This study investigates the impact that teacher attitudes and experiences have on their understandings of the social and emotional characteristics and needs of gifted and talented children. It addresses the issues within Aotearoa New Zealand Primary school settings. The study used a mixed methodology approach. Quantitative data was collected in the form of questionnaires to collect information from a range of participants and to identify potential participants for individual interviews. More in-depth qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with four teachers. The findings suggest that many teachers are uncertain about the social and emotional characteristics and needs of gifted and talented children. Teachers expressed positive attitudes towards gifted and talented children while acknowledging their lack of personal knowledge about gifted and talented education. The findings also identified teachers‘ frustrations at barriers affecting their ability to support gifted and talented children‘s social and emotional needs in their classroom programmes, including, limited personal knowledge and skills, lack of professional development, lack of time to spend with gifted and talented children, and school directed priorities for meeting the needs of other children. The findings of this study have implications for teachers wanting to support gifted and talented children, educators interested in the social and emotional needs of gifted and talented children, and those responsible for gifted and talented education (GATE) programmes and GATE professional development. It would seem that it is highly desirable for all teachers to have professional development in gifted and talented education, in order to better understand social and emotional aspects, and thereby provide a more supportive environment where gifted and talented children can learn and grow.

Metalinguistic sentience refers to the conscious or unconscious apprehension of, sensitivity to, and attention to language as something with form and function that can be manipulated. This includes, but is not restricted to, conscious or unconscious apprehension of, sensitivity to, and attention to the following aspects of language and literacy: pragmatics, syntactics, semantics, phonology, orthography, morphology, figurative, metalanguage, print "carries" meaning, print conventions, book conventions, text conventions, referent/label arbitrariness, purposes of literacy, and abilities. These aspects of language and literacy are part of a morphological model developed by the author for classifying the evidence provided by children of their metalinguistic sentience. The two other faces of the model, displayed as a cube, depict (1) Literacy Acguisition and Literacy Learning and (2) four Prompt States: Self-, Child-, Adult-, Text. This ethnographic study of nine verbally gifted kindergarten and first grade children was conducted with a three-fold purpose: to explore whether young verbally gifted children's metalinguistic sentience coincided with their cognitive ability, to explore whether young verbally gifted children's metalinguistic sentience influenced their literacy acquisition and literacy learning, and to explore whether young verbally gifted children's literacy acquisition and literacy learning enhanced their metalinguistic sentience. The study took place during a full school year, while the author was a participant observer in the informants' classrooms. The evidence from the research indicated that the nine verbally gifted children who served as the informants for the study had a lower threshold for metalinguistic sentience than did their agemates. This lower threshold allowed them to acquire and learn literacy more easily and more efficiently.

Content analyses of research in the literature of gifted education (Coleman, 2006; Rogers, 1999, 2006) has shown a consistent absence of research investigating methodology for instructing gifted students and for the development of expertise using new technologies. In this study, utilising electronic instructional delivery, an investigation was undertaken of the differential effects and appropriateness of matching the prior knowledge of the learner to the instructional method. Underpinned with a theoretical understanding of gifted education and cognitive load theory, a series of three experiments was designed and implemented to determine whether gifted students learn more effectively under guided discovery design than with example based instruction, while not identified as gifted ability students perform significantly better under direct example based instruction than with guided discovery. Data were collected and analysed in three stages. Experiment 1 was conducted in the novel domain of Boolean switching equations. Experiments 2 and 3 used identical test instruments with novel tasks in the semi-familiar domain of geometry. A total of 155 Years 7, 8 and 9 students at three metropolitan secondary schools participated. The study explored whether the presence of schemas, that facilitated greater problem-solving ability in gifted students, would generate clear evidence of instructional efficiency and preference for either mode of instruction. As students advanced from novice state to expert in particular domains of learning, it was anticipated that gifted students would progress from benefiting from worked example instruction to more efficient learning in guided discovery mode. This hypothesis was rejected as the results from each of the experiments did not confirm the hypothesised outcomes. There was no manifested expertise-reversal effect. The absence of any clear delineation of enhanced learning proficiency mode of instruction for gifted students does, however, contribute to the advancement and understanding of cognitive load theory and the complexity of learning strategies necessary for gifted learners.

Content analyses of research in the literature of gifted education (Coleman, 2006; Rogers, 1999, 2006) has shown a consistent absence of research investigating methodology for instructing gifted students and for the development of expertise using new technologies. In this study, utilising electronic instructional delivery, an investigation was undertaken of the differential effects and appropriateness of matching the prior knowledge of the learner to the instructional method. Underpinned with a theoretical understanding of gifted education and cognitive load theory, a series of three experiments was designed and implemented to determine whether gifted students learn more effectively under guided discovery design than with example based instruction, while not identified as gifted ability students perform significantly better under direct example based instruction than with guided discovery. Data were collected and analysed in three stages. Experiment 1 was conducted in the novel domain of Boolean switching equations. Experiments 2 and 3 used identical test instruments with novel tasks in the semi-familiar domain of geometry. A total of 155 Years 7, 8 and 9 students at three metropolitan secondary schools participated. The study explored whether the presence of schemas, that facilitated greater problem-solving ability in gifted students, would generate clear evidence of instructional efficiency and preference for either mode of instruction. As students advanced from novice state to expert in particular domains of learning, it was anticipated that gifted students would progress from benefiting from worked example instruction to more efficient learning in guided discovery mode. This hypothesis was rejected as the results from each of the experiments did not confirm the hypothesised outcomes. There was no manifested expertise-reversal effect. The absence of any clear delineation of enhanced learning proficiency mode of instruction for gifted students does, however, contribute to the advancement and understanding of cognitive load theory and the complexity of learning strategies necessary for gifted learners.

This study analyzed the social and emotional wellbeing of International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IB DP) students in a North Texas school district. Students were asked about their feelings toward mental health through a short-answer questionnaire and a survey. Teachers were also able to give input about how they handle mental health in their classroom and where they would like to see their students grow in terms of understanding mental health. The data shows that while students in the IB DP have questions about mental health and have an interest in becoming more independent when dealing with their mental health, they have also come up with program-specific coping mechanisms such as relationships with teachers and peers in the program. This project suggests the idea of increasing student involvement with family engagement, a student-led mentor program, and an after school organization which covers topics such as mental health and learning skills.