A recent study conducted by Ms Hind Sweileh Al Juhani, a researcher at the Arabian Gulf University (AGU), has shed light on the determinants of giftedness within families that contribute to creative thinking and creative personality among gifted students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The study aimed to identify the significance of differences in creative product, creative process, trends and values towards creativity and creative personality among gifted students due to family factors and extracurricular activities. The researcher also sought to identify the predictive ability of family factors and extracurricular activities in the creative product, creative process, attitudes and values towards creativity and creative personality.
As part of her Master’s degree requirements in Gifted Education, Ms Al Juhani used a descriptive approach and applied her study to a sample of 190 gifted secondary school students from various schools and regions across the Kingdom, including Medina, Al Qassim, Riyadh and the Eastern Province.
The results of the study showed that family size was a significant predictor of creative product among students, while birth order was a significant predictor of creative product, fluency, flexibility and creative personality. The father’s educational level was a key predictor of creative process, while the mother’s educational level was a significant predictor of creative personality.
Extracurricular activities during study and summer extracurricular activities were also found to be significant predictors of creative product, with extracurricular activities during study being a significant predictor of creative personality and summer extracurricular activities predicting fluency and flexibility.
In her discussion, Ms Al Juhani recommended increasing interest in building training programmes for gifted students in Saudi schools, focusing on creative thinking and creative personality. She also emphasised the importance of providing school extracurricular activities and summer activities to gifted students.
Furthermore, she called for training teachers of the gifted on developing their students’ creative thinking abilities and creative personality through specialised training programmes prepared by gifted education specialists. Additionally, Ms Al Juhani stressed the need to educate families about their effective role in developing creative thinking and creative personality in their gifted children.
The study was supervised by Prof. Alaaeldin Abdelhamed Ayoub, Professor of Measurement, Evaluation and Statistics, and co-supervised by Dr Ahmed Mohamed Alabbasi, Associate Professor of Gifted and Creative Education.
