ABSTRACT
This chapter presenta an evidence to help separate fact from fiction with regard to the descriptive variables. Academic achievement is also related to students’ an attitudes and dispositions, as well as to cognitive variables. Educators, policy makers, and researchers often focus on the relations of individual differences to achievement. The relations of ethnicity to achievement are also often discussed and debated. In general, research suggests that ethnic differences in academic achievement are small to non-existent. Students’ attitudes toward learning, as well as more enduring personality characteristics, also are related to academic achievement. The goals that students pursue represent an important component of academic motivation. Research clearly indicates that the goals that students have affect their achievement; these include both goals that students set for themselves and goals that are imposed on students by their teachers, their parents, and their peers.
