Giftedness in the picture: what do teachers believe is needed for gifted students to become and maintain engaged for learning at school?

Abstract

Teachers often experience uncertainty regarding their learning support of gifted students, who can show strong task involvement but by no means self-evidently demonstrate engagement with school-task learning. Through inductive and deductive analyses of in-depth interviews with eight teachers, this study explores teachers’ understandings of the needs of gifted children in becoming and maintaining engaged with school learning as well as their own roles in this process. Teachers identify student- and context-related factors that matter for engagement. They describe substantial differences between students in what it takes to become and maintain engaged. For all students, becoming engaged seems to require an autonomy-supportive environment, while the provision of structure appears essential for them to maintain engaged. It is an ongoing challenge for teachers to find the best possible and fair balance between supporting autonomy and providing structure. It requires vigilance and constant monitoring to make it tailored to the child’s educational needs.