engleski

Attitudes toward the gifted, emotional intelligence and implicit theories of intelligence - comparison of Croatian and Slovenian students

Implicit theories of intelligence represent one’s beliefs about intelligence which can have a significant impact on one’s attitudes and behaviour toward gifted students and gifted education. This relationship seems important in education of future teachers, since educators can importantly impact their student’s attitudes toward giftedness and gifted education. Emotional intelligence, as one of the key competences of future teachers and educational experts, can also play a significant role in the development of these attitudes. The aim of the present study is to explore the relationship between attitudes toward the gifted and gifted education, emotional intelligence and some aspects of the implicit theories of intelligence in the sample of Croatian and Slovenian students. Attitudes of students toward the gifted are being assessed with the 20-item questionnaire Opinion about the Gifted and Their Education, consisting of four subscales: support, elitism, acceleration, and self-perceptions. Emotional intelligence of students is being measured with the Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (UEK-27), consisting of three subscales: perceiving and understanding emotions, expressing and labeling emotions and managing and regulating of emotions. To explore students’ perceptions of intelligence, some items of the Implicit Theories Questionnaire (ITI-VIII) and a three-item questionnaire for implicit theories are being used. The study is being administered online and we are still in the process of data collection. Preliminary analyses on the sample of 80 students have shown that students, who support the gifted education, do not perceive giftedness as a sign of elitism and that students, who perceive giftedness as elitism, are not in favour of acceleration. Surprisingly, Croatian students who perceive themselves or their family members as gifted perceive gifted education as elitist. Students’ attitudes toward the gifted and gifted education are neither related to emotional intelligence of students nor to their implicit beliefs about intelligence. Differences between attitudes of Croatian and Slovenian students will be discussed.

Attitudes ; giftedness ; emotional intelligence ; implicit theories

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