ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1699593
This article is part of the Research TopicMental Health Challenges in Vulnerable Groups: Psychological Well-Being, Learning, and Support in Disadvantaged ContextsView all 6 articles
The inclusion of psychological factors in the evaluation of a curriculum enrichment program for students with high ability
Provisionally accepted
- Faculty of Psychology, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain
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There is currently evidence of the importance of some psychological factors in long-term academic performance. In this study, the impact that a curriculum enrichment program has had on academic performance has been evaluated considering psychological variables related to academic performance. A quasi-experimental study of two groups (experimental and control), based on a design of repeated measures was carried out. Participants were students with high ability of 5 and 6 years of Primary Education and 1 and 2 years of Secondary Education of 9 educational centers, aged between 9 and 13 years old, being 68% boys and 32% girls. Psychological variables such as self-esteem (Rosemberg Self-Esteem Scale), learning approach (Revised Survey of Study Processes), and creativity (Test CREA), as well as academic achievement or performance (academic scores) were assessed to evaluate the curriculum enrichment program Sakonduz. Results show that, in respect to academic achievement, the experimental group unexpectedly worsened while the control group improved, but in both cases the differences were not significant. As for the learning approach, the control group didn't show any changes, as expected, while the experimental group maintained the deep motivation approach (DM) and decreased the deep strategy approach (DS), and consequently the deep learning general approach (DA). Also, the results showed a considerable decrease in the level of self-esteem of the control group, while it was maintained at the same high level in the experimental group. Finally, creativity measurements didn't have consistent results. This curricular enrichment program should be implemented as a long-term and more intense program to obtain more evidence of its effect on psychological aspects. Nevertheless, an important attrition occurred, and it would be important for the future the implication of the schools and teachers to implement and collect more evidence of the program's effectiveness.
Keywords: Academic Achievement, creativity, Enrichment program, Evaluation, Learning approach, self-esteem
Received: 05 Sep 2025; Accepted: 29 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Aperribai, Moreno, Sarrionandia and Salaberria. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Leire Aperribai, leire.aperribai@gmail.com
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