Page 30 - 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. 30
odoros P. Kokkinos, Aikaterini D. Gari, and Lavrentios G. Dellassoudas
As regards the second research question, namely the contribution of lin-
guistic features, creativity and motivation to high achieving students’ lan-
guage performance, it seems that there is a relationship among these three
factors that emerged from the current study but, overall, high language per-
formance cannot be explained and predicted by linguistic, motivation and
creativity features. This may happen mainly due to the fact that this perfor-
mance is a specific ‘forced’ situation of prestige and ‘power gaining’ in order
to get to higher education in the Greek educational system in which situa-
tion the student is expected to fulfil expectations of parents and of private
teachers outside state education. This is combined with the high subjectiv-
ity of students’ essay correction based on the students’ conformation and
memorization of specific successful writing ‘recipes’ commercially available.
Therefore, a definitive answer to the second research question could not be
given by the current study’s results as the findings call for further study in
order for these relationships to be generalized.
As regards the third research question, that significant differences would
be found in favour of girls, it was verified only for Request for Advanced
Reading Resources. Therefore, the initial hypothesis of significant gender dif-
ferences in favour of girls in all three features groups should be rejected.
This finding is in the same line with other findings that don’t suggest an
overall higher linguistic performance for girls (Olszewski-Kubilius & Lee, 2011;
Swiatek, 2005).
The differences found by school type in favour of private schools possi-
bly suggests that maybe there is an influence by the teaching strategies and
the overall educational climate and practices followed in Private Schools (e.g.
enrichment groups, advanced research projects etc.). It seems that respon-
siveness to problem solving questioning emerges as a common differential
element across two out of these three independent variables, possibly sug-
gesting that it is a strong feature of high achieving students regardless of
gender and specific curriculum that may derive by school type attendance.
It seems that high achieving students’ linguistic, creativity and motivation
features’ relationship to linguistic performance partially resembles with that
of high ability/gifted students. Task Commitment has already been found to
be a significant factor of high abilities/giftedness (Lashaway-Bokina, 2000;
Siegle & McCoach, 2005) and the findings of the current study offer insight
on the emergence of the same factor in high achieving students too.
Overall, the criteria for the effective Language Arts curriculum design con-
cerning high achieving students’ should not ignore the parameters of mo-
tivation and creative behaviour. Also, a need for a broader use of research
28
As regards the second research question, namely the contribution of lin-
guistic features, creativity and motivation to high achieving students’ lan-
guage performance, it seems that there is a relationship among these three
factors that emerged from the current study but, overall, high language per-
formance cannot be explained and predicted by linguistic, motivation and
creativity features. This may happen mainly due to the fact that this perfor-
mance is a specific ‘forced’ situation of prestige and ‘power gaining’ in order
to get to higher education in the Greek educational system in which situa-
tion the student is expected to fulfil expectations of parents and of private
teachers outside state education. This is combined with the high subjectiv-
ity of students’ essay correction based on the students’ conformation and
memorization of specific successful writing ‘recipes’ commercially available.
Therefore, a definitive answer to the second research question could not be
given by the current study’s results as the findings call for further study in
order for these relationships to be generalized.
As regards the third research question, that significant differences would
be found in favour of girls, it was verified only for Request for Advanced
Reading Resources. Therefore, the initial hypothesis of significant gender dif-
ferences in favour of girls in all three features groups should be rejected.
This finding is in the same line with other findings that don’t suggest an
overall higher linguistic performance for girls (Olszewski-Kubilius & Lee, 2011;
Swiatek, 2005).
The differences found by school type in favour of private schools possi-
bly suggests that maybe there is an influence by the teaching strategies and
the overall educational climate and practices followed in Private Schools (e.g.
enrichment groups, advanced research projects etc.). It seems that respon-
siveness to problem solving questioning emerges as a common differential
element across two out of these three independent variables, possibly sug-
gesting that it is a strong feature of high achieving students regardless of
gender and specific curriculum that may derive by school type attendance.
It seems that high achieving students’ linguistic, creativity and motivation
features’ relationship to linguistic performance partially resembles with that
of high ability/gifted students. Task Commitment has already been found to
be a significant factor of high abilities/giftedness (Lashaway-Bokina, 2000;
Siegle & McCoach, 2005) and the findings of the current study offer insight
on the emergence of the same factor in high achieving students too.
Overall, the criteria for the effective Language Arts curriculum design con-
cerning high achieving students’ should not ignore the parameters of mo-
tivation and creative behaviour. Also, a need for a broader use of research
28
