Teachers’ competencies in identifying gifted students in public schools in Palestine

Abstract

The study aimed to identify the competencies necessary for teachers in government schools in the Governorates of the northern West Bank to identify gifted and talented students from the teachers' perspective, based on variables such as gender, specialization, teaching stage, educational qualification, years of experience, and the governorate. To achieve this, the researcher used a descriptive approach by collecting quantitative data through distributing an electronic questionnaire to a convenient sample of 999 male and female teachers from government schools in the Nablus, Jenin, and Tulkarm governorates. The study results revealed the most important personal and academic competencies of teachers in detecting the talented, and showed statistically significant differences at a significance level (α<.05) in the averages of teachers' competencies in detecting talented students based on the variables of gender, specialization, teaching stage, educational qualification, and the governorate where teachers work. Additionally, the results indicated no statistically significant differences at a significance level (α<.05) in the averages of teachers' competencies attributed to the variable of years of experience. In light of the study results and discussion, the researcher recommended the necessity of providing teachers with guidance materials related to detecting the talented, using tests and measures that assist in this process, in addition to training educational supervisors and encouraging them to benefit from supervisory visits to enhance the personal and academic competencies of teachers. The researcher also emphasized the importance of developing the educational system in terms of curricula and infrastructure.