has enabled our culture to achieve a competitive character through new and different dimensions. Such an achievement is essential for an individual to gain motivation. An individual is known in society by the character that enables to acquire various achievements through education. Such an education is related to intelligence, creativity, adjustment, habit of learning new things, interest and attitude of an individual.

With intelligence an individual can gain the competency to solve the problems, to think deeply at cognitive level and increase competency to comment and criticize on the basis of analysis of a situation.

Creativity is an indication of a unique imaginative intelligence. Creativity is a representation of an individual’s expressed intelligence. It does not mean that an intelligent person would always be creative. Intelligence, wisdom, motivation and intuition are related to each other as indicated by ancient literature.

According to John Mackenzy,

“Creativity suggests utmost freedom of human thought”.

Creativity can be considered as an attitude or openness to accept others’ concepts, thoughts and emotions. It is an accepted process of an individual’s development and a process of use of self competencies.

It is not always true that intelligent people only are creative. An ordinary person can also be creative, as he is able to use novel and unconventional ways of solving the problems rather than using the specific and conventional ways of problem solving.

To aspire for and struggle for something based on self intellectual capacity is a scientific adjustment. Those who adjust well are able to adjust with self learning and situation. Those who have ideals and are motivated by their ideals try to accomplish their goal in any situation.

At secondary school level, it is expected that the school should cater for preparing future capable citizens who have love for their country and who think that democracy is an ideal life style. It should also make them realize that everyone has got a right to live and let others live. The person should be able to develop the country along with his /her development. At secondary level, children are of the age when they have started developing independent thought process. The children of this age group do not accept others’ thought as it is. Instead, they express their own views. If others’ views are not accepted to them they express their own views as a reaction to their thought.

Interest brings out the difference in thought and behavior of the youngsters at secondary school level. Thus competencies in education are constantly influenced by interest, attitude, intelligence, creativity and adjustment.

2. NEED OF STUDY OF A PROBLEM:

From the experiences given by the school, learners develop sets of behavior. Such sets of behavior are the competencies or acquired mind set. Through this mind set the learners adjust with environment, atmosphere and others depending upon interest, attitude.

The school experiences try to create awareness of self in learners. For this learners are given different and new knowledge, thoughts. Awareness about self through health education and social sciences is created. Innovations create joy of imagination and creativity while remaining conscious about reality. The two learners in a class will never be alike. So considering the individual differences education is provided to masses by the teacher. The teacher has to develop personality of the learners to the maximum and to its appropriate level. Individual difference is a rule of nature. Maintaining them, the teacher has to cater for the learners’ development at a time.

The individual differences are not only related to nature, intelligence and appearance. They may be in terms of likes and dislikes, style of working and the school subjects they learn. Even if same subject is liked by two learners, yet there is a difference in their attitude as well as understanding of the concepts.

The world today has become more competitive. In this age of competition, education has no alternative. The education has been becoming globalized. At the same time creativity, intelligence, interest, adjustments have also become important. It is the need of the hour also. The learners have been scoring higher marks. To face the challenges of competition and changing situation, everyone has to strive hard. Everyone gets opportunity to develop according the competencies possessed through education. How do factors like interest, attitude, creativity, intelligence, adjustment influence this development through achievement? Do any of them influence the achievement of ordinary learners?

The researcher wanted to find out if-

1. Adjustment influences achievement

2. Intelligence influences achievement

3. Intelligence alone is not practically useful for gaining knowledge. The knowledge should be used with creativity. Does this creativity influence the achievement? This was also necessary to find out as thought by researcher.

4. Knowledge cannot be achieved without interest. Does this interest influence achievement? Was also a question in the mind of researcher.

5. Likes and dislikes also influence achievement. It was decided by researcher to check this also.

6. Attitude also influences achievement that was decided to be checked.

To find answers to these questions, it was thought necessary by the researcher to study the influence of interest, attitude, intelligence, creativity and adjustment on achievement of learners, hence present problem was selected for study.

3. OBJECTIVES OF STUDY:

For this study following objectives were decided to work on-

1. To study interest of high achieving and low achieving secondary school students Comparatively.

2. To study attitude of high achieving and low achieving secondary school students Comparatively.

3. To study creativity of high achieving and low achieving secondary school students Comparatively.

4. To study adjustment of high achieving and low achieving secondary school students Comparatively.

5. To study intelligence of high achieving and low achieving secondary school students Comparatively.

6. To study interest, attitude, creativity, adjustment, intelligence of high achieving and low achieving secondary school boys and girls Comparatively

4. HYPOTHESES:

It was decided by the researcher to test the following null hypotheses-

1. There is no significant difference in the interest of high achieving and low achieving secondary school students.

2. There is no significant difference in the attitude of high achieving and low achieving secondary school students.

3. There is no significant difference in the creativity of high achieving and low achieving secondary school students.

4. There is no significant difference in the adjustment of high achieving and low achieving secondary school students.

5. There is no significant difference in the intelligence of high achieving and low achieving secondary school student.

6. There is no significant difference in the interest, attitude, creativity, adjustment and intelligence of high achieving and low achieving boys and girls of secondary schools.

5. SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS:

(a) Scope

The scope of this research was very vast as it considered the factors influencing achievement of secondary school students such that the findings of this research would be applied to secondary school students of other areas of the state of Maharashtra and to the students of English, Marathi and other medium schools also; however, considering time, economy and personal limits, the researcher decided to put following limitations to the researcher-

(b) Limitations

Present research was limited to-

(1) Nagpur city only

(2) Students of standard VIII, IX and X only

(3) Students of full English and semi-English medium only.

6. RESOURCES USED IN RESEARCH:

The researcher decided to use following resources for the study-

1. Interest inventory-by V.P. Bansal and D.N. Shrivastava

2. Attitude Test- by D. Gopal Rao

3. Creativity Test-by Baquer Mehedi

4. Adjustment Test-by Smt. R. Dubey

5. Intelligence Test-by R.K. Ahuja and K. Raichoudhary

6. Achievement-by school Annual Examination Mark list

7. WORKING METHOD OF RESEARCH:

The researcher used survey method for present study. For the survey schools from Nagpur city were surveyed to collect data.

While selecting sample, achievement of students of standard VIII was checked from standard VII results. Achievement of students of standard IX was checked from standard VIII results., Achievement of students of standard X was checked from standard IX results.

The students were categorized into high and low achievers category on the basis of their achievement scores.

 Students whose scoring continueously more than 75% considered as high achievers.

 Students whose scoring continueously less than 60% considered as low achievers.

The high and low achievers were selected by random sampling method and by lottery technique.

8. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

The researcher used survey method for present study. The students were categorized into high and low achievers category on the basis of their achievement scores.

9. SAMPLE:

For present research the students of standard VIII, IX and X from various recognized schools under Maharashtra State Board were selected. Some of the schools were offering English medium and some were offering semi English medium of instructions to students.

The details of the sample have been presented in the following table-

Table No. 1: Table showing details of sampling schools and number of students

Sr. No.	Standard	No. of High Achievers			No. of Low Achievers
Sr. No.	Standard	Boys	Girls	Total	Boys	Girls	Total
1	VIII	40	50	90	48	37	85	175
2	IX	45	46	91	26	44	70	161
3	X	39	42	81	39	44	83	164
Total	500	124	138	262	113	125	238	500

Table No. 2: Table showing school wise no of students in sample

Boys Girls Boys Girls Total Grand Total

1. V.T. Convent VIII 07 09 06 05 27

IX 08 08 04 06 26 78

X 07 06 05 07 25

2 Pt. Bachharaj Vyas VIII 07 06 08 05 26

School IX 07 07 03 07 24 74

X 06 07 05 06 24

3 Somalwar High VIII 08 08 07 05 28

School IX 09 10 04 07 30 85

X 07 08 06 06 27

4 R.S. Mundle VIII 06 07 07 06 26

School IX 05 05 03 06 19 67

X 07 06 05 06 22

5 Tejaswini Vidya VIII 03 08 05 05 21

Mandir IX 05 04 04 06 19 64

X 05 06 07 06 24

6 Prerana convent VIII 04 05 09 05 23

IX 06 07 04 06 23 67

X 04 04 06 07 21

7 Jupiter Convent VIII 05 07 06 06 24

IX 05 05 04 06 20 65

X 05 05 05 06 21

Total 124 138 113 125 500

10. Findings

The objectives were tested with the help of statistical techniques and the findings were as follows-

1. It has been found the academic interest of High Achievers is more than that of the low achievers.

This results show that Higher Achievers show high academic interest.

The result are similar to Shrivastav (1980), Singh B. (1986), Jain R. (1977), Zacharia (1981).

2. The school attitude of High Achievers more thant that of the Low Achievers.

This results show that Higher Achievers show high school attitude.

The results are similar to Zacharia (1981), Ragunathan M. (2005).

3. It has been found the creativity of High Achievers is more than lower achievers.

This results show that Higher Achievers show high creativity.

The results are similar to Roy M. (2005), Sharma Ekta (1998), Sarvesh (2003), Thilagvathi T. (1990), Jain R. (1977), Chadha N.K. and Chandna Sunanda (1990), Mishra C. (1983).

 The fluency of High Achievers was greater than that of the Low Achievers.

 The flexibility of High Achievers was greater than that of the Low Achievers.

 The originality of High Achievers was greater than that of the Low Achievers.

4. It has been found adjustment of High Achievers is more than that of the Low Achievers.

The results show that Higher Achievers show high adjustment.

The results are similar to Mehrotra S. (1986), Kumari Sudha (1982), Kumar S. (1985), Kumar K. (1980).

 The Self adjustment of High Achievers was greater than that of the Low Achievers.

