An Exploratory Study on The Behavioral Characteristics of Talented Students in the Northern Border Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the behavioral characteristics of talented students in the Northern Border Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To achieve the goal of the study, the researchers utilized the analytical descriptive approach by posting a questionnaire link to all social networking sites for the study participants. Five dimensions were used in the study’s questionnaire to determine the behavioral characteristics of talented students in the Northern Border Province. For this purpose, talented students from the Northern Border secondary schools (n= 97) aged 15 to 18 were surveyed using a Likert scale of five points with 25 items representing five important dimensions (mental characteristics, cognitive characteristics, emotional and social characteristics, leadership characteristics, and creative characteristics). Data was collected using the Google Forms online form. According to the study findings, the participants answered positively to all five dimensions. Talented students in the Northern Border Province possess high levels of mental characteristics, with a mean level of 4.309 and a standard deviation of 0.761, as well as cognitive and emotional characteristics. As a result of emphasizing the mental characteristics of talented students, it is recommended that teachers should adjust their teaching styles to match talented students' abilities. Moreover, their evaluation techniques should be based on product-oriented rather than process-oriented methods.