Unlocking potential. Enhancing motivation and engagement of cognitively gifted students in regular secondary school settings.

Stimulating and developing talents of all young people is an important goal of education and student counseling. Educational policy in Flanders already pays extensive attention to students with specific educational needs. However, to ensure that our society can remain innovative and prosperous, it is important to focus education and student support also on students with outstanding cognitive abilities. This dissertation revolves around the broad question of how cognitive talent can be developed by promoting motivation and engagement in school situations, and more specifically what role teacher support and student counseling can play in preventing and reducing underachievement of cognitively gifted students in secondary education and in increasing their motivation and engagement. To answer this question, the following complementary research objectives were pursued.

The first research objective concerned teachers' motivational strategies in regular classrooms as reported by teachers, particularly with respect to cognitively gifted adolescents (Chapter 1, Study 1). In this survey study, we examined 122 secondary school teachers to determine whether they adapt their strategies to cognitively gifted and typical students. With a gifted student, teachers reported using a more autonomy-supportive style while also being more chaotic, while with a typical student they provide more structure but at the same time are more controlling. The variation in the use of teaching styles could largely be explained by teachers' different beliefs about the effectiveness of these styles in relation to gifted and typical learners.

The second research objective concerned the effectiveness of an educational intervention, based on Bloom's Taxonomy, aimed at fostering and challenging motivation and engagement of cognitively gifted students in the regular classroom setting of 7th and 8th grade (Chapter 2, Study 2). In the intervention group, 17 teachers received a workshop on implementing higher-order thinking questions in their lessons. The control group consisted of 17 teachers from a parallel class at the same school who were teaching the same subject at the same time. We examined whether the workshop made a difference to the motivation and engagement of the students of these teachers and of the cognitively gifted students in particular. Students in the intervention group reported an increase in the number of higher-order thinking questions, while students in the control group just reported a decrease in such questions. In turn, the perception of higher-order thinking questions was associated with more experiences of autonomy among students and with higher engagement and autonomous motivation in the classroom. These correlations were similar among the cognitively gifted and typical students.

The third and final research objective concerned the effectiveness of a counseling intervention based on the Achievement Orientation Model and the Pathways to Underachievement Model, aimed at improving motivation and engagement and to reduce underachievement of cognitively gifted adolescents (Chapter 3, Study 3). Eight male underachieving adolescents followed one of two modules chosen based on on the type of underachievement they exhibited. Single case analyses showed that half of the participants benefited from the module followed. If there was improvement, it was mainly in the area of identity development. Furthermore, both modules were found to have effects on all variables, not just on the target variables of the specific module.

This dissertation contributes to a possible guide for schools to increase the motivation of their cognitively gifted students so that they can turn their potential into talents within their regular classrooms, by suggesting both measures within the regular classroom and offering an intervention that can be used in student counseling.