Underachieving gifted students are a very diverse group affected by a variety of factors. In this thesis I dealt with the issue of recognition of these populations, their characteristics and causes of failure. I also investigated whether these students receive some special treatments, and all who are involved in working with them.
In the empirical part, I used a questionnaire, which was drawn up with a help of literature, to review and check my previously set hypotheses. The study involved 42 teachers. Among them, 34 of them completed the questionnaire in full. Participating teachers and some other school professionals are employed in primary schools in municipalities of Kamnik, Komenda, Domžale, Mengeš and Moravče.
The questionnaire is divided into four sections. The first set includes questions, which have helped me gather basic information on the respondents. In the following questions I wanted to get answers about who underachieving gifted students are, whether teachers recognize the failure in gifted students and how they deal with and address these students. The central part of the questionnaire is divided into two parts, seeking the opinion about the gifted and underachieving gifted students. This part is aimed at identifying the teacher's beliefs and expectations of these groups of students. The purpose of the last set of questions was to explore the teachers' opinions about the causes, which may affect their learning underachievement.
The analysis of results obtained has confirmed two hypotheses, namely that schools rarely involve special educators in the work of underachieving gifted students and that the factors affecting the failure of talented students, are primarily internal. In doing so, we should also emphasise the importance of external factors (school, family, peers ...), since these also influence the failure to a large extent. Proper methods of help may allow underachieving gifted students to become successful. The hypotheses that teachers have the same expectations of all talented students has been denied, because our research has shown that teachers have higher expectations of more successful gifted students. Based on the results of the analysis I can conclude that teachers have different expectations of any individual, which are consistent with their abilities.
|