Educational and Psychological Problems Faced by Gifted Students from Their Perspective

Abstract

Psychological problems leave their mark on all aspects of life and at various age and educational stages, including adolescence, which impacts an individual's future, particularly their educational journey. This stage determines a student's academic and professional future and is considered one of the most critical periods in a person's life. The rationale for studying the psychological problems faced by intellectually gifted students lies in the rapid changes of our present era and the difficult circumstances currently facing Iraqi society. These factors can generate psychological pressures that directly and negatively affect an individual's behavior. Psychological problems pose a threat to an individual's health and well-being, jeopardizing their psychological state and the resulting consequences. Negative effects on physical and mental health, and the importance of intellectually gifted students as the nation's wealth and future leaders, to help them identify the educational, psychological, and social problems they may face. The researcher believed this problem deserved attention and scientific study. The current study aimed to develop a scale for psychological problems among intellectually gifted students and to identify the level of differences in psychological problems according to gender and academic stage. The researcher developed a scale for psychological problems among intellectually gifted students, which in its final form consisted of 36 items. This was done after establishing the validity and discrimination of the items and then establishing the validity and reliability of the scale using various statistical methods. The scale was administered to a statistical analysis sample of 200 male and female students, randomly selected from secondary schools for gifted students. It was also administered to a reliability sample of 90 male and female students, and finally to a final application sample of 200 male and female students. The study concluded that the level of psychological problems among intellectually gifted students Mentally, in general, it is above average, with statistically significant differences between the two gender variables in favor of the male sample, and statistically significant differences in favor of the sixth-grade sample. The study recommended introducing students to guidance programs on coping with the pressures of social and economic life, with the possibility of conducting a similar study on students in regular schools and comparing its results with the results of the current study.