ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN RELATION TO COGNITIVE ABILITY AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Various factors influence academic achievement of students including cognitive abilities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between academic achievement and cognitive ability of secondary school students. Academic achievement or academic performance is the outcome of education to which a student, teacher or institution has achieved their educational goals. 320 adolescents were recruited in this study, with respect to gender, locale and type of school from secondary schools of Amritsar district. The study falls under the domain of descriptive research. Researcher has used stratified random sampling technique to study academic achievement in relation to cognitive ability among secondary school students. Cognitive style inventory by Jha (2001) was used to study cognitive ability of the students. Scores of the previous class were taken for the academic achievement. Statistically significant mean difference was found in scores of academic achievement of secondary school students with respect to different cognitive abilities. The mean score of students with integrated style was higher than followed by systematic, split, undifferentiated and intuitive style. So teacher should focus on the students whose academic achievement is low and use different teaching materials like audio- visual, chart, real objects, and different teaching methods and teach according to the abilities of students which will help students to be successful in academics. Academic success and cognitive ability are positively associated, so schools should give pupils the chance to develop their cognitive abilities through reasoning classes and quiz competitions