Session Information
04 SES 08 B, Effective Provision: Improving Education
Paper Session
Contribution
This mixed methods study investigated factors related to high academic success in secondary school. It aimed to identify students’ academic pathways prior to demonstrating high academic success, in addition to establishing those factors that students’ perceived to be the facilitators of their success. Research and theory suggests that quantifies the percentage of gifted and talented students in any given cohort would suggest that this group of students represent gifted and talented adolescents (Gagné, 2003).
International and European literature has found that it is a combination of factors – the home, the teachers, the schools and society – that impact on students achieving their full potential (Bloom, 1985; Laine, 2010). Others reiterate the importance of school, family and community in supporting academically talented students (Tomlinson, Callahan & Lelli, 1997). Csikszentmihalyi and Rathunde (1993) also identified a range of factors influencing success in talented teens, including socioeconomic factors that relate to the teens’ parents.
The research was underpinned by Gagné’s (2005) differentiated model of giftedness and talent (DMGT) that provides a framework to investigate internal and external dimensions perceived by students to have influenced their success. The rationale for selecting this model as the theoretical framework lay in Gagné’s distinction between giftedness and talent, with talent being an outcome of a range of catalysts that were both environmental and intrapersonal. Given the nature of this study and the fact that many of those catalysts described by Gagné (2005) – intrapersonal, developmental and environmental – also emerged in these findings, this model and the underpinning theory provided an appropriate paradigm against which to consider students’ perceptions of their success in Scholarship. Gagné’s DMGT is well suited to considering high achieving students, and more particularly, high achieving adolescents (McAlpine, 2004; Moon & Dixon, 2006) as the model focuses on the importance of individual students, and highlights the significance of context in influencing the transformation of gifts into talents.
Research questions were derived from literature pertaining to giftedness and Scholarship. Questions were designed to elicit responses investigating those factors to which students attributed their success in attaining Scholarship; the patterns in students’ backgrounds and school experiences; students’ academic pathways; and, the extent to which students valued Scholarship.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Csikszentmihalyi, K. R., & Rathunde, S. W. (1993). Talented teenagers: The roots of success and failure. England: Cambridge University Press. Gagné, F. (2003). Transforming gifts into talents: The DMGT as a developmental theory. In N. Colengelo & G. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Gagné, F. (2005). From gifts to talents: The DGMT as a developmental model. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 93 – 112). New York: Cambridge University Press Laine, S. (2010). The Finnish public discussion of giftedness and gifted children. High Ability Studies, 21, pp. 63-76. McAlpine, D. (2004). What do we mean by gifted and talented? Concepts and definitions. In In D. McAlpine & R. Moltzen (Eds.), Gifted and talented: New Zealand perspectives (2nd ed., pp. 33-65). Palmerston North, NZ: Massey University E.R.D.C. Press. Moon, S. M., & Dixon, F. A. (2006). Conceptions of giftedness in adolescents. In F. A. Dixon & S. M. Moon (Eds.), The handbook of secondary gifted education (pp. 7 – 33). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Plano Clark, V., L., & Creswell, J., W. (Eds.). (2008). The mixed methods reader. Thousand Oaks, Calif. Sage Publications Tomlinson, C. A., Callahan, C. M., & Lelli, K. M. (1997). Challenging expectation: Case studies of high potential, culturally diverse young children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 41, 5-17.
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