The Saudi educational and learning capitals–perspectives from gifted and non-gifted students and their parents

Abstract

ABSTRACT Evaluations of gifted education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are hampered by the lack of clear policy objectives as well as practical difficulties in obtaining data. Furthermore, it is unclear if the specific needs of gifted students are unique or shared across non-gifted students. In the current research, both gifted and non-gifted Saudi students (n = 284) and their parents completed Saudi-language versions of the Student Educational and Learning Capitals Questionnaire and the Family Educational and Learning Capitals Questionnaire, respectively, to assess the availability of 11 educational and learning capitals. Additionally, parents reported the major challenges to their child’s learning and what they did to support their children. Rasch modeling was used to assess the measurement properties of the two instruments and to transform the raw scores into Rasch scores (logits). The results indicated that gifted students and their parents differed in their evaluations of economic and social educational capitals, as well as organismic, telic, and attentional learning capitals that support their learning success, with estimates of effect size ranging from small to large. However, the differences between non-gifted students and their parents are similar, showing that the challenges facing Saudi gifted students are shared more generally among non-gifted students.