Page 23 - Kukanja Gabrijelčič, Mojca, and Maruška Seničar Željeznov, eds. 2018. Teaching Gifted and Talented Children in A New Educational Era. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 23
Contributors of High Achieving Students’ Linguistic Competence
speed and effectiveness in comprehending textual information as well as nu-
ances and allusions. Regarding the top-down reading processes (the use of
the students’ knowledge base for a text’s comprehension and interpretation)
high ability students are strongly interested in extracting information from
text of increased difficulty, indicate broader skills in maintaining structured
information in long term memory and present greater speed in activating lin-
guistic representation from long-term to functional memory. Moreover, they
show stronger ability in correlating stored with incoming information dur-
ing textual processing, while showing an increased level of metacognitive
awareness of the processes used during the recovery and use of information
(Vosslamber, 2002).
As regards text production, high ability students seem to prefer produc-
ing text through the use of higher-order processes such as analysis, synthesis
and evaluation. Moreover, their writing demonstrates fluency, speech accu-
racy and adaptability to the communicative situation, as well as an appropri-
ate use of a developed sense of humour and satire e.g., puns and language
games (Decker-Collins & Parkhurst, 1996). Such a set of abilities usually results
in a more efficient involvement in meaning making and critical literacy pro-
cesses (Hoh, 2005). Significant differences favouring girls have been found in
their competence during the writing process (Swiatek, 2005) as well as their
overall higher academic performance in Language Arts discipline (Olszewski-
Kubilius & Lee, 2011).
Current Study’s Rationale
It can be understood by the research findings described previously, that
there is a considerable amount of empirical research focusing on high abil-
ity and gifted students’ creativity, motivation and linguistic features as well
as their relationship. It should be mentioned though that gifted students
might not demonstrate high academic achievement, making the exploration
of these relationships difficult. Also, high achieving students might not be
gifted in any way.
The majority of the studies focusing on high achievers, on the other hand,
do not focus systematically on such relationships as they investigate spe-
cific aspects of these students’ personality and school behaviour e.g. learning
styles and school strengths (Salmela & Uusiautti, 2015; Stewart, 1981), motiva-
tion (Dunn & Price, 1980; Lüftenegger et al., 2015) or psychological traits such
as self confidence (Ablard, 1997) and social/emotional skills (Bain & Bell, 2004).
So, they cannot form a solid theoretical framework, on which researchers can
elaborate. Also, the majority of the studies focus on Science (Stott & Hobden,
21
speed and effectiveness in comprehending textual information as well as nu-
ances and allusions. Regarding the top-down reading processes (the use of
the students’ knowledge base for a text’s comprehension and interpretation)
high ability students are strongly interested in extracting information from
text of increased difficulty, indicate broader skills in maintaining structured
information in long term memory and present greater speed in activating lin-
guistic representation from long-term to functional memory. Moreover, they
show stronger ability in correlating stored with incoming information dur-
ing textual processing, while showing an increased level of metacognitive
awareness of the processes used during the recovery and use of information
(Vosslamber, 2002).
As regards text production, high ability students seem to prefer produc-
ing text through the use of higher-order processes such as analysis, synthesis
and evaluation. Moreover, their writing demonstrates fluency, speech accu-
racy and adaptability to the communicative situation, as well as an appropri-
ate use of a developed sense of humour and satire e.g., puns and language
games (Decker-Collins & Parkhurst, 1996). Such a set of abilities usually results
in a more efficient involvement in meaning making and critical literacy pro-
cesses (Hoh, 2005). Significant differences favouring girls have been found in
their competence during the writing process (Swiatek, 2005) as well as their
overall higher academic performance in Language Arts discipline (Olszewski-
Kubilius & Lee, 2011).
Current Study’s Rationale
It can be understood by the research findings described previously, that
there is a considerable amount of empirical research focusing on high abil-
ity and gifted students’ creativity, motivation and linguistic features as well
as their relationship. It should be mentioned though that gifted students
might not demonstrate high academic achievement, making the exploration
of these relationships difficult. Also, high achieving students might not be
gifted in any way.
The majority of the studies focusing on high achievers, on the other hand,
do not focus systematically on such relationships as they investigate spe-
cific aspects of these students’ personality and school behaviour e.g. learning
styles and school strengths (Salmela & Uusiautti, 2015; Stewart, 1981), motiva-
tion (Dunn & Price, 1980; Lüftenegger et al., 2015) or psychological traits such
as self confidence (Ablard, 1997) and social/emotional skills (Bain & Bell, 2004).
So, they cannot form a solid theoretical framework, on which researchers can
elaborate. Also, the majority of the studies focus on Science (Stott & Hobden,
21
