Changes in Academic Performance in the Junior High School

This study was designed to determine the relationships between changes in academic performance and intellective and non‐intellective factors. Seventh grade students attending five junior high schools, who had attended selected elementary schools, were tested with the Personal Values Inventory (PVI), a test of academic motivation, shortly after the first seventh‐grade marking period. School marks at that marking period and those received the previous year were procured from a self‐report included in the PVI. All students had taken the California Achievement Test Battery and Mental Maturity Test as well as the Scholastic Testing Service Work‐Study Skills Test in the sixth grade. Factor analysis identified four factors in both boys and girls: intelligence‐achievement, academic motivation, academic plans, and youth‐culture involvement. While intelligence was found to be mainly unrelated to the criterion, the non‐intellective factors, especially academic motivation, bore significant relationships to the changed performance.