A Comparison of Academic Achievement in Popular and Isolated Students

The purpose of this study was to compare academic achievement of pupolar students whit those who are isolated. For this purpose selected 4 secondray schools in Shiraz by cluster random sampling method. Given the grade three students of selected schools (including 490 boys) a socionetric test, they were asked to choose the person to whom they would like to play or go picnic in a park. Slected 36 students who had the lowest status of sociometric as isolated group and 36 students who had the highest status of sociometric as popular group. The criterion of academic achievement was the average of the students scores in grade one and two. The average of two groups were compared by independent t test. The results showed that the academic scores mean of popular students significantly higher than the isolated ones (P<0.001). This results indicating that academic competences and social competences are not independent and by increasing academic skills of isolated students, may increased their social acceptance.