Attitudes towards gifted students and their education in the Slovenian context

Abstract

Background. Cultivation of positive attitudes towards gifted education is important to ensure that gifted students receive educational opportunities appropriate to their learning needs. Objective. To examine the attitudes of students, parents, and teachers towards gifted education in the Slovenian upper secondary schools. Design. A total of 1,020 students from four selective co-educational upper secondary schools (i.e., gymnasiums), their teachers (n = 84), and parents (n = 306) participated in the study. Respondents' attitudes were assessed using an adapted version of the Gagne and Nadeau attitude survey about gifted students and their education. In order to obtain a deeper insight into the context, an open question about gifted education was also posed. Results. Participants generally hold neutral to positive attitudes towards gifted education. They expressed their awareness of gifted students' special academic needs and the meaningfulness of specific educational support. Furthermore, 68% of participating students emphasized the need for relatedness to their peers (i.e., not to stand out or be labelled), often neglected inprovisions for the gifted. Comparative analysis showed that attitudes towards the extent of knowledge and experience in the field differed among the groups of participants. Conclusion. Qualitative analysis complemented the quantitative findings by addressing "the principle of challenging" instead of "the principle of adding", suggesting that the focus should be primarily onadapting the curricula and, out of consideration for their social and emotional needs in adolescence, not on overloading gifted students.