Perception of characterictics of students' giftedness form the perspective of elementary school teachers

Abstract

This research aims at providing an answer, in a qualitative manner, to the question how teachers perceive gifted students. It is concerned with intellectual, motivational, personality, emotional, and, finally, social characteristics of gifted students from the angle of the latter. In this respect, the research encompasses 15 teachers from two elementary schools from the city of Doboj (Bosnia and Herzegovina). The instrument used for gaining qualitative data is the semi-structured interview. The results gained through the thematic analysis point to the fact that teachers perceive gifted students as ones that feature high intellectual abilities, high internal motivation, a wide spectrum of interests, and a certain level of aspiration. In addition, they are self-confident, arrogant, and prone to perfectionism and autonomy. Moreover, they show features of both extrovert and introvert behaviour, they can be emotionally cold, sensitive, vulnerable, but stable and impulsive as well. With regard to their social characteristics, they are either social or lonely. In that sense, the results point to the fact that teachers are good at recognising the aforementioned characteristics, but that they, within the context of school achievements, find gifted students only the ones that are well incorporated into the school system. These findings provide an opportunity for future researchers to more thoroughly examine this matter and establish potential reasons for such perception of gifted students.