Comparisons and analyses of gifted students’ characteristics and learning methods

Abstract

Using PISA 2009, an international education database, this study compares gifted and talented (GT) students in three groups with normal (non-GT) students by examining student characteristics, reading, schooling, learning methods, and use of strategies for understanding and memorizing. Results indicate that the GT and non-GT gender distributions show differences; GT groups’ reading time, reading material types, and level of interests are higher than or different from non-GT, but their use of library is not. Furthermore, teacher–student relationships of GT groups are better than those of non-GT, but their attitudes toward school show no differences. Results of t-tests reveal that two learning methods are employed significantly more often by GT than by non-GT, but a third method is used less by GT students.

Keywords

Comparison cross-national gifted and talented normal students PISA

The field of gifted and talented (GT) education is based on the universally accepted reality that some learners demonstrate outstanding performance or potential for superior performance in academic, creative, leadership, or artistic domains when compared with their non-GT peers. To identify students’ traits or aptitudes, we should focus on specific behavioral manifestations, the first of which is called high-achieving or schoolhouse GT, referring to students who are good learners in school achievement (Renzulli, 2013). GT program participants mostly come from well-educated families, and most of them express satisfaction with the quality of school subjects and appreciate its usefulness for their further study and career (Vu, 2011). Most GT scientists and engineers can look at fields beyond their own disciplines, and make connections which can lead to creating new knowledge or solving problems. Like artists, they are curious and creative in their thinking, but they also tie their thinking back into the physical world, taking the mind back to the original source (Otto, 2012). GT students are more likely to be goal oriented, which motivates them to achieve mastery in their actions (Zbainos and Kyritsi, 2011).

GT students are explicitly aware of their knowledge of self-directed learning, which is associated with their positive motivation for self-directed learning. GT students perceive the “actual” environment more positively than normal students, and the actual learning environment, teacher support, investigation and equity are all significantly related to student achievement (Rita and Martin-Dunlop, 2011). GT students have generally positive perceptions of their abilities to initiate, form, and maintain relationships with other people, including same-age non-GT peers, and demonstrate interpersonal abilities and peer relationships comparable with those of grade-equivalent students in the normal group (Lee et al., 2012). However, GT learners often languish in schools because teachers do not have the time, training, or skills to adapt instruction to their needs. Adolescent GT males behave, develop, and learn differently from their female peers, while there are also many similarities between the genders (Burton, 2012).

School environments can be the most restrictive and stressful environments for GT students. GT traits such as perfectionism, emotional intensity, and insistence on logic can make it difficult for GT students to “fit in” with peers (Tunks and Gilles, 2013). So, teachers need to pre-assess students to see how far above grade level some students are, then differentiate instruction on the basis of what they have learned (Rakow, 2012). In many places, the effort for school improvement focuses more on students who perform below grade level than on students who have special gifts. Differentiation of instruction is more geared toward students with low achievement rather than those who excel. How do GT students perceive instructions that are aimed at improving school performance?

According to Fisher and Frey (2012), GT students believe that teacher modeling is valuable to students, and they suggest that group work should include accountability and that homework should be made reasonable. In addition to school, family also plays an important role in nurturing gifted behaviors. GT children begin life already filled with a sense of the large and expansive world, full of promise; the role of parents is not so much to expand this world but to ensure that the one they have continues to grow naturally through the years of formal schooling (Smutny, 2012). Based on information processing systems, Woolcott (2013) outlines a framework, developed from studies of learning, memory, and environmental interaction.

There are some arguments for GT standards of discrimination and selection. Psychosocial variables determine influences in successful GT development, and developing young people of outstanding achievement or eminence ought to be the chief goal of GT education (Subotnik et al., 2012). Researchers can use national data to investigate student-level variables such as gifted status, gender, socioeconomic status, etc. (Huang and Moon, 2013). However, all economic strata, cultural backgrounds, IQ values, and standardized tests scores may not accurately reflect the abilities of GT students, and the information thus obtained may be narrow in scope, reflecting only the views of the respondents that work in states with mandates for GT education (de Wet and Gubbins, 2011). There is no work that examines how children’s cognitive abilities are related to their perceptions of their parenting styles and the extent to which these relationships are moderated by race, sex, and age in a sample of GT students (Rudasill et al., 2013).

