An analysis of attitudes towards the gifted students with learning difficulties using two samples of Greek and Czech primary school teachers

Abstract

The provision of gifted students with learning difficulties (GSLD) composes a complicated educational problem that deserves special care. This study explores teachers' attitudes towards the GSLD in two samples of primary school teachers: 225 Greek teachers and 158 teachers in the Czech Republic, 40-59 years of age and with 14-28 years of teaching experience. A questionnaire of 26 questions, created for the purpose of this study, was administered referring to teachers' attitudes towards opinions and information regarding the GSLD characteristics, along with three open-ended questions on the most preferable types of the GSLD educational provision. Through multidimensional scaling solutions in their trigonometric transformation (MDS-T) one large common and one minor separate system of items emerged for the two samples, which were meaningful in the direction of understanding teachers' difficulties in accepting the contradictory core of the GSLD characteristics and educational needs. These systems of attitudes are discussed in respect to their relative importance to Czech and Greek teachers and the respective educational settings.

Evaluating the effectiveness of PESS Departments’ Undergraduate Programs in Greek Universities, in terms of their correlation with PE School Curriculum: Creation and implementation of a criteria-based instrument

“…The distances of the points from the origin are not considered, and the researcher is interested in the relative positions of the items on the same continuum (circle) or surface (sphere). Homogeneous groups of items/stimuli can become apparent on the circular continuum or spherical surface which are formed by items on the same or neighboring points [29,30,31,46,47,52,53,54,55]. The homogeneous groups are interpreted according to the properties of the items belonging to them.…”

How Learning Disabilities Teachers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Define Students With Giftedness and Learning Disabilities

“…They may have dyslexia and experience spatial and visual processing difficulties (Berninger & Abbott, 2013;Wormald, Rogers, & Vialle, 2015), such as problems perceiving numbers and letters (Besnoy, 2006;Trail, 2011). They may also exhibit short or long-term memory problems (Berninger & Abbott, 2013;Gari et al, 2015), difficulty forming letters and spacing (dysgraphia) or difficulty with mathematical concepts (dyscalculia) (Dare & Nowicki, 2015;Vaughn, Wanzek, Murray, & Roberts, 2012). Storing and processing visual and auditory information is also problematic for such students (Gari et al, 2015;Wormald, 2009;Wong, 2013).…”

“…They may also exhibit short or long-term memory problems (Berninger & Abbott, 2013;Gari et al, 2015), difficulty forming letters and spacing (dysgraphia) or difficulty with mathematical concepts (dyscalculia) (Dare & Nowicki, 2015;Vaughn, Wanzek, Murray, & Roberts, 2012). Storing and processing visual and auditory information is also problematic for such students (Gari et al, 2015;Wormald, 2009;Wong, 2013). These difficulties inhibit SGLD achievement (Bull, Espy, & Wiebe, 2008;Geary, 2011).…”

“…Activities with time restrictions do not always enable SGLD to do as well as other students. They also have difficulty learning things by heart, their handwriting on written assessments is often incomprehensible and poor reading performance may prevent them from understanding what is required (Gari et al, 2015).…”

“…Research also indicates that the characteristics of SGLD are not straightforward. SGLD have a variety of strengths and weaknesses based on the areas of their gifts and disabilities (Gari, Mylonas, & Portešová, 2015;Song & Porath, 2011). These characteristics are a unique combination of both giftedness and learning disabilities (Barnard-Brak, Johnsen, Pond Hannig, & Wei, 2015).…”