AllTop Viral!

Many parents are keen on gaining insight on whether or not their child has what it takes to succeed in school, be it scanning lists of gifted traits, socializing them to make school a positive experience or even slipping Harvard brochures into subtle places once their offspring graduates from the eighth grade at the top of their class. Yet, the best predictor of academic achievement is something much simpler: hope.

A three-year study conducted at the University of Manchester found that hope trumped previous academic achievement, intelligence and personality when it came to determining success at the university level.

Hope was broken down into two components for the purpose of the study:

”…agency, which reflects an individual’s determination that those goals can be achieved, and pathways, which reflects an individual’s belief that successful plans and strategies can be generated, or are available, to reach those goals.

The question now is, how to offer up a healthy serving of hope for each child.

Full story at Journal of Research in Personality via Neatorama.

The key to student success.

Photo credit: Fotolia