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a comprehensive assessment that measures the literacy performance of 15-year-olds. In reading, it assesses how well students can understand, use, and reflect on written text for a variety of purposes and settings. In science, it assesses students’ ability to apply scientific knowledge and skills to a range of different situations they may encounter in their life; and in mathematics, it assesses how students analyze, reason, and interpret mathematical problems. PISA’s achievement scores represent a “yield” of learning at age 15, rather than a direct measure of attained curriculum knowledge at a particular grade level. Thus, these international, systematic, and comprehensive achievement scores may be best used as criteria for GT identification. Results from PISA 2009 provide an opportunity to assess the generalization of previous findings for large samples of international GT students by multiple psychological and educational variables from a cross-cultural context (Roth and Givvin, 2008).

This study, through cross-national comparisons of three GT groups and normal students, provides information that can be used to help educators, teachers, counselors, parents, and researchers to identify and foster GT behaviors and performances. It is also hoped that the findings of this study about GT students’ characteristics and usage of effective learning methods can contribute to the field of GT education by introducing a new worldwide perspective.

Methods

The primary data source was from the Student Questionnaire PISA 2009. The countries were chosen mainly based on the criteria of educational influences, comparability, and data available in the database. Thus, seven countries (10 units in PISA; “Chinese-4” includes four units: Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, and Chinese-Taipei) were chosen as the sample, with a total of 3224 students divided into four groups.

The PISA 2009 database included 15 standardized achievement scores (five reading, five math, and five science scores), with scores ranging from 200 to 800. As shown in Table 1, the total number of students from the seven countries was 59,820. Because the top scores in the seven participating countries differed, we chose 150+ (about 1.9%) top means of 15 three-subject scores as General GT groups (G-GT); 100+ (about 1.3%) top means of five reading scores as Reading GT groups (R-GT); and 100+ (about 1.3%) top means of 10 math and science scores for Math-Science GT groups (MS-GT). These three GT groups were intersectional, meaning one student may be included in one, two, or even three groups, if his/her score means met each group’s criteria. Comparison (normal non-GT) groups were randomly chosen from the remaining students (excluding all GT group members), and students in normal groups were about 140% of GT group numbers for each country. Altogether, 3224 students were chosen, with 1349 in three GT groups and 1875 in normal groups.

Table 1.

Sample size and percent.

	n (TIMSS raw data)	General-GT			Read-GT			Math/Science-GT			n GT (3 GT Groups)	Normal Groups		n total (GT & Normal)
	n (TIMSS raw data)	M_{(15 scores)}≥	n	Top of %	M_{(5 scores)}≥	n	Top of %	M_{(10 scores)}≥	n	Top of %	n GT (3 GT Groups)	n	% (GT)	n total (GT & Normal)
Chinese-4	21,735	714	195	0.90	690	167	0.77	738	158	0.73	268	323	120.5	591
Germany	4979	663	154	3.09	657	103	2.07	687	102	2.05	184	282	153.3	466
France	4298	651	154	3.58	666	102	2.37	668	104	2.42	178	262	147.2	440
UK	12,179	678	159	1.31	692	103	0.85	690	102	0.84	186	233	125.3	419
Japan	6088	682	153	2.51	691	103	1.69	697	108	1.77	185	275	148.6	460
Russia	5308	627	151	2.84	641	103	1.94	644	104	1.96	175	252	144.0	427
USA	5233	655	152	2.90	676	104	1.99	665	105	2.01	173	248	143.4	421
Total	59,820		1118	1.87		785	1.31		783	1.31	1349	1875	139.0	3224

Note. G-GT was chosen by top means of 15 reading, math and science scores; R-GT was chosen by top means of 5 reading scores; and MS-GT was chosen by top means of 10 math and science scores. Normal students were randomly chosen from non-GT students with samples of about 120–155% of GT numbers.

