Investigation of Psychological Resilience in Gifted Adolescents

Abstract

The current study aims to determine the level of psychological resilience in gifted adolescents and to examine whether their psychological resilience varies significantly depending on gender, grade level, mother’s education level, father’s education level, family type and perceived personality traits. The study employed the descriptive survey model. The purposive sampling method was used in the selection of the participants. The sample of the study consists of a total of 384 gifted students, including 24 fifth graders, 322 sixth graders and 38 seventh graders attending Science and Art Centres (BILSEM) located in four different provinces with varying levels of socioeconomic development (low, medium and high) in the 2022-2023 school year. The socioeconomic development level of the provinces was determined based on the 2017 provincial rankings in the socio-economic development research conducted by the Ministry of Industry and Technology of the Republic of Turkey. In the current study, the “Child and Adolescent Psychological Resilience Scale” determined the psychological resilience of gifted middle school students. A personal information form developed by the researchers was used to collect the demographic information of the sample group. The data set was analysed after normality tests (Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk-W), and the SPSS 20 statistical program package was used to analyse the collected data. Frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, and standard deviation were used to determine the level of psychological resilience. While analysing whether psychological resilience varies significantly by gender and family type, a t-test was employed. In the analysis of psychological resilience concerning grade level, mother’s education level and father’s education level, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed. The chi-square test was used in the analyses conducted to determine the psychological resilience of gifted adolescents concerning their personality traits. As a result of the study, the gifted students’ psychological resilience level was high and statistically significant differences were found based on grade level, mother’s education level, father’s education level, family type and perceived personality traits. According to the results of this study, carrying out studies that aim to determine the factors affecting the psychological resilience of gifted adolescents can significantly contribute to the literature. It is also recommended to investigate whether there are differences between the psychological resilience of gifted students and their typically developing peers.