Academic achievement and

cognitive development of students

By
Rabia Umer
MS Clinical Psychology
 Cognition
Definition:
 The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and
understanding through thought, experience, and the
senses.
 Cognitive processes arise and undergo changes during
the course of human development.
 Psychology intended to address them and understand
their origin, development and functionality.
 In order to define its functionality, the field of
neuropsychology has focused on the study of cognitive
processes, emphasizing the importance of the brain in
human behavior, the relevance of certain cognitive
processes and the functions derived from them in
learning. 
 Academic performance
Academic performance is defined as "the assessment
issued by the school as a particular kind of educational
evaluation.
In general terms, academic performance is classified
as high, medium or low.
Occasionally, such rating is quantitative and used for
the purpose of having a hierarchical categorization of
analysis.
Various researches indicated significantly positive
association between academic performance and
cognitive variable.
SELF CONCEPT
 INTRODUCTION TO SELF
 Have you ever been at a noisy gathering-struggling
to have a conversation over music and the chatter
of voices and yet managed to hear someone at the
other end of the room mention your name?
 The tendency of people to pick a personally
relevant stimulus, like a name, out of a complex and
noisy environment (Cherry, 1953; Wood & Cowan,
1995).
 Even infants who are too young to walk or talk
exhibit this tendency (Newman, 2005).
 To the cognitive psychologist, this phenomenon
shows that human beings are selective in their
attention.
 UNDERSTANDING SELF
 Self understanding is the awareness and ability to
understand one’s own thoughts and actions.
 To attain the insight into your attitudes, motives,
reactions, weaknesses and strengths.
 It is a subjective sense of the self & a complex
mixture of unconscious & conscious
thoughts, attitudes & perceptions.
 Understanding self represents the sum total of
people’s conscious perception of their identity as
distinct from others.
 It is not a static phenomenon, but continues to
develop & change throughout our lives.
 IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING SELF
 Key competency for individuals to function
efficiently in organizations.
 Influences individual’s ability to make key
decisions about self and others around.
 Equips individuals with making more effective
career & life choices, the ability to lead, guide
& inspire with authenticity.
 SELF CONCEPT
 The set of beliefs that we hold about who we are
is called the self concept.
 It can also be defined as the sum total of an
individual’s beliefs about his or her own personal
attributes.
 It is basically the individuals image of the kind of
person he or she is. Especially included in this
are the awareness of being (What I am) and
awareness of function (What I can do).
 Self concept includes not only our perceptions of
what we are but also what we think, we ought to be
and would like to be. This latter component of the
self is called the ideal self. The ideal self represents
the self concept that an individual would ideally
want to posses.
 TWO WAYS IN WHICH WE PERCEIVE OURSELVES
POSITIVE SELF CONCEPT:
 People with positive self concept
believe in themselves, are
confident about their ability to deal
with problems, make decisions,
feel equal to others, have respect
for themselves and expect it from
others.
 These are people who are realistic
in their assessment of themselves
and can admit to a wide range of
feelings, behaviours and needs.
NEGATIVE SELF CONCEPT:
 If people see themselves as failures and
have a negative, pessimistic image of
themselves, they will begin to act the
part.
Negative feelings feed on themselves
and become a downward spiral,
gradually encompassing all of the
people’s thoughts, actions and
relationships.
People with negative self concepts tend
to complain constantly and find it difficult
to accept criticism.
Like other belief systems, the self concept includes

1.Cognitive aspect
2. Behavioral aspect
3. Affective aspect
 COGNITIVE ASPECT: SELF SCHEMA
 Self
schemas are “cognitive generalizations
about the self, derived from past
experience, that organize and guide the
processing of self-related information”
 BEHAVIORAL ASPECT : SELF PERCEPTION
 Self
perception theory reflects that we
observe our behavior and the situation in
which it took place, make attributions about
why the behavior occurred and draw
conclusions about our own characteristics.
AFFECTIVE/EVALUATIVE ASPECT : SELF ESTEEM
“Self esteem reflects the perceived difference
between an individual’s actual self concept
(who I think I really am) and some ideal self
image (who I would really like to be).”
Development of self
 Building up self concept is primary factor of
effective personality and behaviour. The four steps
to build-up self concept are as follows:

1. Self awareness
2. Self acceptance
3. Self realization
4. Self disclosure
 SELF AWARENESS
 Our attention is sometimes directed outward
towards the environment and sometimes it is
focused inward on ourselves.
 Certain experiences in the world automatically
focus attention inwards, such as catching sight
of ourselves in the mirror, having our picture
taken.
 We begin to think of ourselves not as moving
actors in the environment but as objects of our
own and others’ attention. Experiencing oneself
as an objects of our own and others’ attention is
called self awareness.
 SELF ACCEPTANCE
 Being aware of who we really are, rather than the
person we would wish to be and accept our self.
 According to Shepard (1979), self-acceptance is an
individual's satisfaction or happiness with oneself,
and is thought to be necessary for good mental
health.
 Self-acceptance involves self-understanding, a
realistic, though subjective, awareness of one's
strengths and weaknesses.
 It results in an individual's feeling about oneself,
that they are of "unique worth".
 SELF REALIZATION
 The term self realization means to fulfilment of
one's own potential.
 It is realizing our inner potentialities.

 It is a willingness to pursue our ideal-self on our

own, to grow and to change because we think it is
important.
 SELF DISCLOSURE
 Self disclosure is the process of letting another
person know what we think, feel and want, that is
telling others about ourselves.
 It includes all kinds of information: life experiences,
personal circumstances, feelings, dreams, opinions
and so on.
 It involves disclosing our innermost thoughts and
feelings.
 Theories of self concept
Carl Rogers and the Self-Concept Theory of personality:
Carl Rogers posited a theory of how self-concept influences
and indeed, acts as the framework for one’s personality.
The image we have of who we are contributes to our
personality and our actions.
Rogers believed that our personality is driven by our desire
for self-actualization. This is the condition that emerges
when we reach our full potential and our self-concept, self-
worth, and ideal self all developed..
How we develop our personalities and self-concepts varies,
thus creating the unique individuals we are.
Self-Concept Maintenance Theory
Self-concept maintenance refers to how people maintain or
enhance their sense of self. It is relatively fixed after a person
reaches adulthood, but it can be change based on the person’s
experiences.
The theory of self-concept maintenance states that we do not
simply sit and wait for our self-concept to develop: we take an
active role in shaping our self-concept at all ages (whether we
are aware of this or not).
Although there are different theories about the processes of
self-concept maintenance, but it generally concerns:
Our evaluations of self
Our comparison of our actual selves with our ideal selves
Our actions taken to move closer to our ideal selves.
THANKS