Other independent variables identified from the Student Questionnaire, PISA 2009 included:

Time spent on reading for enjoyment (one item);

Reading types (the mean of four items associated with one question);

Learning methods (13 items about students’ study activities and habits, combined into three factors using a Factor Analysis, as shown in Table 3);

Perceptions of teachers’ instructions (the mean of 16 items);

Strategies for understanding and memorizing (one question with six items, as shown in Table 2);

Students’ gender; parents’ highest educational level; economic, social, and cultural levels (ESCS); joy/like reading; use of libraries; attitude toward school; and teacher–student relations were from the indexes of the PISA Student Database.

Table 2.

Comparisons of G-GT and normal student memory strategies (t-test).

		G-GT Group		Normal Group
		M	SD	M	SD	df	t
Chinese-4	Easy part	3.54	1.32	3.90	1.34	515	−2.95**
Germany		2.68	1.23	3.45	1.40	381	−5.49***
France		2.87	1.15	3.35	1.34	362	−3.80***
UK		2.77	1.11	3.66	1.24	383	−7.27***
Japan		3.16	1.29	3.50	1.37	425	−2.53*
Russia		3.07	1.28	3.52	1.45	348	−3.17**
USA		3.23	1.36	3.97	1.40	379	−5.08***
Chinese-4	Repeat	3.49	1.26	3.54	1.39	515	−0.37
Germany		2.40	1.20	2.71	1.47	364	−2.23*
France		2.63	1.31	2.65	1.49	405	−0.13
UK		2.90	1.37	2.96	1.40	382	−0.46
Japan		2.27	1.06	2.24	1.23	351	0.22
Russia		2.56	1.40	3.28	1.40	383	−4.92***
USA		2.55	1.25	3.22	1.52	359	−4.71***
Chinese-4	Discuss	4.47	1.22	4.05	1.38	513	3.49***
Germany		4.60	1.16	4.20	1.47	370	2.95**
France		4.25	1.18	3.62	1.57	387	4.56***
UK		4.42	1.20	3.81	1.50	376	4.41***
Japan		4.24	1.34	3.60	1.43	423	4.47***
Russia		3.85	1.56	3.49	1.62	383	2.18*
USA		4.55	1.17	3.75	1.54	369	5.79***
Chinese-4	Underline	4.98	1.23	4.67	1.44	460	2.62**
Germany		4.86	1.41	4.72	1.45	383	0.90
France		4.73	1.20	4.41	1.62	390	2.28*
UK		4.58	1.13	4.68	1.31	382	−0.79
Japan		4.94	1.23	4.75	1.35	424	1.43
Russia		5.09	1.10	4.40	1.39	369	5.44***
USA		4.37	1.44	4.13	1.64	346	1.46
Chinese-4	Summarize	4.89	1.15	4.43	1.40	469	4.04***
Germany		4.95	1.25	4.56	1.43	349	2.87**
France		4.90	1.34	4.74	1.36	405	1.21
UK		4.60	1.40	4.23	1.49	382	2.44*
Japan		5.19	1.02	4.41	1.48	407	6.39***
Russia		5.11	1.12	4.37	1.49	376	5.57***
USA		4.56	1.35	4.07	1.57	351	3.25**
Chinese-4	Read to another	2.72	1.45	2.58	1.49	515	1.00
Germany		2.88	1.38	3.19	1.64	359	−1.95
France		2.85	1.39	3.11	1.68	369	−1.66
UK		3.03	1.44	3.07	1.53	382	−0.29
Japan		3.86	1.41	3.43	1.56	341	2.92**
Russia		2.55	1.39	2.75	1.57	385	−1.31
USA		3.01	1.51	3.16	1.66	376	−0.86

The range of strategies is 1–6; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < 1.001.

