Evaluating the status of gifted education in the Gulf cooperation Council Countries

Abstract

The aim of this study is to highlight the current status of gifted education in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Based on articles, books, and projects on gifted education published in these countries, besides relevant information gleaned from semi-structured interviews with 120 gifted education teachers (male = 53, female = 67), the researcher gathered structured data on gifted education policies and initiatives in the targeted countries. The qualitative-analytical approach was used to analyze the responses of teachers in semi-structured interviews, documents, and literature. The descriptive-analytical method was used to characterize the demographic data that the researcher obtained from the teachers. The study’s results revealed the differences between the Gulf Cooperation Council countries’ policies and procedures for identifying and nurturing gifted students. There were also weaknesses related to the absence of a common definition of giftedness, a dearth of tools to identify gifted students, the deficiency of programs to prepare teachers for teaching gifted students, and finally, the deficiency of programs for the artistically gifted due to cultural considerations.

Keywords:

• Evaluation
• gifted education
• the Gulf Cooperation Council countries
• qualitative-analytical
• demographical information

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, for financial support under annual research. GRANT3,294.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yusra Zaki Aboud

Yusra Zaki Aboud The researcher was a professor’s assistant at Damascus University (2007–2010). Then an Associate Professor at the National Research Centre for Giftedness and Creativity at King Faisal University (2010–now), she received an M.A. degree in evaluation and assessment at the American University of Beirut and a PhD in evaluation and assessment at Damascus University. She is a consultant at the National Centre for Assessment and Evaluation. Her major areas of research are evaluation and assessment, gifted education, differentiated instruction, and teacher and learner development. She has published articles in international journals on these areas. She has developed many test and scales such as to Saudi environment such as: CogAt5, SAGES-2, GRS-S, and GCAT