The Forgotten Gift: An Exploration of Student and Teacher Perceptions of Giftedness

For many years educators have faced numerous challenges associated with defining giftedness and identifying gifted students in the classroom. One of the challenges lies not only in finding the most appropriate means to identify giftedness in students but to find an appropriate means to identify giftedness in students in multiple areas. Educators have long relied on intelligence tests to identify giftedness, which have severely limited the identification process of gifted students. This study examined the relationships among ninth grade students\u27 perceptions of their giftedness and teachers\u27 perceptions of these students\u27 giftedness in the areas of intellectual skills, academic abilities, leadership skills, creativity, and artistic performance. Much misinformation and ignorance exist among teachers of gifted students resulting in teachers\u27 negative perceptions of these students. If teachers\u27 perceptions of gifted students signify that they do not believe students to be gifted, it could have a direct, negative impact on students\u27 performance. The results of this study indicate that the participating teachers are very skilled at identifying giftedness among their students and have positive perceptions of what it means to be gifted. The results of this study also depicted that the best two predictors of students\u27 academic success as indicated by grade point averages, were teachers\u27 perceptions of students\u27 giftedness in intellectual skills and students\u27 perceptions of their giftedness in academic skills