Kate Flanagan, Graduate Student Edit
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Research Summary:
I work with both Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia's achievement motivation lab as well as at Duke's Talent Identification Program (TIP) with Martha Putallaz. Thus, I've combined my interests on motivation and giftedness to answer the question: why do so many high ability children fail to achieve in school or reach their potential?
I hope to help the field move beyond simple personality inventories and correlational studies to understand causal mechanisms involved in multiple pathways to underachievement. Rather than assume talent loss is due to the simple absence of positive motivational beliefs and behaviors, I am interested in "active underachievement" involving such things as one's implicit beliefs about ability and intelligence, fear of failure, self-handicapping, disidentification with academics, and others.
My current projects include a large study examining why some students underachieve at residential summer programs for the gifted. It combines both qualitative coding and quantitative survey data to assess underachievement from a multi-informant perspective that addresses academic, social, and behavioral adjustment.