Editorial

Abstract

For this final issue for 2022 of Gifted and Talented International we have a diverse range of research from various international scholars that focuses on different issues which affect the development of gifted and talented students. The research comes from different educational contexts including the United States of America, Vietnam, Netherlands, Lebanon, Turkey, South Korea, and Norway. The first research article by Foley-Nicpon, Candler, Behrens, Sussman, Gaasedelen and Wienkes reported on their development of a 36item High Functioning ASD Screener. Researchers conducted content area expert interviews that underpinned the 93 item pilot form, which was administered to groups of high ability students with ASD, average ability students, and high ability students. ANOVAs identified items that differentiated the three groups and/or were most endorsed by the high ability/ASD group to develop the final item pool. Nelson, Tran, Reichenberg, and Vu examined life satisfaction of gifted adults in their mid-twenties who graduated ten years previously from a gifted program in Vietnam. The researchers used the Flanagan’s Quality of Life Scale (QoLS) as their research instrument. Participants indicated high life satisfaction consistently across five identified domains: Physical and material well-being, Relations with other people, Social, community, and civic activities, Personal development and fulfillment, and Recreation. A qualitative study by Veldman-de Jonge and Jen explored the facilitating or hindering factors in making education, personal life, and career decisions among 10 gifted and talented women aged 18–62 from the Netherlands. When making career choices, these Dutch gifted women reported they valued intrinsic motivation, differentiation, and the quality of their work. Antoun employed qualitative and quantitative methods to study the relation between primary school teachers’ background and school type across three governorates in Lebanon. Antoun examined Lebanese teachers’ perceptions of gifted and talented youth and their gifted education experiences through disseminating a questionnaire and conducting semi-structured interviews. Findings suggested that the broader socio-economic cultural context within Lebanon influenced teachers’ perceptions and choices of gifted education provisions made in their classrooms. A study by Yazgi Yanik and Afat aimed to determine the relationship between metacognitive awareness and social-emotional learning skills among gifted and talented students in grades 6, 7 and 8 in Istanbul, Turkey. Results showed that little time on screens, having a highly educated mother, and high perception of school success resulted in a difference in metacognitive awareness and social emotional learning skills among the gifted and talented students. South Korean pre-service primary school teachers’ attitudes about acceleration for gifted students were examined by Woo, Cumming, and O’ Neill. In this mixed-methods study, researchers used surveys and focus group interviews with their participants. Survey results suggested these teachers had slightly negative attitudes toward acceleration. When participants’ attitudes were examined further in focus groups, these seemed to stem from negative feelings associated with the South Korean competitive educational environment and possible negative social and emotional effects of acceleration. The final article in this issue is a descriptive study of primary and secondary teachers conducted by Lenvik, Jones, and Hesjedal that focused on teachers’ perspectives of gifted students with GIFTED AND TALENTED INTERNATIONAL 2022, VOL. 37, NO. 2, 83–85 https://doi.org/10.1080/15332276.2022.2157979