Exploring mental representations of prospective teachers about gifted education using associative group analysis

Abstract

Teachers’ mental representations significantly shape their attitudes and guide their professional behavior. This study focuses on identifying prospective teachers’ mental representations of gifted students and their education, using the AGA technique. In a cross-sectional study, 480 prospective teachers (Mage = 20.73 years) listed the associations about two selected concepts (i.e., gifted student and gifted education). The identified semantic categories of the prospective teachers’ associations indicate that the participants’ mental representations of gifted students primarily concern the psychosocial characteristics. These mental representations suggest that gifted students excel academically in general or in specific domains. Other psychosocial characteristics of gifted students are underrepresented, including characteristics of twice-exceptional gifted students. The analysis of associations with the concept of gifted education, on the other hand, shows the dominance of the semantic category of concrete didactic-methodological adaptations, with additional and challenging tasks predominating. Prospective teachers in their final year of study more frequently express associations with weaknesses in the implementation of gifted education in practice than prospective teachers in their first year of study. In general, the mental representations reflect an awareness of the importance of gifted education in terms of an enumeration of active working methods, differentiation, and critical reflection on existing practice.