Heterogeneity across Australian ICT policies for education of gifted students.

This paper critically evaluates the current status of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policies for gifted education in Australia, highlighting the lack of a comprehensive understanding and analysis of the heterogeneity across these policies. Despite the increasing recognition of the importance of ICT's importance in meeting the unique needs of gifted learners, there is a dearth of research systematically investigating the variations in policy frameworks, approaches to ICT integration, and their impact on educational outcomes for gifted students. This research problem necessitates an in-depth exploration of the heterogeneous nature of Australian ICT policies and their implications for promoting equitable access and fostering effective educational experiences. To address this gap, relevant policy documents and research articles on Australian ICT policies for gifted education were collected via Scopes, Web of Sciences, and Google Scholar. The search yielded six policy documents and 14 critical research articles. Our findings reveal that while Australia has definite policies for educating gifted students, these policy documents rarely mention ICT policies specifically related to gifted education. In fact, many elements of these policies only imply use of ICT as facilitation factors. Research articles highlight the inadequacies of sufficient ICT policies for gifted children in rural and remote locations, especially as they pertain to Aboriginal peoples, thereby violating the principles of equity in education. Moreover, the performance of gifted students on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects has been declining on international tests, indicating the inadequacies of Australian policies for the education of gifted students in these areas. Here, ICT policies can provide substantial solutions to address these challenges.

Avaliação de Estudante com Altas Habilidades/Superdotação Pré e Pós-Oferta de Enriquecimento Curricular / Evaluation of Student with High Ability/Giftedness Pre and Post Curriculum Enrichment Offer / Evaluación de Estudiante con Altas Capacidades/ Superdotación Pre y Post Oferta de Enriquecimiento Curricular

Objetiva-se apresentar o processo de avaliação e confirmação dos indicadores de Altas Habilidades/Superdotação de um estudante, pré e pós-oferta de enriquecimento intracurricular e extracurricular. A pesquisa configura-se como descritiva, do tipo casuístico. Participou do estudo um estudante com indicadores de Altas Habilidades/Superdotação, matriculado nos anos iniciais do Ensino Fundamental de uma escola pública estadual do interior de São Paulo. A coleta de dados foi realizada na escola e no Centro de Psicologia Aplicada de uma Universidade Pública da cidade, por meio de uma avaliação multimodal, envolvendo uma bateria de instrumentos aplicados junto à mãe e ao estudante, incluindo avaliação pedagógica, psicológica e psicomotora. Os resultados indicaram que o estudante apresenta fortes indicadores de Altas Habilidades/Superdotação, demonstrando desempenho acima da média, com destaque em matemática, leitura e escrita, os quais puderam ser confirmados tanto pela avaliação pedagógica quanto pela psicológica, e alto desempenho na área de psicomotricidade. A oferta de enriquecimento intracurricular e extracurricular contribuiu para melhorar o desempenho do estudante.

The objective is to present the process of evaluating and confirming the indicators of High Abilities/Giftedness of a student, pre and post-offer for intracurricular and extracurricular enrichment. The research is descriptive, of the casuistic type. A student with indicators of High Abilities/Giftedness, enrolled in the early years of Elementary School from a state public school in the state of São Paulo, participated in the study. Data collection was carried out at the school and at the Applied Psychology Center of a Public University in the city through a multimodal assessment, involving a battery of instruments applied to the mother and student, including pedagogical, psychological and psychomotor assessment. The results indicated that the student has strong indicators of High Abilities/Giftedness, demonstrating above-average performance, especially in mathematics, reading and writing, which could be confirmed by both the pedagogical and psychological assessment, and high performance in the area of psychomotricity. Offering intra and extra-curricular enrichment has contributed to improving the student's performance.

El objetivo deste estudio es presentar el proceso de evaluación y confirmación de los indicadores de Altas Capacidades/Superdotación, antes y después de la oferta de enriquecimiento intracurricular y extracurricular. La investigación es descriptiva, de tipo casuístico. Participó en el estudio un estudiante con indicadores de Altas Capacidades/ Superdotación matriculado en los primeros años de la Escuela Primaria, de una escuela pública estatal en el interior de São Paulo. La recolección de datos se realizó en la escuela y en el Centro de Psicología Aplicada de una Universidad Pública de la ciudad. Através de una evaluación multimodal, que involucró una batería de instrumentos aplicados a la madre y al alumno, incluyendo evaluación pedagógica, psicológica y psicomotora. Los resultados indicaron que el estudiante tiene fuertes indicadores de Altas Capacidades/Superdotación, demostrando un desempeño superior al promedio, con énfasis en matemáticas, lectura y escritura, lo cual podría ser confirmado tanto por la evaluación pedagógica, la psicológica y de alto desempeño en el área de Psicomotricidad. Ofrecer enriquecimiento intra y extracurricular ha contribuido a mejorar el rendimiento de los estudiantes.

Enhancing academic engagement of underachieving gifted students: The effects of Martin's educational program.

