Abstract:

Underachievement among high ability or gifted students has remained a challenge to educators. Therefore, strategies to combat it have been evolving.  Meanwhile instructional strategies seem not effective because of some hidden damage in the personality of the students. This study is therefore motivated to investigate the influence of emotional intelligence (EI) and locus of control (LC) on academic achievement of underachieving high ability students in Ibadan, Nigeria. The sample for the study consists of 72 underachieving high ability students purposively selected from 12 schools in Ibadan, Nigeria. Cognitive Ability Test, modified Schutte’s (1998) Emotional Intelligence Scale (SEIS) and Rotter’s (2001) Locus of Control Scale (RLCS), and the school academic record were used for the data collection. Data collected were analyzed using, t-test and multiple regression analysis. Results showed that the LC and EI of the respondents are significantly low. Again, there is a very strong influence of EI and LC on academic achievement of the participants. A significant difference also exist between male and female students in their locus of control (t=2.15, p<.05) with female participants showing better locus of internal control. The study also revealed that LC (β = .52) has more influence than emotional intelligence (β = .46) in predicting academic achievement and that the two variables have high positive correlation (R= .636) and very strong significant composite effect (F(2,70) = 6.53 and p<.05) on academic achievement. Again LC and EI account for 40.4% (Multiple R2 = .404) of the total variance of the academic achievement. Therefore, it is recommended that educators and parents should develop the emotional intelligence and internal locus of control strongly and not only the cognition domain for optimum achievement of high ability students.

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