The most important attributes for talented students who want to be scientists

Abstract

This study aims to assess the views of Hungarian professors/associate professors regarding important student factors at the beginning of their scientific and academic careers. Two hundred seventy-three university faculty members who work with high-achieving students (e.g., gifted, honors) completed a questionnaire regarding the attributes of gifted students. The study highlights similarities and differences among these Hungarian faculty opinions on student attributes. Data was analyzed for talent-attributes with a logistic regression to discern the differences among different scientific disciplines (medicine, humanities, economics). A one way ANOVA model was used and indicated no difference between traits based on scientific discipline (F = 1.023; df = 5; p > 0.05). The conclusions of this research highlight key attributes of Hungarian honor students identified by Hungarian university teachers and these attributes are closer than we hypothesized related across scientific disciplines.