Teacher Characteristics and Gifted Student Engagement as Influencing Factors on Academic Performance in Junior High School

Abstract

Gifted students have enormous potential that needs to be nurtured. Additionally, gifted students also have special needs in the academic field that must be met to optimally develop their potential. The teacher holds the most important role in developing this potential. Academic performance is strongly influenced by an educator's teaching style and how he or she interacts with gifted students. If the characteristics of the teacher are appropriate, he or she will attract students to be engaged in learning. Increased student engagement produces maximum academic performance for gifted students. This study aims to determine the needs of gifted students, the characteristics of teachers of gifted students, how students' engagement in the classroom relates to teacher characteristics, and how classroom engagement affects the academic performance of gifted students. This study uses quantitative methods; the instruments used are the Adapted Feldhusen's Checklist for Teacher Characteristics Questionnaire and the Student Engagement Questionnaire. Academic performance is measured by grade point average. The results showed that gifted students were most affected by teachers' personal attributes (M = 4.25) compared to other characteristic dimensions. Meanwhile, according to the teacher, the most significant characteristic is philosophical ideals (M = 4.24). Additionally, students reported that having a teacher with characteristics that suit their academic needs leads to higher involvement in the classroom and better academic performance. The interaction between teacher characteristics and gifted student engagement influences academic performance (0.018).