Educational Responses to Students With High Abilities From the Parental Perspective

Abstract

Students who have high abilities demand educational responses, both inside and outside of the classroom. The best type of educational strategy depends on the characteristics of the students, the school, the educational system, and the country. For this reason, the level of attention paid to high-ability students can vary across nations. To guarantee the efficacy of programs that are implemented both inside and outside of school, it is essential to offer to these students the support that they need. The students' parents are a fundamental component of this scenario. This study evaluates the educational support provided to students with high abilities from a parental perspective. This study's aim is to evaluate the opinions that parents in several countries hold about the educational responses to gifted students, as well as to compare the types of strategies implemented in these countries' respective educational systems. Parents of students with high abilities completed an ad hoc online questionnaire that was designed to identify the types of educational responses, the students' participation in enrichment programs (inside and outside of school), the parents' level of satisfaction with these programs, and any difficulties or problems that occurred. A mixed methodology was used, with both quantitative and qualitative survey questions. ALCESTE software was used to analyze the open-ended (qualitative) questions. This research, which was directed by the Network of Research, Intervention and Evaluation in High Intellectual Abilities, focused on three countries: Mexico, Argentina, and Spain. Descriptive analysis were carried out for analyzing the questions related with the educational support and demographic information. Qualitative analysis were used to analyze open-ended questions. The results provide evidence on which types of educational responses are being implemented in those countries, how they are being used, and whether they offer appropriate support for the needs of high-ability students.

Emotions and Reactions to the Confinement by COVID-19 of Children and Adolescents With High Abilities and Community Samples: A Mixed Methods Research Study

“…The main advantage of this software is that the program establishes categories through the analysis it performs (Illia et al, 2012). ALCESTE has been widely used in high capacity studies (Villatte et al, 2011;Rodríguez-Naveiras et al, 2019), the study of COVID-19 representations in children (Idoiaga et al, 2020), and studies on episodic memory and self-awareness in Asperger Syndrome (Chaput et al, 2013), among others.…”

“Developing Capabilities”. Inclusive Extracurricular Enrichment Programs to Improve the Well-Being of Gifted Adolescents

“…A wide range of resources are available for offering enrichment to students with high intellectual abilities depending on the characteristics of the educational system, the school, the students, etc. (Rodríguez-Naveiras et al, 2019), including establishing agreements with local actors associated with higher education, for example, participating in university mentorships (Ibáñez et al, 2020) or enrichment programs (Sastre-Riba, 2013). Being able to work in special programs with like-minded peers and experts is a measure valued by gifted students enrolled in mixed schools (Ireland et al, 2020).…”

“…In this regard, gifted students cannot be overlooked (Herranz and Sánchez, 2019). Our laws on education conform to the necessity of adequately addressing pupils' specific characteristics, but in practice, they are not often receiving what they truly need (Ersoy and Uysal, 2018;Parr and Stevens, 2019;Rodríguez-Naveiras et al, 2019), leading to underachievement (Siegle, 2018;Lamanna et al, 2019) and even school failure and early school withdrawal (Blaas, 2014).…”

Psychological Well-Being and Its Relations to School Trajectory and Family Educational Capital in High Intellectual Ability Adolescents

“…An essential variable of the family context is the educational level of the parents, which, in turn, is closely associated with variables of the socio-economic and environments, and with what is referred as family cultural capital [60,63]. This relationship depends significantly on factors such as the access to cultural activities and goods at home and the education of parents, parallel to their expectations, their beliefs about education and their involvement (affective and instrumental) in educational guidance to their children [64][65][66][67][68][69]. The studies by Hernández and Bazán [70] have shown the association among parents' education levels, the type of support they give to their children's education, and its effects on their children academic results or school trajectories.…”