Identification of Artistically Gifted Children in Visual Arts Teaching/Identifikacija likovno nadarene djece u nastavi likovne kulture

Abstract

The aim of this research was to evaluate how teachers recognize younger pupils who are artistically gifted (in visual arts). The participants were 150 elementary school teachers (1 st to 4 th grade) from the Split-Dalmatia County and the Dubrovnik-Neretva County in Croatia. Their task was to answer the questions in the two-part questionnaire in a truthful manner. The results showed that the participants were familiar with the characteristics by which they could recognize gifted children. There were also confirmed statistically significant differences in identifying younger gifted pupils, regarding the teachers' work experience and level of education. The more educated and less experienced teachers were less successful in identifying gifted pupils than their more experienced, but less educated colleagues. No significant influence of the rural or urban background was noticed. We concluded that experience was a relevant factor in identifying gifted pupils.

A Comparison between Competencies of Teachers and Students of Teacher Education in Recognizing Artistically Gifted Students

“…Comparing this research with the other of this kind we can generally conclude that teachers know what are the factors of artistic talent through which they can identify artistically gifted children. However, when observing the work of art itself, as was the case in the research conducted by Duh and Lep (2008) and, Brajcic and Kuscevic (2020), they fail to identify an artistically gifted student.…”

“…Previous research that assessed teachers' ability to recognize artistic talent, using qualitative methods (Duh & Lep, 2008;Brajcic & Kuscevic, 2020) showed a very low level of ability to recognize artistically gifted children by teachers and educators.. Research conducted in Slovenia (Duh˛& Lep, 2008) and research conducted in Croatia (Brajcic & Kuscevic, 2020) showed that only 10% of teachers and educators are able to identify artistically gifted children. In the mentioned researched teachers and educators were offered art works of children for judgment.…”

“…In a similar study (Brajcic & Kuscevic, 2020) conducted with preschool teachers, it was found that identifying artistically gifted children was a major challenge for educators. The study included 72 artworks of preschool children identified by the educators as gifted in the visual arts field.…”