Date of Defense
11-6-2024 2:30 PM
Location
Building H1 - 0052
Document Type
Thesis Defense
College
College of Education
Department
Curriculum & Instruction
First Advisor
Prof. Ali Shehadeh
Abstract
The diverse and constantly changing educational environment, along with students’ varying needs, backgrounds, and abilities, highlights the importance of teachers’ self-efficacy. As education develops, teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs become crucial to influencing their teaching methods and interactions with students of exceptional abilities. Self-efficacy is defined as the individuals’ confidence in their ability to successfully execute tasks and achieve desired outcomes. This study investigates the beliefs of English language teachers regarding their ability to identify and teach gifted students, focusing on how they perceive their own skills in teaching primary grade level students (grades 1, 2, and 3) with exceptional intellectual abilities in English language education. It followed a qualitative research design and collected data using an open-ended survey consisting of questions that encouraged participants to provide detailed and unrestricted responses. This study also performed purposeful sampling to select respondents with the necessary knowledge and experience to offer rich and meaningful data. This study targeted English language teachers (n = 15) at charter schools in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. It also conducted snowball sampling by asking initial participants to refer to others who met the inclusion criteria. Data were analyzed in two stages: first, individual responses to each survey question were examined to understand teachers’ beliefs, and second, emerging themes were identified. This study showed that all participants expressed passion for educating gifted students. They reported using various teaching strategies to identify gifted students, such as differentiated instruction and assessment. They also reflected on their classroom management methods and the instruments they used to determine, which students were gifted, with limited support from their schools regarding identification and resource provision. The teachers acknowledged the challenges in identifying and teaching gifted students, including time constraints and workload. Through their experience, the respondents provided valuable recommendations in the domain of gifted education, and the findings highlighted several practical implications and provided recommendations for future research.
Included in
EXPLORING ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ SELF-EFFICACY BELIEFS IN RELATION TO TEACHING GIFTED STUDENTS
Building H1 - 0052
The diverse and constantly changing educational environment, along with students’ varying needs, backgrounds, and abilities, highlights the importance of teachers’ self-efficacy. As education develops, teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs become crucial to influencing their teaching methods and interactions with students of exceptional abilities. Self-efficacy is defined as the individuals’ confidence in their ability to successfully execute tasks and achieve desired outcomes. This study investigates the beliefs of English language teachers regarding their ability to identify and teach gifted students, focusing on how they perceive their own skills in teaching primary grade level students (grades 1, 2, and 3) with exceptional intellectual abilities in English language education. It followed a qualitative research design and collected data using an open-ended survey consisting of questions that encouraged participants to provide detailed and unrestricted responses. This study also performed purposeful sampling to select respondents with the necessary knowledge and experience to offer rich and meaningful data. This study targeted English language teachers (n = 15) at charter schools in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. It also conducted snowball sampling by asking initial participants to refer to others who met the inclusion criteria. Data were analyzed in two stages: first, individual responses to each survey question were examined to understand teachers’ beliefs, and second, emerging themes were identified. This study showed that all participants expressed passion for educating gifted students. They reported using various teaching strategies to identify gifted students, such as differentiated instruction and assessment. They also reflected on their classroom management methods and the instruments they used to determine, which students were gifted, with limited support from their schools regarding identification and resource provision. The teachers acknowledged the challenges in identifying and teaching gifted students, including time constraints and workload. Through their experience, the respondents provided valuable recommendations in the domain of gifted education, and the findings highlighted several practical implications and provided recommendations for future research.