A identificação do aluno com potencial para altas habilidades/ superdotação no sistema educacional adventista em Manaus

Abstract

The current perspective of the educational system opts for a model of school which is understanding, integrating and open to diversity. This standard generates the need for qualified professionals who know how to diagnose individual students learning capacities, as to guide and to assist their special educational needs as well. Within this framework of diversity, we draw attention to exceptionally gifted students who, because of their high learning ability and specific motivations, require enriching educational experiences favorable to the use and development of their abilities. However, one of the greatest challenges in the area of highly gifted students consists of visualizing efficient ways to recognize children that present signs of superior ability with the highest possible degree of success, as well as economy of time and resources. In this way, the identification of such students is inserted into an extremely complex problem due to the inherent limitations of any measurement instrument adopted, which could lead to the misclassification of many capable individuals. Researchers in the area affirm that the identification of exceptionally gifted students should be made through a group of procedures employing multiple criteria and obtaining information from a variety of sources. Following this line of reasoning, the present study aimed to pinpoint a methodology for the identification of students with the potential to be considered highly gifted from the 5th to 8th grades (denominated primary education II in the Brazilian school system) based on the analysis and evaluation of procedures employed to this end: identification through nomination by a teacher/educator (pre and post training); identification through nomination by classmates; and identification through self nomination. Besides the analysis and evaluation of each of these, it was possible to locate the characteristics of problems and of learning difficulties or of low performance among the nominated students by the teacher/educator (before training) and by the student himself. It was also possible to verify whether the nominations made by the teachers/educators pre-training differ from the nominations done post-training. The nature of the study is characterized as being of the exploratory type. The research follows a socio-critical methodological approach presented in the quali-quantitative form. The source of direct information was from field research and the indirect sources were the bibliographical and Internet based. The procedures used for collection of data were the questionnaires with questions opened/closed and interviews semistructured. The analysis of the data indicated that the identification of highly gifted students from grades 5 through 8 (primary education II) through the procedures of nomination by teachers and nomination by classmates were shown to be effective when analyzed from operational methodology through the use of multiple criteria. In relation to the characteristics of problems and of learning difficulties or of low performance, it was detected that, between the students identified with potential for being highly gifted, 50% require specific assistance. Finally, the results show that nominations made by teachers/educators pre-training reveal both qualitative and quantitative differences from the post-training nominations.