INTRODUCTION: Gifted students are superior to their peers in terms of cognitive, educational, scientific, creativity, and artistic abilities. There are also gifted students who struggle with cognitive, educational, social, emotional, and behavioral development, especially academic performance. They are called underachieving students. One of the main problems of these students is the low level of academic engagement in educational settings. Thus, this study investigated the effectiveness of Martin's educational program on academic engagement (behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and agency) of underachieving gifted students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty underachieving gifted students were selected by purposeful sampling from a high school in Isfahan, Iran, and were divided randomly into the experimental (n = 15) and the control (n = 15) groups. All participants completed the students' academic engagement questionnaire (behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, cognitive engagement, and agency engagement) at pre/post-test. RESULTS: The findings showed that Martin's cognitive-behavioral program had a significant effect on academic engagement and its subscales, including behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, cognitive engagement, and agency engagement. CONCLUSION: School counselors could benefit Martin's cognitive-behavioral program to promote the academic engagement of underachieving gifted students.

Percepção de alunos superdotados, mães e professores acerca da aceleração do ensino / Gifted students, mothers and teachers's perceptions about acceleration

O objetivo deste estudo exploratório foi investigar a percepção de alunos superdotados, do ensino fundamental, submetidos a procedimentos de aceleração de ensino quando frequentavam a educação infantil, suas mães e professores acerca dessa prática. Foram entrevistados 12 estudantes, 12 mães, 10 professores de salas de aula regular e cinco docentes que atuavam em um programa de atendimento a alunos superdotados. Os resultados indicaram que a aceleração foi uma intervenção bem-sucedida para os alunos, não acarretando perdas acadêmicas ou dificuldades socioemocionais nas séries seguintes. Mães e alunos avaliaram positivamente a experiência de aceleração de ensino, ao passo que os professores se posicionaram desfavoravelmente, embora não tenham identificado problemas emocionais ou de desempenho escolar em seus alunos acelerados

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the perception of elementary school gifted students, who went through the process of acceleration when attending early childhood education, their mothers and teachers about this practice. Twelve students, 12 mothers, 10 teachers from regular classrooms and five teachers from a program for gifted students were interviewed. The results indicated that academic acceleration was a successful intervention for students, not resulting in academic losses or socio-emotional difficulties in the following grades. Mothers and students have evaluated acceleration positively while teachers positioned themselves unfavorably in relation to acceleration, although they have not identified emotional or academic problems in their accelerated students

Estudantes superdotados e underachievers: prevalência, características, interesses e estilos de aprendizagem / Gifted student and underachievers: prevalence, characteristics, preferences, interests and learning styles / Estudiantes superdotados y underachievers: prevalencia, características, intereses y estilos de aprendizaje

O foco deste estudo foi examinar o fenômeno underachievement, definido como discrepância entre o potencial revelado (habilidade) e a performance (realização), particularmente no contexto escolar, em alunos superdotados. Os objetivos foram identificar a prevalência da condição de baixa performance acadêmica entre 96 alunos que frequentavam um atendimento educacional especializado ao estudante com altas habilidades/superdotação, bem como descrever o perfil de superdotados (n=53) e de superdotados underachievers (n=43) em relação a variáveis demográficas, habilidades, preferências, interesses, aspectos motivacionais, características pessoais, relações interpessoais, desempenho acadêmico e estilos de aprendizagem. Utilizou-se uma composição de instrumentos, tais como análise documental, questionário demográfico e escalas de características, interesses e estilos de aprendizagem, para a coleta dos dados. Os resultados indicaram que existem superdotados underachievers entre estudantes superdotados e que superdotação distingue-se pela heterogeneidade de características pessoais e escolares.

The focus of this study was to examine the underachievement phenomenon in gifted students, defined as the discrepancy between the potential (ability) and the performance, particularly in the school context. The purposes were to identify the prevalence of the low performance condition among 96 students who attended a specialized educational service for the gifted, as well as to describe the profile of gifted (n=53) and gifted underachiever students (n=43) with respect to demographic variables, abilities, preferences, interests, motivation, personal characteristics, interpersonal relationships, academic performance, and learning styles. A set of instruments, such as analysis of documents, demographic questionnaire, and scales of characteristics, interests and learning styles were used to collect the data. The results indicated that there are underachievers among gifted students and that giftedness is characterized by heterogeneous personal and school characteristics.

El punto central de este estudio fue examinar el fenómeno underachievement, definido como discrepancia entre el potencial revelado (habilidad) y el desempeño (realización), particularmente en el contexto escolar, en alumnos superdotados. Los objetivos fueron identificar la prevalencia de la condición del bajo desempeño académico entre 96 alumnos que frecuentaban un atendimiento educacional especializado al estudiante con altas habilidades/ superdotación, así como describir el perfil de superdotados (n=53) y de superdotados underachievers (n=43) en relación a variables demográficas, habilidades, preferencias, intereses, aspectos motivadores, características personales, relaciones interpersonales, desempeño académico y estilos de aprendizaje. Se utilizó una composición de instrumentos como análisis documental, cuestionarios demográficos y escalas de características, intereses y estilos de aprendizaje para la reunión de los datos. Los resultados indicaron que existen superdotados underachievers entre estudiantes superdotados y que superdotación se difiere por la heterogeneidad de características personales y escolares.