School Careers of High Ability Students in Flanders

Although high ability students should normally have the capacity to excel academically above and beyond their average ability peers, their underachievement is a widely documented phenomenon. As there has not previously been systematic research into the school careers of high ability students in Flanders, however, Flanders has lacked the evidence base necessary to assess whether and to what extent the underachievement of high ability students is a problem in the Flemish context. Grade completion and timely progress through an educational trajectory are the most basic measures of academic achievement, and failure to attain these can be seen as a clear indicator of underachievement for high ability students. If a highly able student is having to repeat years of education, it can be a signal of underlying issues of school-related motivation and educational fit. By examining the school career trajectories of high ability students as a whole, we can have a better idea of the extent and timing of underachievement by Flemish high ability students, and also begin to understand if the educational system in Flanders is meeting these students’ needs. In this report, we investigated the school pathways of high ability students from kindergarten until higher education. We looked at indicators such as grade completion, study choice, and study efficiency to assess the success of high ability students within Flemish education, comparing their outcomes with average ability reference students. We found that high ability students in Flanders, on a whole, fare better than their average ability peers, as thy experience lower rates of grade repetition and pursue higher levels of study than their average ability peers. Nonetheless, we found that ten percent of the high ability students had been delayed at least one year in school by the end of secondary school. Within higher education, more than a third of the high ability students had experienced delay, a rate comparable to that of their average ability peers. This is a rather large among, considering that timely educational attainment is perhaps the most basic level of academic achievement. Uncovering the personal and contextual factors underlying this study delay is one of the chief aims of Project TALENT in the months and years ahead.status: Published onlin