Relative Academic Achievement and Stabilometer Performance

To examine the relationship between performance on a selected motor skill and academic achievement and academic capacity, 80 male college students were tested on the stabilometer. When the group was dichotomized on the basis of college grade point average and college entrance examination scores, there was no difference in motor performance between the sub-groups. Grade point averages and college entrance examination scores were converted to Z scores. Each subject was designated as an overachiever if his grade point Z score was higher than his college entrance examination Z score and an underachiever if his grade point Z score was lower than his college entrance Z score. Motor performance of the overachievers was significantly better than that of the underachievers. It was suggested that the motive to succeed in testing situations might be a more general characteristic than either intelligence or motor ability.