Differentiating Low Performance of the Gifted Learner: Achieving, Underachieving, and Selective Consuming Students

The study aimed to empirically verify findings from qualitative studies that showed selective consumers could be distinguished from underachievers with regard to academic self-perception and thinking style preference. Participants, gifted males from an independent secondary boys' school in Sydney, Australia, were categorized as achieving, underachieving, or selective consuming and administered the School Attitude Assessment Survey-Revised and the Thinking Style Inventory to assess academic self-perception and thinking style preference. A multivariate analysis (MANOVA) with a Bonferroni-adjusted alpha level to control for Type I errors showed a statistically significant difference in academic self-perception between achievers and underachievers only. Selective consumers could not statistically be distinguished from achievers or underachievers. Results, although not statistically significant, supported the trend currently reported in the literature that selective consumers differ qualitatively from underachievers.