Teacher Perceptions of the Primary Education Thinking Skills Program

ABSTRACT The Primary Education Thinking Skills program (PETS) was implemented in three third grade classes and two kindergarten classes in a Title I school. The PETS program is a Talent Development program designed to teach students critical thinking skills and other gifted behaviors with the expressed goal of the program’s creators that the regular education teacher could then use the student behaviors elicited by the PETS curriculum to recommend them for the gifted screening process. Thus, our focus was to determine teacher attitudes regarding the ease of implementation, effectiveness of the program, and potential changes in their perceptions of high-ability students. These data were collected via semistructured interviews and analyzed qualitatively using content analysis. Results indicated that most teachers found the program easy to implement and perceived it as effective for a diverse group of learners.