 There is no difference in the Peer adjustment of High Achievers and that of the Low Achievers.

 The School adjustment of High Achievers was greater than that of the Low Achievers.

5. It has been found Intelligent of High Achievers is more than that of the Low Achievers.

The results show that Higher Achievers show high intelligent.

The result are similar to Abu Mojaher Khan (2008), Rajput A.S. (1984), Chadha N. K. and Chandna Sunanda (1990), Chatterji P. S. (1983), Jain R. (1977).

6. The scholastic interest of High Achievers boys was greater than that of the High Achievers girls.

7. There is no difference in the Scholastic interest of Low Achievers boys and that of the Low Achievers girls.

 There is no difference in the Scholastic interest of High Achievers boys and that of the Low Achievers boys.

 The Scholastic interest of Low Achievers girls was greater than that of the Low Achievers girls.

8. There in no difference in the Scholastic attitude of High Achievers boys and that of the High Achievers girls.

 There is no difference in the Scholatic attitude of Low Achievers boys and that of the Low Achievers girls.

 The Scholastic attitude of High Achievers boys was greater than that of the Low Achievers boys.

 The Scholastic attitude of High Achievers girls was greater than that of the Low Achievers girls.

9. There is no difference in the creativity of High Achievers boys and that of the High Achievers girls.

 There is no difference in the creativity of Low Achievers boys and that of the Low Achievers girls.

 The creativity of High Achievers boys was greater than that of the Low Achievers boys.

 The creativity of High Achievers girls was greater than that of the Low Achievers girls.

10. There is no difference in the adjustment of High Achievers boys and that of the High Achievers Girls.

 There is no difference in the adjustment of High Achievers boys and that of the High Achievers girls

 The adjustment of High Achievers boys is greater than that of Low Achievers boys.

 The adjustment of High Achievers girls is greater than that of Low Achievers girls.

11. The intelligence of High Achievers boys is greater than that of the girls.

 There is no difference in the intelligence of Low Achievers boys and that of the Low Achievers girls

 There is no difference in the intelligence of High Achievers boys is greater than that of the boys.

 The intelligence of High Achievers girls is greater than that of the Low Achievers girls.

11. RECOMMENDATIONS:

11.1 Recommendations For students

1. The students should trust in their competencies.

2. The students should participate in various programs and events to develop interest.

3. They should seek the guidance from experts for developing interest.

4. They should try to develop cooperative attitude in them.

5. They should try not to develop low attitude in them.

6. They should try to develop scientific attitude in them.

7. They should develop physical competencies in them.

8. They should participate in various programs and activities such as science exhibitions, science fairs, and scientists’ life study to develop creativity in them.

9. They should aspire for things in proportion to their competencies and intelligence.

10. They should combine regularity, punctuality, perseverance and motivation with intelligence to become successful.

11. They should participate in events, activities realizing their creativity.

12. They should also realize that adjustment can be achieved and should try for it.

11.2 Recommendations For teachers

1. Teachers should use separate class wise attitude tests to check the attitude in various subjects.

2. Using the adjustment test, they should try to find out self adjustment, peer adjustment and school adjustment in students.

3. Using the creativity tests, they should try to find out fluency, flexibility and originality in students –class wise.

4. They should try to study individual interest of the students.

5. They should make deliberate efforts to develop self confidence and cooperation in students.

6. They should help students to make adjustment in study, play, vocation and time management.

7. They should take care to see that the inferiority complex does not develop in students due to discrimination in students such as rich and poor or literate or illiterate.

8. They should organize classes based on intelligence of the students.

9. They should make the aspiring students aware of their limitations.

10. They should motivate the students and provide them individual guidance.

11. The teachers should not insult and humiliate the students.

12. The teachers should prepare programs for students based on their linguistic, logical, mathematical, physical and scientific intelligence.

13. They should try to pay special attention to students’ creativity.

12. REFERENCES:

1. Shivappa D.(1981), Factors affecting the academic Achievement of High school pupil. Ph.D. Edu. Kar U.

2. Singh, A.D. (1983), A comparative study of High and low Academic achievement in self-concept Formation, Ph.D. Edu.

3. Patel, S.(1986), Psychological study of ‘High Achievement, Ph.D. Psy.,Guj.U.

4. Kumari, K.(1975), A study of relationship among creativity, intelligence, Adjustment and Value pattern in Adolescence, Ph.D. Psy., Agra U.

5. Kamalamani, K.(2001), A study of the profiles of high and low Achievement at Higher Secondary level in Coimbatore District. Guide: M.N.G. Mani. Ph.D., Education, Bharathi University, Coimbatore.

6. Chakkabarti, S.(1988), A critical study of intelligence, socio- economic background of the family, Education Environment in the family, and quality of school in children of standard V, A case study of some school in and around pune, Ph. D. Edu., Poona U., 1988

Received on 10.02.2014 Modified on 11.03.2014

. J. Ad. Social Sciences 2(2): April-June, 2014; Page 87-91