The Effect of an Enrichment Program on Developing Analytical, Creative, and Practical Abilities of Elementary Gifted Students

Abstract

The current study investigated the effects of a school enrichment program on the analytical, creative, and practical abilities of elementary gifted students. Forty-two students (N = 42) from the fifth and sixth grade of the Al-Shawkany School in Saudi Arabia were randomly chosen to participate in the study according to two criteria: (a) being among the top 5% on the general ability test designed for the Saudi environment and (b) a general studies achievement test score of 90% to 100%. The enrichment program lasted 6 weeks. The Aurora Battery was administered to the participants at the beginning as well as at the end of the program. The Mann-Whitney U test for independent groups yielded statistically significant differences between the medians of the experimental and control groups in analytical and creative abilities in favor of the experimental group. There were no statistically significant differences in the practical abilities and the total score. Results of the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test showed that there were statistically significant differences between the medians of the experimental group on pretest and posttest of the analytical and creative abilities, whereas there were no statistically significant differences in practical abilities and in the total score. A multivariate Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that there were significant differences among the three abilities in favor of analytical abilities.

Growing Up Under Pressure

“…The OEM model has been shown to be efficacious in a number of empirical studies (Aljughaiman & Ayoub, 2012a, 2012b. According to the current literature, this is the only model representative of gifted education programs in the Kingdom that has been systematically evaluated empirically.…”

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Aurora-a Battery on Children

“…The reliability coefficient of the Aurora-a-test was measured using Cronbach's alpha. These values were all statistically significant (Aljughaiman & Ayoub, 2012).…”

“…10;2016 achievement scores on the KS and MidYIS tests (Kornilov et al, 2012). Aljughaiman & Ayoub (2012) translated the Aurora into Arabic and standardized the Aurora in Saudi Arabia. They calculated the validity of Aurora test by confirmatory factor analysis that supported the construct validity of Aurora-a.…”

Science diary of a gifted student

“…Also appropriate programmes for these schools should be prepared (Howley et al, 2012). Aljughaiman and Ayoub (2012) investigated the effects of a school enrichment program on the analytical, creative, and practical abilities of elementary gifted students. They stated that enrichment program ensured analytical, creative, and practical abilities of elementary gifted students.…”