Three figures below show a comparison of the variables between three GT groups and the normal groups, and all data or means were translated into a range of 0–10 from their original scores by linear equations so that they could be read easily and more clearly. The comparison figures below include: Figure 1: percentage of students by gender, by parents’ highest level of education, and by ESCS; Figure 2: use of libraries, joy/like reading, reading time, and reading types; and Figure 3: attitude toward school, perception of instructions, and teacher–student relations. A t-test was used to compare the three factors of learning methods and strategies for understanding and memorizing between the G-GT groups and the normal groups.

Figure 1.

Comparisons of GT and normal student backgrounds.

Figure 2.

Comparisons of GT and normal student reading.

Figure 3.

Comparisons of GT and normal student behaviors.

Results

Comparisons of student backgrounds between GT and normal students among the countries

Student gender

As shown on the left of Figure 1, both the G-GT groups and the normal groups from all seven countries had around 50% male and 50% female students. Although in France and the United Kingdom, the percentage of male students in the G-GT groups was slightly higher than that of the normal groups, the percentages in the German, Japanese, and Russian groups were the opposite. However, the male percentages in the R-GT groups were significantly lower in all seven participating countries; and in five countries (except UK and Japan), male R-GT students constituted less than 30% of their groups. The MS-GT groups, on the other hand, showed a very different percentage pattern: in all seven countries, more male students were represented in the MS-GT groups than their female counterparts. Students from Germany and the United Kingdom made up more than 70% in their corresponding groups.

Parents’ highest educational level (middle section of Figure 1)

First, parents’ educational levels of the three GT groups were found to be higher than those of normal groups in all participating countries. Second, there were only small differences among the three GT groups. Although differences among the three GT groups in Chinese-4 could be found, they were not significant as compared with the differences between their groups and the normal groups. Third, parents’ educational levels of the Russian, Japanese, and American students in both the GT and the normal groups were very high, but the means in the GT groups were higher than 9.0, as compared with the means of 7.5 in the normal groups. Relatively, in Chinese-4, the parents’ educational levels for both the GT and the normal groups were the lowest.

Family ESCS

The right side of Figure 1 shows that three GT groups’ family ESCS were significantly higher than those of the normal groups in all seven countries, and the differences among the three GT groups were rather small. Overall, both the GT and the normal groups in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany had the highest ESCS values (Ms_GT > 7.5 and Ms_Normal > 5.0); and the ESCS values of the GT groups in Chinese-4 and Japan (Ms_GT < 6.0) and those of the normal groups in Chinese-4, Russia, and France (Ms_Normal ≤ 4.8) were fairly low.

Comparisons of reading between GT and normal students among the countries

Use of libraries

Generally, there were no large differences in use of libraries between the GT groups and the normal groups. The normal groups in Russia, the United States, and Chinese-4 seemed to use libraries more often than the three GT groups, but the Japanese normal groups used libraries less. These differences, however, were not very large. Comparisons of the three GT groups revealed that the R-GT groups in the United Kingdom and Japan had the highest use of libraries, while the differences among the three GT groups were rather small in other countries.

Joy/like reading

Significant differences were found in joy/like reading between GT groups and normal groups in all seven participating countries. Basically, the normal groups scored around mid-point (5.0) with the highest score by Chinese-4 (M > 6.5), while the differences between the GT and normal groups in Chinese-4 and the differences among the three GT groups were the smallest. In the other six countries, the three GT groups had significantly higher scores (Ms > = 7.0) than the normal groups (Ms_Normal < 5.2); and the ranks of joy reading level among the three GT groups stayed the same across the six countries: the highest were the R-GT groups, then the G-GT groups, and the MS-GT groups were the lowest.

Time spent on reading for enjoyment

The findings showed similar distributions to the above variables. There were significant differences in students’ reading time between the GT groups and the normal groups across all seven countries, but the differences in Chinese-4 were the smallest, because their normal groups spent a similar amount of time on reading (Ms_GT > 4.8 & M_Normal = 4.3). This part of Figure 2 also shows that Russian students spent more time on reading than students from other countries. For students from Chinese-4 and Japan, the differences among all three GT groups were very small, and the differences between G-GT and MS-GT groups were not large in any of the seven countries. However, the R-GT groups in France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Germany spent more time on reading than did the other two GT groups.

