Who Is Gifted From a Teacher's Perspective?

• In Event: 66.087 - MTCC Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: 66.087-12 - Research on Creativity, Talent Development, and Giftedness

Abstract

Teachers play an important role in the identification and promotion of talented students. However, we know surprisingly little about a teacher’s judgement on giftedness. They are likely to combine known definitions, with more subjective measures of childrens’ potential. We used data from a representative sample of primary school teachers (N = 1,304) in the Netherlands who were asked whether they think that the children (N = 26,724) in their class were gifted or not. We aimed at investigating the child characteristics that are relevant for this judgement as well as differences between teachers. The findings revealed that children with high levels of ability, motivation, and openness had a higher probability to be considered to be gifted.

Authors

• Jessika Golle, University of Tübingen

• Trudie Schils, Maastricht University

• Lex Borghans