Executive Functions and Academic Underachievement: Comparison of Hot Executive Functions in Gifted Achievers and Underachievement Students

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 . PhD student in educational Psychology, Faculty of Education Sciences and Psychology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education Sciences and Psychology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

3 . Assistant Professor, Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education Sciences and Psychology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

10.22034/ise.2025.18460.1294

Abstract

The present study aimed to compare the Hot executive functions between Achievers gifted students and underachievement gifted students. The research design was causal-comparative. The statistical population of this study included all female students of the gifted secondary schools in Yazd city in the city of Yazd during the academic year 2024-2025. From among them, 191 individuals were selected by available sampling method. Then, based on one standard deviation above and one standard deviation below the mean grade point average, two groups were identified: gifted students with high achievement (44 students) and gifted students with low achievement (46 students). The questionnaires used in this research included the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) Hofmann & Kashdan (2010), the Emotional Flexibility Scale (EFS) Rashid & Bayat (2019), and Delay Discounting Scale (DDS) Kirby et al. (1999). The results of the independent samples t-test indicated that hot executive functions, including emotional self-regulation, emotional flexibility, and delay discounting, were significantly higher in the Achievers gifted students compared to the underachievement gifted students (p < 0.05). According to the findings of this study, it can be concluded that underachievement gifted students exhibit deficits in Hot executive functions compared to Achievers gifted students. Therefore, attention to these dimensions is recommended in designing educational and intervention programs aimed at improving underachievement among gifted students.

Keywords

Interdisciplinary Studies in Education
Volume 4, Issue 2 - Serial Number 11
September 2025
Pages 133-152

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics