A Study on the Relationship between Cognitive Ability and Academic Achievement of Eighth Standard Pupils

Abstract

The study was conducted to assess the Cognitive Ability and its relationship with Academic newlineAchievement of Eighth Standard Pupils in Coimbatore City. The sample consisted of 600 Eighth newlinestandard students. Survey method was adopted for the study. Based on Lohman and Hagen(2003) newlineCognitive Ability Test Battery was Adapted and modified ,validated by the Investigator and used for newlinedata collection. The Cognitive Abilities Test measures students learned reasoning abilities in the newlinethree areas most linked to academic success in school: Verbal, Quantitative and Nonverbal. Its newlineprimary goal is to assess students reasoning abilities. The findings revealed that the difference in newlineGender, Locality, and Medium of instruction had significant influence on Verbal Reasoning Ability, newlineQuantitative Reasoning Ability and Non-Verbal Reasoning Ability. The correlation coefficient newlinerevealed that there was significant correlation between three dimensions namely Verbal Ability, newlineQuantitative Ability and Non-Verbal Ability in relation to Academic Achievement of the pupils. It newlinewas noted that the quantitative ability is significantly higher than the verbal ability and non-verbal newlineability among the boys and girls. The study revealed that pupils studying in English medium have newlinesignificantly higher Verbal Ability, Numerical Ability and Reasoning Ability than those studying in newlinemother tongue medium, i.e. in Tamil medium. It was seen that the Non-Verbal Ability was higher in newlinethe urban area over the rural area followed by quantitative ability and verbal ability. It was found that newlinethe dependent variable achievement scores is the predictor for the other chosen variables namely, newlineVerbal Ability, Quantitative Ability and Non-verbal Ability. It is understood that among the three newlinepredictors, Verbal Ability had the highest and significant standardized beta co efficient, which newlinereveals that it is the most important factor contributing to Academic Achievement. newlineMajor objectives newline1. Compare the three dimensions of Cognitive Ability Scores in relation to Gender, Local