Challenges Endured By Low and High Scholarly Achievers of Class Tenth: The Parent-Adolescent Perception

Background: Teenage years are usually considered as the “best years of life” by both adults as well as adolescents and thus they look forward to group of activities associated with this stage such as enjoying at parties going out to restaurants with friends or enjoying at sports events etc. Though these are merely a part of what awaits them in the coming years, the future is filled with challenges put forward by their teachers, parents, friends as well as themselves. Purpose: To evaluate problems of tenth class high and low academic achievers and parent adolescent perception of it.  Material and Methods: The sample was collected from 300 respondents (50 high and 50 low academic achievers of tenth class) along with both of their parents. The data was collected using the socio-personal profile developed by the investigator, student problem checklist by Badami (1977) and modified version of student problem checklist. Result and Conclusion: The findings suggested that in majority of the domains studied such as Physical attributes, Physical health and fitness etc, both adolescents as well as their parents perceived average extent of problems. Whereas, in the area of economic and material facilities and physical health and fitness as compared to high academic achievers, low academic achiever adolescents perceived more problems. While fathers of low academic achievers perceived more problems in the area of friendship, sex and marriage, the mothers perceived their adolescents’ problems in all the areas except vocational. It was found that adolescents perceived more problems in physical attributes, morality and religion and education and customs areas as compared to their parents while adolescents perceived more problems in economic and material facilities and vocation areas. Both high and low academic achievers perceived major problems in the areas of physical health and fitness and economic and material facilities.