Competencies for a Classroom Teacher to Support Gifted Students in the Regular Classroom: A Qualitative Research

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to research and reveal the competencies for classroom teachers to support gifted students in the regular classrooms. In order to achieve this main purpose, researcher conducted a case study and an action research of the qualitative research design, respectively. Participants of the study were five classroom teachers, their gifted students, parents of the gifted, school administrators and other classroom and elementary school teachers. Unstructured interviews, observations, focus group interviews, documents and products used to collect data during the case study and action research phases. Approximately 44 hours of interviews, 70 course hours of observations and 311 documents and/or products collected during case study and action research processes. Content analysis and descriptive analysis were run to analyze the data. Calculated inter-coder reliability coefficient for content analysis was found to be .78. Overall analysis revealed thirty-four competencies under eight different competency areas on four different stages. Findings were discussed with regard to related literature and recommendations for practitioners and for further research were presented.