Social support of talented students

Paper

Gifted students, children, or youth give evidence of high achievement capability in such areas as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities. The influental theory of Renzully of giftedness consists of three dimensions: above avarage abilities, creativity and high commitment to task or high motivation. The upgrade model emphasizes the social context of the talent development, as in a family, a school and among peers (Žagar, 2012).

In the article we explore the expression of social support of gifted pupils and their attitude to coaching. Coaching is a process that enables a client to achieve full potential by using techniques to facilitate her/his own thought processes in order to identify solutions and actions and to improve performance. The study involved 518 pupils from different secondary schools in Slovenia, aged 18, 311 gifted and 207 others, who were not recognised as gifted. We used the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (Malecki, Demaray in Elliott, 2000). The results show, that these two groups do not differ from each other in peceived social support nor in their assessed importance of support. Two-thirds of pupils consider that using coaching could improve achievment levels, and only a few less would choose it. This shows that young people are aware that talents wihout hard work, a positive attitude on life and support cannot develop and into achievement. Therefore coach support in addition to support from the surrounding area and educational institutions would be very helpful, maybe perhaps even decisive guidance in life. Research showed that a lot of gifted students do not show and develop their full potential (Dansinger, 2000).
In the article we conclude that it is necessesary to use coaching proses and in general individual approach to realise the potencial of gifted students.

Keywords: potential, gifted, social support, coach, coaching


Literature:
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National Institute of Education Educational Resourses Information Center (ERIC), 1-7.

Freeman, J. (2013). The long-term effects of families and educational provision on gifted children.
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Malecki, C. K., Demaray M. K. in Elliott, S. N. (2000). The child and adolescent social support scale. Northern Illinois University:
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Subotnik F. R., Olszewski – Kubilius P. in Worell F. C. (2011). Rethinking Giftedness and Gifted
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Žagar, D. (2012). Drugačni učenci. Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani,
Oddelek za psihologijo