%A Castejón,Juan L. %A Gilar,Raquel %A Veas,Alejandro %A Miñano,Pablo %D 2016 %J Frontiers in Psychology %C %F %G English %K Underachievement,overachievement,IDENTIFICATION,Individual variables,Differential characteristics %Q %R 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01438 %W %L %M %P %7 %8 2016-September-27 %9 Original Research %+ Juan L. Castejón,Department of Developmental Psychology and Didactic, University of Alicante,Alicante, Spain,jl.castejon@ua.es %# %! Differential characteristics between overachieving, normal-achieving and underachieving students. %* %< %T Differences in Learning Strategies, Goal Orientations, and Self-Concept between Overachieving, Normal-Achieving, and Underachieving Secondary Students %U https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01438 %V 7 %0 JOURNAL ARTICLE %@ 1664-1078 %X The aims of this work were to identify and establish differential characteristics in learning strategies, goal orientations, and self-concept between overachieving, normal-achieving and underachieving secondary students. A total of 1400 Spanish first and second year high school students from the South-East geographical area participated in this study. Three groups of students were established: a group with underachieving students, a group with a normal level of achievement, and a third group with overachieving students. The students were assigned to each group depending on the residual punctuations obtained from a multiple regression analysis in which the punctuation of an IQ test was the predictor and a measure composed of the school grades of nine subjects was the criteria. The results of one-way ANOVA and the Games-Howell post-hoc test showed that underachieving students had significantly lower punctuations in all of the measures of learning strategies and learning goals, as well as all of the academic self-concept, personal self-concept, parental relationship, honesty, and personal stability factors. In contrast, overachieving students had higher punctuations than underachieving students in the same variables and higher punctuations than normal-achieving students in most of the variables in which significant differences were detected. These results have clear educational implications.