Reading types

This variable was about the type of reading materials that students often read, including magazines, fiction books, non-fiction books, and newspapers. The right side of Figure 2 clearly indicates that the three GT groups read more often or read more materials than did the normal groups in all seven countries, but these differences were not as large as those shown in the two previous comparisons. The differences in reading types among the three GT groups were small in every country. Both Chinese-4 GT and normal groups scored higher in reading types (Ms ≥ 6.2) than those from other countries, and students from the United Kingdom (Ms ≥ 5.3) and Russia (Ms ≥ 5.7) also had relatively high scores in reading types, as compared with the normal groups in other four countries (Ms < 5.0).

Comparisons of school variables between GT and normal students among the countries

Attitudes toward school

The left side of Figure 3 presents evidence that GT and normal students did not differ significantly in their attitudes toward school in all seven countries. Although the GT groups showed more positive attitudes than their non-GT peers in the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Chinese-4, it was the opposite in students from Germany, and there was almost no difference between the GT and normal groups in Japan and France. Besides, in Japan, Chinese-4, and Germany, both GT and normal groups had fairly low attitudes toward school (Ms < 4.9).

Perceptions of instructions

This variable was represented by seven items that asked the students how often teachers used instructional activities in language lessons. Both the GT and the normal groups in Russia reported almost identical perceptions of teachers’ instructions, but in the other six countries the GT groups reported more instructional activities than did the normal groups. The differences among the three GT groups were very small. Although the R-GT groups in Chinese-4, Germany, France, and Russia reported slightly more teacher activities, the differences were not significant. The figure also showed that according to students’ reports, Russian (Ms ≥ 7.8) and American (Ms ≥ 6.3) teachers had more instructional activities in language lessons than teachers from other countries (Ms < 6.0).

Teacher–student relationships

Five items asked the students to rate the teacher–student relationships. The right section of Figure 3 indicates that the GT groups had better teacher–student relationships than did the normal groups, but the difference was not very large in students from Germany, France, and Chinese-4. These teacher–student relationships among the three GT groups were not significantly different. It was also found that the Japanese teacher–student relationships were the poorest (Ms_GT =5.0 and M_Normal = 3.7) as reported by students, but the students in the United Kingdom and the United States reported the best teacher–student relationships (Ms_GT > 6.8 and Ms_Normal ≥ 5.3), as compared with other countries.

Comparisons of learning methods between GT and normal students

From the three figures above it can be seen that the three GT groups had similar results, and the values of the three GT groups were rather close except for the percentage of genders. For the purpose of comparing students’ learning methods, only the G-GT group was used to represent all three GT groups of students. T-test procedures were followed to explore differences between the GT and normal groups’ learning methods and memory strategies.

Use of strategies for memorizing

There were six items in PISA 2009 that asked students what strategies they considered useful for understanding and memorizing text. As shown in Table 2, significant differences in the perceptions of three strategies were identified between the GT and the normal groups:

The GT groups considered Concentrating on easy parts (Easy part) significantly less useful than did the normal groups in all seven countries. The differences between the GT and the normal groups in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany were the most significant (ts < −5.00, ps < .001), but the t-value did not show such a large difference between the Japanese groups (t = −2.53, p < .05).

GT groups thought Discussing content with others (Discuss) more useful than did normal groups, and the differences were significant across all seven countries.

GT groups reported Summarizing the text in own words (Summarize) more useful than did normal groups in all seven countries, but the difference in France was not significant (t = 1.21, p > .05).

