PhD Viva Voce

Qualifications Attained:

Mr. Milinga is a PhD candidate by thesis in the Department of Educational Psychology and Curriculum Studies, School of Education at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM). He is also a teaching staff at Mkwawa University College of Education. Mr. Milinga completed his first degree, a Bachelor of Education in Arts, from UDSM in 2009. Subsequently, he progressed to a Master of Arts in Applied Social Psychology degree programme in 2011 and completed it in 2013 from the same university. Mr. Milinga teaches several courses, including Introduction to Educational Psychology and Counselling and Special Needs Education. With a qualitative research orientation, Mr. Milinga’s research interests include studying human exceptionality, diversity, and inclusion in education, whereby giftedness/talent and disability issues are embraced.

Abstract:

The need to develop the academic talents of high-achieving students (HASs) has been well-documented internationally to ensure the promising abilities of the students are nurtured for personal and societal development. In response, the Tanzania government introduced special public secondary schools (SPSSs) in the 1990s to develop the students’ academic potentialities. However, little was known regarding how the teachers and students in Tanzania SPSSs conceptualised giftedness, talent, and differentiated instruction (DI) as crucial components of the academic talent development (ATD) process. Thus, this study investigated how the teachers and students conceptualised the ATD process and established the instructional practices used to develop the students’ academic talents in the SPSSs. Three objectives guided the investigation: explore the teachers and students’ conceptualisations of giftedness and talent in Tanzania SPSSs; explore the teachers and students’ conceptualisations of DI for the ATD in Tanzania SPSSs; and examine instructional strategies teachers used to develop the students’ academic talents in Tanzania SPSSs. The Differentiating Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT) mainly informed the study. It was built on a constructivist philosophical stance, adopting qualitative research methodologies. It employed a multiple-case study design to understand better the participants’ conceptualisations and instructional practices for ATD in schools. A sample of 108 purposively and conveniently selected participants were involved in this study, comprising 30 teachers, 73 students, and five ministry educational officials. Focus group discussions (FGDs), interviews, and classroom observations were used to generate the relevant data. The generated data were analysed by reflective thematic analysis (TA) procedures to document and interpret the findings. Essentially, the findings disclosed that teachers and HASs had shared conceptualisations of giftedness and talent regarding their manifestations and student diversity in the SPSSs. Some differences in the participants’ view of the students emerged when examined against their conceptualisations of giftedness and talent. It was further found that the teachers and students had differing conceptualisations of DI for the students’ ATD in the SPSSs, reflecting teaching obligations and the perceived school capacity to embrace and develop the diverse students’ academic talents, respectively. The findings showed that various instructional strategies were used to develop the students’ academic talents in the schools, reflecting different DI practices for HASs like enrichment and acceleration strategies. However, the teachers’ efforts to differentiate instruction for augmenting the students’ ATD using these strategies appeared inadequate. It can be concluded that ATD in the Tanzania SPSSs appeared to be supported and constrained by a constant influence of a host of personal and environmental factors, including how the teachers and students conceptualised giftedness, talent, and DI. The study recommends that the ATD for HASs in Tanzania should merit key consideration in differentiated educational provisions, teacher training and professional development programmes, and the needed teaching and learning resources and facilities. Future research should include and extend the critical themes of the ATD process for HASs in Tanzania and other similar educational contexts.