Student Attitudes

Characteristics and Attitudes

Lewis Terman, in his 1925 classic longitudinal study of gifted individuals, found that 60 to 80 percent of his research subjects had qualities of humor, truthfulness, conscientiousness, and leadership. Furthermore, these characteristics carried into adulthood. In a review of research in gifted education that spans 70 years, Linda Silverman found that in addition to positive characteristics similar to Terman's findings, as a group, gifted children show diminished tendencies to boast, engage in delinquent activity, aggress, withdraw, or be domineering.

In research with gifted students in rural areas and small towns, Virginia Burney and Tracy Cross found that despite the challenges these students encountered with limited academic course offerings and few academic peers, many had positive attitudes toward school. Gifted students often described their small schools as having a familylike atmosphere. They experienced little stigma from being academically gifted and they had many opportunities for extracurricular activities that allowed them to be seen as more than a single dimension of giftedness.

Others find evidence of a positive attitude even when it is partially hidden in underachievement. Betsy McCoach and Del Siegle researched the differences between high- and low-achieving gifted high school students using the School Attitude Assessment Survey-R. They assessed five factors that include academic self-concept, attitudes toward school, attitudes toward teachers, motivation/self-regulation, and goal valuation, which means the value students' place on academic goals or school assignments.

In four areas, attitudes toward school, attitudes toward teachers, self-regulation, and goal valuation, McCoach found significant differences between the achieving and underachieving students. However, there was no significant difference in the academic self-concept factor. Regardless of differences found in the other factors, these students demonstrated a positive attitude about their learning abilities. Both groups were equally confident in their own intellectual abilities and inwardly maintained positive attitudes toward themselves as learners.

In Maureen Neihart's review of the literature on social adjustment in gifted students, she found most studies revealed high to normal levels of adjustment among the subjects. In reviewing discreet categories of adjustment, however, she found a correlation between the thinking processes of those with certain psychiatric disorders and highly creative adults. However, she [Page 839]cautioned against extrapolating the results obtained with adults to creatively gifted children in the midst of development. Neihart pointed out that the psychological well-being of a gifted child is related to the type of giftedness, the educational fit, and the child's personal characteristics such as self-perceptions, temperament, and life circumstances.

Factors that Influence Attitude

Attitudes of the gifted toward school are as diverse as gifted children. Some of the factors that can influence the attitudes of gifted students toward school include age, type and level of giftedness, disability, gender, race, teachers, and curricula.

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