Teachers and Their Gifted Children in the Classroom: a Perceptual Analysis

Abstract

There is continuing need to understand the nature of giftedness and enhance the learning conditions of gifted children. The present study involved 241 (149 males and 92 females) teachers randomly selected from 1024 students enrolled in a Part-time Bachelor of Education Degree Programme in a University. The subjects completed a 44—item Likert-type questionnaire and were required to rate each item on a scale of strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree, scored 5 to 1 point, respectively. Of the three characteristics of giftedness namely, learning characteristics, general behavioural characteristics and creativity, around which the questionnaire was developed, learning characteristics was identified as the principal marker of giftedness by the subjects of this study. The demographic variable of sex, educational level and age did not have any significant differential effects on the perceptions of the subjects. A discussion of the results is presented.