Challenges of Talent Identification Programs in Formal Education from the Perspective of Activists

Document Type : Scientific - Research

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

2 M.A. in History and Philosophy of Education, Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

3 Ph.D. Student in Curriculum Development, Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

Abstract

Objectives: Today, identifying talents is a concern of families and policymakers in education, and adopting efficient policies and procedures to identify and guide superior talents is a fundamental issue for educational systems. The present study aims to examine the challenges of talent identification programs in formal education from the perspective of educational activists. These programs include the Shahab Plan in elementary school and the Academic Guidance Plan in junior high school.
Materials and Methods: The research method was a basic qualitative research method. The research participants were school counselors in Hamadan province who had practical experience in dealing with talent identification. To collect data, 10 people were interviewed using criterion-based and Snowball sampling methods, and according to the theoretical saturation rule. The data collection tool is a semi-structured interview. The method of analyzing the findings is with MAXQDA software (12) by coding and categorization. The result of the data analysis was carried out in four sections: the meaning and concept of talent, the challenges of talent identification in the Shahab project, and the educational guidance project.
Discussion and Conclusions: Regarding the meaning and concept of talent and talent identification, 3 main categories and 8 subcategories were obtained. In the field of the nature of talent, being multiple and being innate or acquired were raised. Regarding the relationship between talent and academic achievement, talent was identified as different from intelligence and a factor in academic achievement. Therefore, talent identification is beyond academic achievement in the eyes of the actors. The factors that cause talent to appear were also expressed as family, educational, and economic factors. Regarding the challenges of the Shahab Project in the elementary school, 4 main categories and 14 subcategories were identified, which included: technical challenges (lack of clarity of the talent identification tool and lack of validity of the results due to being based on teachers' opinions), socio-cultural challenges (lack of proper exposure of families to their children's talents), support challenges (difference of opinion between the project trustees, lack of financing for the Shahab Project, lack of continuous supervision of the project, lack of sufficient expertise of teachers, lack of sufficient motivation and positive attitude towards the project among teachers, multiple tasks of teachers and their lack of accuracy, and the quantity and quality of in-service training of teachers regarding the Shahab Project), and implementation challenges (lack of proportionality of the measures taken with the goals of the Shahab Project, deviation from enrichment to separation, lack of attention to the discussion of guidance and remaining at the level of identification, and lack of continuity in using the results of the Shahab Project in subsequent educational levels). Regarding the challenges of the academic guidance plan in the first year of secondary school, 6 main categories and 16 subcategories were identified, which include: technical challenges (lack of standardization of talent tests and score-based academic guidance), socio-cultural challenges (lack of awareness and proper parental intervention, family expectations, media and friends' influences), economic challenges (lack of appropriate socio-economic status of some fields and professions in society), support challenges (lack of human resources, insufficient expertise of school counselors, insufficient motivation of human resources and lack of facilities), implementation challenges (inefficient changes in academic guidance, lack of connection between academic guidance and the Shahab plan and balanced distribution by field), and individual challenges (lack of interest in proportion to students' abilities, and lack of students' awareness). Therefore, considering the challenges extracted, it can be said that talent programs in education have not yet been able to achieve their goals, and considering the importance of this issue, it is suggested to design a coherent program to identify and guide talent.

Keywords


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