Publication Date

8-2024

School

School of Behavioral Sciences

Major

Psychology

Keywords

giftedness, gifted students, openness to experience, executive functions, imaginative thinking

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

Past research has studied giftedness from theoretical, educational, and practical perspectives. The theoretical perspective informs an understanding of how gifted students uniquely comprehend and process information. The educational perspective informs the context surrounding gifted students in the educational environment. The practical perspective informs techniques and curricula that are effective in educating gifted students in a way that is tailored to their distinctive social and emotional characteristics. Together, these three perspectives provide an understanding of the unique characteristics of gifted learners. However, there remains a gap between developing this hypothetical understanding of giftedness in the literature and empirically testing this understanding in the population of gifted students. The present study surveyed a sample of students to measure three characteristics of gifted students found in the literature: openness to experience, executive function capabilities, and imaginative thinking. It was found that identified gifted students scored higher than students not identified as gifted on all three measures. Developing a more comprehensive understanding of gifted students helps educators in effectively identifying gifted students, crafting a program best suited to their unique abilities, and using the gifted label with more consistency.

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