The t-test comparisons also revealed some trends in the perceived usefulness of the other two memory strategies by GT and normal students. GT groups in six countries reported that Underline important parts (Underline) was more useful than did normal groups, with significant differences in three countries (Russia, Chinese-4, and France), but the GT group of the United Kingdom rated the strategy somewhat less useful than the normal group did. The normal groups in six countries gave higher ratings than the GT groups to the usefulness of the strategy Quickly read text twice (Repeat), with significant differences in three countries (Russia, the United States, and Germany). This difference, however, was not found in the Japanese groups (t = .22, p > .05).

Conclusive findings could not be made regarding the last strategy, Read text aloud to another one (Read to another). Five t-values were negative (meaning the GT groups considered it less useful), but two other t-values (Japan and Chinese-4) showed positive, with one being significant – the Japanese GT group thought this strategy was more useful than did the normal group.

Overall, the results about the use of the three strategies were clear: the GT groups reported that Discuss and Summarize were more useful but Easy part less useful; they basically agreed that Underline was more useful, but Repeat less useful; Regarding the Read to another strategy, the seven participating countries showed no consistent agreement from the comparisons of the GT and normal groups.

Learning methods

There were 13 items asking students how often they used these learning methods, and these items were all correlated to one another. A Factor Analysis was used for obtaining three independent and irrelevant factors of learning methods: Understand, Be related to, and Memorize (see Table 4 in the Appendix for details). The results in Table 3 demonstrated that GT students in all seven countries used Understand significantly more often than did normal groups (all p-values less than .001); and they also used Memorize significantly less often. For the method Be related to, GT groups used it more often than did normal groups in six countries, with five showing significant differences (only with the United States, t = 1.38, p > .05); but in France, the GT group used this method slightly less often than did the normal group (t = −.07, p > .05). Generally, GT students more often tried to understand what was learned, but tried less just to memorize everything in the text, and most of them often related what was being learned to their prior knowledge, real-life experiences, or its usefulness outside of school.

Table 3.

Comparisons of G-GT and normal student learning methods (t-test).

		G-GT Group		Normal Group
		M	SD	M	SD	df	t
Chinese-4	Understand	0.51	0.77	−0.22	0.88	449	9.88***
Germany		0.98	0.84	0.57	1.07	354	4.12***
France		1.08	0.76	0.30	1.08	394	8.44***
UK		0.98	0.78	0.35	0.97	363	6.92***
Japan		0.28	0.97	−0.39	1.02	422	6.60***
Russia		0.25	0.78	−0.28	0.78	377	6.47***
USA		0.99	0.76	0.22	1.09	373	8.06***
Chinese-4	Be Related to	0.73	1.00	0.38	0.87	366	4.12***
Germany		0.15	1.05	−0.08	0.97	367	2.24*
France		−0.20	0.94	−0.20	0.94	400	−0.07
UK		0.21	1.11	−0.12	0.99	368	2.99**
Japan		−0.04	1.04	−0.54	1.00	422	4.96***
Russia		0.50	1.11	0.28	0.94	270	1.98*
USA		0.14	1.21	−0.03	1.11	376	1.38
Chinese-4	Memorize	−0.39	1.08	0.07	0.93	510	−5.12***
Germany		−0.65	0.76	0.04	0.95	352	−7.61***
France		−0.58	0.96	−0.20	0.95	400	−3.92***
UK		−0.45	1.09	−0.02	1.00	368	−4.00***
Japan		−0.96	0.87	−0.57	0.96	422	−4.20***
Russia		−0.24	1.05	0.53	0.91	377	−7.53***
USA		−0.91	1.00	−0.01	1.05	376	−8.37***

*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Table 4.

Factor loading for exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation of learning methods.

