Tendencies of teachers to myths about giftedness

Abstract

This article deals with myths about gifted pupils and examines the tendencies of teachers to these myths. In the theoretical part we describe the origin and creation of myths and we further define the variables that can affect the tendencies of teachers to myths about gifted pupils (length of teaching practice, type and grade of school). 973 teachers of primary and lower secondary schools from the Czech Republic participated in the research. A questionnaire was applied as a research technique. After exploratory factor analysis it included 7 statements distributed to two factors (F1: Education of gifted children; F2: Social and emotional maladjustment of gifted children). Based on these two factors, two summation indexes were created and compared in different groups of teachers. Results of the analysis show that teachers declare low tendencies to myths about gifted pupils. The overall results of comparison show, that the tendency to myths about gifted pupils is slightly decreasing as the length of teaching practice is increasing. Teachers working on the specialized schools for gifted children have higher tendency to myths about giftedness in comparison with the other types of schools. The tendency of teachers to myths is constant in the area of Education of gifted children and is decreasing in the area of Social and emotional maladjustment of gifted children. The study has an exploratory, not confirmatory character. © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology.