Evaluation of the dimensions of the Mawhiba-IAU summer enrichment program

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of the study was to examine the most critical dimensions of summer enrichment programs (SEPs) for gifted students. The researchers conducted the study in Saudi Arabia with students from grades nine to 11 at a gifted summer program in a public university. The total number of students was 172 gifted students (62 female and 110 male). The study was guided by two research questions, and a 43-item survey was used to collect the data. The authors used correlation, t-test, and multiple linear regression for data analysis. They found that psycho-social skills, logistics, and science content dimensions were correlated significantly with students’ overall satisfaction in SEPs. The researchers found that nearly 27% of the variance was attributed to the psycho-social skills program dimension, while the logistics dimension accounted for 24%; the science content dimension accounted for 21% of students’ satisfaction. The researchers found that, for male students, the logistics dimension was the highest contributing dimension to satisfaction, while the science dimension was the highest for female students. No significant differences were found between the gender on overall satisfaction and the psycho-social skills dimension. The authors encourage other researchers to examine these dimensions with students in different settings and types of gifted programs.