An enrichment program for students with high intellectual ability: Positive effects on school adaptation

Abstract

This article notes the low rate of highly talented or gifted students formally identified in Spain compared to international benchmarks. These students are not properly identified, so a lack of specific educational responses for these highly talented students is also expected. Trying to counteract this trend, this article presents an enrichment program imparted to a group of students with high intellectual abilities during the academic year 2017/18 over three weekly sessions during school hours, where emerging technologies were an important key in how it was delivered. The experimental design included an experimental group of high ability students and two control groups, one consisting of students with high abilities who did not receive specific educational responses and another consisting of a group of regular schoolchildren in terms of abilities. The results showed that the implementation of specific educational responses improved children’s levels of adaptation and in some cases, their school performance. These data are discussed in an attempt to recommend enrichment programs integrated into the classroom as an appropriate educational response to gifted or high ability students. Attention to diversity of all students in the classroom is possible, for example by resorting to ICT, increasing the educational inclusion of students with high intellectual capacity. Este trabajo apunta la reducida tasa de alumnado con características de superdotación o altas capacidades identificados formalmente en España tomando los referenciales internacionales. Este alumnado no es debidamente identificado, entonces también se anticipa la falta de respuestas educativas específicas para estos escolares con altas capacidades. Intentando contrariar esta tendencia, este artículo presenta un programa de enriquecimiento aplicado a un grupo de alumnos y alumnas con altas capacidades intelectuales durante el curso académico de 2017/18 a lo largo de tres sesiones semanales en horario escolar y donde las tecnologías emergentes tienen una importancia clave en el desarrollo del mismo. En el plano experimental, se tomó un grupo experimental de escolares con altas capacidades y dos grupos de control, uno conformado por alumnado con altas capacidades que no reciben respuestas educativas específicas y otro constituido por un grupo de escolares regulares en términos de capacidades. Los resultados muestran que la implementación de respuestas educativas específicas mejora los niveles de adaptación infantil y, en algunos casos, su rendimiento escolar. Se discuten estos datos en una tentativa de recomendación de programas de enriquecimiento integrados en las clases como respuesta educativa apropiada a los escolares con superdotación o altas capacidades. La atención a la diversidad de todo el alumnado en las aulas es posible, por ejemplo, recurriendo a las TIC, favoreciendo la inclusión educativa del alumnado con altas capacidades.

Analysing Educational Interventions with Gifted Students. Systematic Review

“…In this sense, general conclusions which may be extracted from this work and concerning data previously shown, it can be confirmed that two intervention modalities exist: first of all, the acceleration concerning an academic year further than the one in which the student has officially joined [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]; secondly, curricular enrichment programmes [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]. However, these latter are more disperse and not always fulfill students’ expectations.…”

“…Specifically, they developed an intervention based on 3 modules to examine the abilities of gifted students and found positive effects for them, as this level matches their actual educational needs and potential. Another of the included studies based on an enrichment programme is the one developed by García-Perales and Almeida [ 38 ], in which the use of technology played a critical role. Among their findings, they found that the 3-week programme based on the implementation of specific educational responses improves children’s adaptation levels and, in some cases, their school performance.…”

“…The first one is related to the acceleration of students, considering the supremacy of the positive aspects over the negative ones. The promotion of students to higher grades ensures that the student finds a curriculum adapted to his or her cognitive ability and shares classes with peers of similar maturation to his or her own [ 36 , 38 ]. The second modality is related to keeping students in their class of reference, but implementing curricular enrichment programmes, where the content to be learned goes beyond basic curriculum.…”

Comparison Between Performance Levels for Mathematical Competence: Results for the Sex Variable

“…Educational processes nowadays are characterized by homogeneity and multidimensionality, which makes it difficult to deal with the diverse potentials, needs, and interests in the classroom. Occasionally, there may also be a lack of diagnostics that would allow for the modified, individualized educational responses which are common for students who are highly capable and have high aptitudes (García-Perales and Almeida, 2019). Discovering and working on talent should be a basic objective in an advanced society, and generalizing the detection process and targeting it at the entire school population would be an interesting way of achieving that aim.…”

Math Performance and Sex: The Predictive Capacity of Self-Efficacy, Interest and Motivation for Learning Mathematics

“…In addition, there are studies which noted that girls suffered from more prejudice in the diagnostic process for giftedness (Kerr, 2000;Landau, 2003;Jiménez, 2014), existing stereotypes that influence their academic and professional choices in education (Bian et al, 2017) and showing higher levels of emotional problems with respect to gifted boys (Huang et al, 2020). Therefore, there is a need to give a high profile to giftedness, regardless of sex (Mandelman et al, 2010;Hernández and Gutiérrez, 2014;Jaime and Gutiérrez, 2017;García-Perales and Almeida, 2019).…”