Given the many school choices available to parents, there is a need to understand the reasons parents of a child who is gifted choose to keep their child in his/her current school. Parents* satisfaction with their child*s school and their academic growth is essential to continued enrollment of the child in that school (Abdulkadiroglu, Angrist, & Pathak, 2011; Van Tassel-Baska, 2006). The parents* decision to keep their child who is gifted enrolled in their current school may be influenced by factors within the school as well as those factors outside of the school. The purpose of this study was to research factors that may influence the parents* decision to keep their child who is gifted enrolled in their current school. The research studied parental perceptions of academic support, social and emotional support, and principal support for gifted education for their child who is gifted and the parents* willingness to keep their child who is gifted enrolled at their current school. The target group in the study was parents of children who are gifted and enrolled in a very large urban school district but did not include parents of children who are gifted and also have a disability. The research included the analysis of a survey and follow-up interview questions with parents of a child who is gifted and enrolled in the very large urban school district. There were 683 survey responses out of 4,401 total parents surveyed with a return rate of 16%. The low return rate is considered a limitation of the study and it is recommended to conduct additional research on the majority of parents who did not participate in the survey. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 10 randomly selected parents of children who are gifted and enrolled in the very large urban school district. The survey and interview data was coded and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics. There were two research questions that guided the development of the research process and the analysis of data. The first question focused on indicators of parent satisfaction that included academic needs met, social and emotional needs met, and principal support for gifted education. The survey and interview data yielded mixed results with parents split between the belief that their child*s academic needs were met, social and emotional needs were met, and that their child*s principal was supportive of gifted education. The second research question considered the relationship between the three indicators of parent satisfaction and the parents* willingness to consider enrolling their child in a school solely for students who are gifted. The results showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between the parents* belief that their child*s academic needs were met and the parents* consideration to send their child to a school solely for students who are gifted. However, there was a lack of evidence to establish a relationship between parent*s belief about their child*s social and emotional needs or the parents belief that their child*s principal was supportive of gifted education. The implications of the study are numerous. There are enough parents willing to consider sending their child to a school solely for students who are gifted to support opening the school. The majority of the survey participants had elementary school children; therefore, consideration should be focused on opening an elementary school for students who are gifted. Long range planning is needed to determine how to support the school for students who are gifted as well as the impact of transferring the students from one school zone to the school for students who are gifted. The literature reflected the diverse nature of the parents* satisfaction with academic support, social and emotional support, and principal support for gifted education and revealed that when the parents* are satisfied it does not guarantee that the parent will keep their child enrolled in their current school. The need for on-going communication between the school and the parents are critical to keeping the student enrolled in their current school. Further research is needed to determine the beliefs of parents with children who are gifted and identify themselves as Black, Hispanic, Asian, or another race since the majority of the survey participants were White. More research is also needed to determine the reasons why large numbers of parents would consider sending their child to a school solely for students who are gifted regardless of their satisfaction levels with school support. In addition, further research needs to be conducted to determine why parents would choose to keep their child enrolled in their current school when the parents believed their academic or social and emotional needs were not met or their principal was not supportive of gifted education.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-1647 |
| Date | 01 January 2015 |
| Creators | Austin, Leigh |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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