Abstract
The purpose of this investigation was twofold: (1) To describe the misbehaved third grade students in the Republic of Panama in regard to selected characteristics of the students, and (2) to describe the relationship between their achievement, behavior, and self-concept scores and their parents' child rearing practices and family environment. This was a descriptive correlational study that investigated the following variables: Students' achievement, behavior, self-concept, and intelligence; parents' child rearing practices and family environment. The instruments used were the following: Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Test, the Revised Behavior Problem Checklist, the Piers-Harris Children's Self-concept Scale, the Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices, the Cornell Parent Behavior Description, the Family Environment Scale, and the Children's Version of the Family Environment Scale. The frame of the study was comprised of all the elementary public schools in the Republic of Panama, from which 70 schools were randomly selected. One hundred third grade misbehaved students from these schools, as well as their teachers and family members, were included in this investigation. The data was encoded and analyzed by means of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS-X). Descriptive statistics were utilized to summarize the data. Correlation coefficients were obtained among the variables. Results indicated that the majority of the misbehaved students were male; 42% of their parents were divorced; 36% of the students had been abandoned by their mothers; self-concept averages were lower than normally expected. The correlations of this investigation demonstrated a significant relationship between students' self-concept, achievement, behavior, and family environment and child rearing practices.