Teacher’s Characteristics as a Factor in Gifted Student’s Engagement and Academic Performance in Junior High School

Carissa Dwilanisusantya, S.KMᵃ and Prof. Dr. Lydia Freyani Hawadi, M.Si, Psiᵇ

ᵃᵇFaculty of Psychology, University of Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia

Email: carissa.dwilani51@ui.ac.id

Teacher’s Characteristics as a Factor in Gifted Student’s Engagement and Academic Performance in Junior High School

Background

Gifted students have enormous potential, so it is very necessary to develop their intellectual potential. However, this development can be constrained by the need to get teaching according to the academic needs of each gifted student. Gifted students have special needs in the academic field that must be met in order to develop the potential of talented students optimally. Educational services that are suitable for the needs of gifted students are one of the obstacles for gifted students to achieve their potential optimally. Part of educational services that have an important role of teacher. The role of effective teachers is inseparable from the characteristics of teachers that are appropriate to the needs of gifted students. Academic success is strongly influenced by how a teacher has a suitable teaching style with gifted student, as well as how a teacher is able to teach gifted students.

Gifted students need involvement in learning because gifted students who are involved in learning are aligned with their identity, they are more likely to consider learning useful, remember the learning process as fun, and maintain interest in the topic even though the topic is finished. Gifted students who do not meet their needs for appropriate teacher characteristics will affect their involvement in the classroom and and ultimately will affect student academic performance. Seeing this, it is very important to pay serious attention to the characteristics of teachers for gifted students and even need special standards for teachers who teach gifted students because they have more potential.

Apart from the role of teacher characteristics, the education services of gifted students also greatly affect the success of gifted students. Special classes are excellent educational services for gifted students because with the special classes gifted students have benefit academically and personally from learning that suits their abilities and asserts that they have a special talent. A special class program is a very supportive program for gifted students because with special classes, teachers are easier to identify and meet the needs of each student because students have the same characteristics. Special class services that are running in Indonesia are Semester Credit Systems or called SKS in Indonesia. In this system, students can determine the number of credits they will take and determine their own graduation time. However, what are the characteristics of teachers required by gifted students in the SKS classroom, the influence of teacher characteristics on the involvement of gifted learners, and the impact of student involvement on student academic performance in the SKS class.

Methods

The method used in this study is a quantitative method with survey research design. Participants in this study were gifted students in special classes (SKS) and teachers that teaching in the SKS class at the junior high school in Jakarta. Data collection was carried out at the school where the participant through the Feldhusen’s Checklist questionnaire instrument was adapted to Indonesian, the checklist consisted of 25 characteristics and 14 teacher competencies. Then data collection also uses interviews with teachers, the interview guidelines consisted of 70 questions which are made by researchers.

Result

Currently research is still ongoing. The results will be explained after the research is completed. However, the expected results of this study are the creation of characteristic standards from teachers for gifted students in junior high school. Increasing the fulfillment of the academic needs of gifted students and optimizing the potential of gifted students.

Conclusion

The conclusion of this study will be explained after the research is completed and the results are known.

Added-Values

Research on gifted students, especially the education services of gifted students has been widely studied but research on the characteristics of teachers for gifted students is still very rare in Indonesia. In Indonesia, there are only standards regarding the competence or characteristics of teachers for general students, but there is no standard characteristic of teachers for gifted students. While gifted students are students with special needs that are different from students in general, it is very important to examine the characteristics of teachers according to the needs of gifted students so that potential students can be explored to the fullest.

Keywords: Indonesian gifted students, teacher characteristics, students engagement, performa academic

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