		F1- Understanding	F2- Relationship	F3- Memory
Q27-a	When I study, I try to memorize everything that is covered in the text	0.39	0.07	0.57
Q27-b	When I study, I start by figuring out what exactly I need to learn	0.69	0.10	0.18
Q27-c	When I study, I try to memorize as many details as possible	0.53	0.06	0.43
Q27-d	When I study, I try to relate new information to prior knowledge acquired in other subjects	0.42	0.52	0.12
Q27-e	When I study, I read the text so many times that I can recite it	−0.04	0.20	0.83
Q27-f	When I study, I check if I understand what I have read	0.64	0.20	0.26
Q27-g	When I study, I read the text over and over again	0.31	0.09	0.69
Q27-h	When I study, I figure out how the information might be useful outside school	0.09	0.77	0.16
Q27-i	When I study, I try to figure out which concepts I still haven't really understand	0.64	0.37	0.06
Q27-j	When I study, I try to understand the material better by relating it to my own experiences	0.20	0.77	0.08
Q27-k	When I study, I make sure that I remember the most important points in the text	0.74	0.09	0.15
Q27-l	When I study, I figure out how the text information fits in with what happens in real life	0.16	0.79	0.09
Q27-m	When I study, I study and I don't understand something, I look for additional information to clarify this	0.59	0.35	0.04

Note. Factor loadings <−.045 or >0.45 are in boldface.

Discussions and implications

Student background information and GT distribution often show similarities in all countries. Although teachers and schools can do little to control or change such factors as student gender, parent education, and family ESCS, they can, however, learn about their students’ characteristics, family situations, and relationships, and try to improve their instructions for both GT and general students. Male and female students may show different interests in school subjects and educators may not be able to change them, but they should encourage students to learn all subjects well, not just those that interest them or those in their own special fields, because all knowledge and skills can be useful for continuing education and, therefore, are meaningful to students’ future development. Understanding GT characteristics may help teachers and counselors find youngsters with GT potential, assign tasks to students that can foster growth in GT abilities, and get parents’ cooperation and support. Providing students with opportunities to address real-world problems or with interest-based learning opportunities may provide avenues for students to engage in their communities, develop academic skills and knowledge, and help them develop GT behaviors (Bruce-Davis and Chancey, 2012).

Reading is a major means for 15-year-old students to get information and to learn new skills both in school and off-campus. GT students have more interests, spend more time, and engage in more types of reading, but use libraries less (they may have more or alternative resources). Encouraging students to read is necessary, or even essential, for all students’ development, especially in our hectic society with many temptations distracting students’ reading and studying. It is educators’ responsibility to explore new ways to nurture students’ reading interests and habits, guide their scopes, and enhance their reading effectiveness.

GT students’ attitudes toward school are not significantly different from those of normal students, but they have more favorable perceptions of teachers’ instructions and relationships with teachers than normal students. Understanding GT students’ needs, interests, and novel ideas may help teachers guide them in learning specialties through self-study, foster their aptitudes around school or class activities, and ensure healthy development of GT behaviors and traits. Studies show that beyond knowledge and skills, teacher attributes and beliefs about student learning are often underscored as important areas in teacher preparation for differentiating instruction for GT children in the general education classroom (Hong et al., 2011). This practice has to change in order to prepare highly qualified teachers who can deliver effective instruction to GT students and their non-GT peers.

This study presents findings with a global perspective about GT students’ learning methods and strategies. T-tests reveal that both GT and normal groups consider Summarize, Underline, and Discuss as useful strategies for understanding and memorizing, and the means for all three strategies are higher than the mid-point (Ms ≥ 3.5). GT students consider them more useful than normal students do, with some values even higher than 5.0. For learning methods, all GT students more often use Understanding (with all mean values in the positive, Ms ≥ .25) but less often use Memorize through rote learning (with all mean values in the negative, Ms ≤ −.24). In short, the findings from the comparisons confirm that some memory strategies are valid to all students of this age worldwide (Discuss, Summarize, & Underline) when used with reviewing work after reading and avoiding memorization without understanding. These strategies and methods are likely considered more useful and practical by GT students. Development of knowledge and skills of self-directed learning, together with choice of school-based independent learning inquiries, could provide GT students with the motivation and challenge they need to plan and implement investigations while evaluating their own progress (Van Deur, 2011).

