Abstract:
The need for academic achievement and coping with the demands of schooling are
fundamental to academic success. Typically, High Ability Secondary School Students
(HASSS) have strong potential that enable them succeed academically and cope
smoothly. However, reports have shown that the Academic Achievement (AA) and
Academic Adjustment (AAd) of HASSS, particularly in Imo State, Nigeria are getting
poorer annually. Although previous studies have examined teaching methods such as
inquiry-based and collaborative learning to improve the AA and AAd of HASSS, other
approaches including enrichment triad and school mentorship have been neglected. This
study, therefore, examined how enrichment triad (Tiered Instruction—TI, Independent
Study—IS) and school mentorship (One on One Mentorship—OM, Group Mentorship—
GM and Bibliotherapy Mentorship—BM) are implicated in the AA and AAd among
HASSS in Imo State, Nigeria.
The study was anchored to the Wigfield and Eccles Expectancy-value Theory, while the
sequential mixed methods design was adopted. The multi-stage sampling procedure was
used. Twelve out of 27 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Imo State were randomly
selected. Purposive sampling was used to select one public senior secondary school per
LGA. The Slosson Intelligence and High Ability English Language and Mathematics
Achievement Screening (HAELAS) Tests with index score of > 60% were used to select
265 HASSS. The instruments used were English Language and Mathematics
Achievement Test (r = 0.84); Tiered Instruction (r = 0.86) Independent Study (r = 0.87),
One on One Mentorship (r = 0.90.), Group Mentorship (r = 0.88), Bibliotherapy
Mentorship (r = 0.88) and Academic Adjustment (r = 0.87) Scales. In-depth interviews
were conducted with an experienced teacher of HASSS in each school. The quantitative
data were analysed using Pearson product moment correlation and Multiple regressions at
0.05 level of significance, while the qualitative data were content-analysed.
The participants‘ age was 16.26±1.18 years and 51.0% were female. The TI ( ̅ 2.81),
IS ( ̅ 2.98), OM ( ̅ 3.03), GM ( ̅ 2.98) and BM ( ̅ 3.02) were high against the
threshold of 2.50. The TI (r=0.29), IS (r=0.25), OM (r=0.21), BM (r=0.21) and GM
(r=0.19) positively correlated with academic achievement. The OM (r=0.13), GM
(r=0.39) and BM (r=0.49) positively correlated with academic adjustment, but TI and IS
did not. The joint contributions of the independent variables to academic achievement
(F(5; 259) = 8.64; Adj. R2 = 0.126) were significant, accounting for 12.6% of the variance.
The joint contributions of the independent variables to academic adjustment (F(5; 259) =
17.25; Adj. R2 = 0.235) were significant, accounting for 23.5% of the variance. The TI (β
=0.23) made significant relative contribution to academic achievement, while BM (β
=0.43) made significant relative contribution to academic adjustment of HASSS.
Teachers‘ lack of professional training and non-availability of appropriate teaching
materials and technologies were barriers to improving academic achievement and
adjustment of HASSS.
Tiered instruction influenced academic achievement, while bibliotherapy mentorship
influenced academic adjustment of high ability senior secondary school in Imo State,
Nigeria. Teachers should take into cognisance both approaches to improve academic
achievement and adjustment.
