Enhancing Students’ Academic Performance in University System: The Perspective of Supplemental Instruction

Abstract

Following the dwindled academic performance of first-year undergraduate students in the universities as observed by the researchers and confirmed by the literature, the study problematised Supplemental Instruction (SI) mechanism as a tool to enhance students’ performance. Supplemental Instruction, according to this study, is the kind of supplementary academic supports rendered to students to enhance their performance. In order to achieve this, this study explored the challenges with the use of Supplemental Instruction along with the possible solutions to the problems. Social constructivism was used to theorise the study. Participatory Research (PR) was adopted as a methodology for the study because it involved the coming together of the concerned people to participate in problem definition, problem assessment, implementation, and evaluation. Unstructured interviews were used to generate data from the participants who were facilitators and students as co-researchers with the use of audiotape recorder. The participants for the study included first-year students at the selected university, the SI coordinator, two tutors for various modules and their lecturers. Thematic analysis was adopted to categorise, interpret, and analyse the generated data because it involved the reflection of categorised objectives. The study found out among others that; inadequate planning and lack of collaborative engagement were the major challenges while training and retraining of SI personnel and collaborative engagement were the suggestible solutions to ameliorate the problems. However, the study, in its conclusion, significantly enhances the university’s reputation and increases the quality of its outputs in terms of students’ academic performance through the use of SI. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.19.5.13