Analyses of international education data can be useful in presenting the current state of educational research with a worldwide perspective. This study tries to identify the characteristics of GT students by comparing international data on this topic. The limitations of the research are related to the scope of the questionnaires and the question items included. PISA 2009 items do not include students’ relations with peers both inside and outside schools. GT students have different learning, social and emotional needs than their peers. The needs of some GT students can be met within their mainstream school, but others need learning, social and emotional support beyond the school gates (Bate et al., 2012). Future research should focus on GT students’ motivations, attitudes, needs, and relations, combined with the context of culture, tradition, society, education, and institution in their countries.

Footnotes

Appendix

Authors’ note

The raw data is from PISA, published international database, and all data analyses were not related with ethical standards of APA (N/A).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

Bate

Clark

Riley

(2012) Gifted kids curriculum: What do the students say? Kairarnga 13 (2): 23–28.

Bruce-Davis

Chancey

(2012) Connecting students to the real world: Developing gifted behaviors through service learning. Psychology in the Schools 49 (7): 716–723.

Burton

(2012) Talk is cheap: Exploring alternative strategies for counseling gifted and adolescent males. Gifted Child Today 35 (3): 208–214.

de Wet

Gubbins

(2011) Teachers’ beliefs about culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse gifted students: A quantitative study. Roeper Review 33 (2): 97–108.

Fisher

Frey

(2012) Gifted students’ perspectives on an instructional framework for school improvement. NASSP Bulletin 96 (4): 285–301.

Hong

Greene

Hartzell

(2011) Cognitive and motivational characteristics of elementary teachers in general education classrooms and in gifted programs. Gifted Child Quarterly 55 (4): 250–264.

Huang

Moon

(2013) What are the odds of that? A primer on understanding logistic regression. Gifted Child Quarterly 57 (3): 197–204.

Lee

Olszewski-Kubilius

Thomson

(2012) Academically gifted students’ perceived interpersonal competence and peer relationships. Gifted Child Quaterly 56 (2): 90–104.

Otto

(2012) Teaching gifted students STEM in an antiscience society. Understanding Our Gifted 25 (1): 16–23.

10.

Rakow

(2012) Helping gifted learners soar. Educational Leadership 69 (5): 34–40.

11.

Renzulli

(2013) What makes giftedness? In: Irby

Lara-Alecio

Jackson

(eds) The Handbook of Educational Theories. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, pp.1119–1128.

12.

Rita

Martin-Dunlop

(2011) Perceptions of the learning environment and associations with cognitive achievement among gifted biology students. Learning Environment Research 14 (1): 25–38.

13.

Roth

Givvin

(2008) Implication for math and science instruction from the TIMSS 1999 video study. Principal Leadership 8 (9): 22–27.

14.

Rudasill

Adelson

Callahan

(2013) Gifted students’ perceptions of parenting styles: Associations with cognitive ability, sex, race, and age. Gifted Child Quarterly 57 (1): 15–24.

15.

Smutny

(2012) Nurturing young gifted English language learners: A survival guide for parents. Parenting for High Potential 2 (2): 4–6.

16.

Subotnik

Olszewski-Kubilius

Worrell

(2012) A proposed direction forward for gifted education based on psychological science. Gifted Child Quarterly 56 (4): 176–188.

17.

Tunks

Gilles

(2013) A feeling for books: Using literature to promote social-emotional development. Understanding Our Gifted 25 (2): 14–19.

18.

Van Deur

(2011) Views of gifted elementary students about self-directed learning. Gifted and Talented International 26 (1-2): 111–120.

19.

(2011) Gifted students’ profiles and their attitudes towards a gifted program: The case of Vitenam. Gifted and Talented International 26 (1-2): 81–87.

20.

Woolcott

(2013). Giftedness and cultural accumulation: An information processing perspective. High Ability Studies 24 (2): 153–170.

21.

Zbainos

Kyritsi

(2011) Greek talented students’ motivation: A qualitative analysis. Gifted and Talented International 26 (1-2): 131–142.