Foreign Language Learning Aptitudes,Attitudes,Attributions,and Achievement of Postsecondary Students Identified as Gifted

Abstract

We investigated the aptitudes, attitudes, attributions, and achievement of undergraduates identified as gifted who were taking a beginning Spanish course, and compared these characteristics to undergraduates in the same cohort group who had not been identified as gifted. There were differences in the aptitudes, attitudes, and achievement of post-secondary introductory Spanish students who had been identified as gifted and their nongifted peers. Gifted students had higher scores than nongifted students on the aptitude scale. The gifted group displayed a more positive attitude toward learning a foreign language than the nongifted group. Based on their performances on the attribution scale, the students identified as gifted and their nongifted peers did not differ in their attributions for ability, effort, teacher impact (context), or chance as explanations for their success in foreign language learning. Our findings seem to lead to suggestions for foreign language instructors to increase their focus on developing positive attitudes in all students, and on developing greater knowledge about native language skills (in this case, English) to enhance foreign language learning. However, research investigating the efficacy of such instruction is notably lacking. Therefore, studies investigating both of these areas would be welcome.