(CZ) Studenti relativně neúspěšní a relativně úspěšní
(EN) Underachievers and overachievers

The first part of the article deals with results of an empirical research involving 138 students of a medical school. The research concerned the differences between the students’ intellectual abilities (Amthauer’s test of intelligence structure) and their academic achievement (average examination results during the first three years of study). It has been ascertained that in higher education establishments, too, there are students working below or above their abilities. Their share in the sample of students in question is not negligible: 13-16 per cent were relatively successful students, 16-19 per cent were relatively unsuccessful ones. With some of the identified students the extreme differences between their intellectual abilities and their academic achievement remain unchanged for several years of their university studies, other students become membres of the extreme groups for a short time only. Some have acquired their clear-cut attitude to learning at secondary school. Verification of various methods measuring the difference between abilities and achievement has confirmed that the choice of a suitable method is no easy matter. The most suitable method for higher education establishments will apparently be the one identifying students by means of the relative difference on the T-scale. The method of both single and multiple regression analysis proved unsuitable.
The second, more general part, deals with methodological problems connected with the measuring of intellectual abilities (choice of the test, administration of the test, structure and development of the abilities), the measuring of the academic achievement (choice of a suitable index, influence of educational objectives, teacher’s strictness and the like). Three models of the relation between intellectual abilities and achievement are submitted. It is pointed out that the causes of the extreme differences are to be looked for not only in the student’s personality (achievement motivation), but also in the method of instruction, in the characteristics of the teacher-pupils interaction and, more generally, in the whole conception of schooling. In conclusion the authors suggest a deeper study of the connections between the relative success and (or) the relative failure on the one hand, and conceptions of the so-called classroom success of the pupil (Z. Helus) and pedagogical optimizing (j. K. Babanskij) on the other hand. It is recommended that broader view should be taken of the whole complex of problems involved and students should be seen as working not below and above their abilities, but below and above their real possibilities (in the sense of the “real learning possibilities of the pupil”).