Exploring The Promotion Of Creativity For Gifted Students In Saudi Arabia: A Qualitative Case Study In Three Different School Settings

Abstract

Despite the discussion of teaching creativity to students in academic and educational circles, recent research indicates the failure of many schools in doing so. For gifted students, the failure of these schools to enhance their creativity may be a greater issue, given that promoting their creative abilities contributes to promoting their giftedness. Therefore, conducting research to understand the position of creativity in schools for gifted students warrants further research. In Saudi Arabia, despite substantial governmental investments in the education sector and the Ministry of Education's efforts to promote giftedness and creativity among students, there is a conspicuous shortage of comprehensive Saudi studies examining the promotion of creativity among gifted students in schools. This qualitative thesis was conducted in order to achieve an understanding of how creativity is promoted among gifted students in Saudi Arabia. The thesis adopted multiple case studies where the cases were three different school settings: a school entirely dedicated to gifted students (a segregated school), a school with segregated classes for gifted students (a segregated class), and a school that included gifted students who study in regular classes (an inclusive class) and two different pedagogical approaches, curricula lessons and extra-curricula lessons. Multiple data were collected from document analysis, observations, and interviews and analysed in three separate and successive phases. Phase one analysed the national educational policies in Saudi Arabia for gifted education. Phase two explored the classroom practices in the three school settings within the two different pedagogical contexts, curricula and extra-curricula. Finally, phase three examined the experiences and perspectives of the stakeholders: teachers and gifted students. To conduct these three phases, a 3Ps framework (Press, Process, and Person) was synthesised to form a conceptual framework for the data analysis. The findings identified two major gaps in the Saudi educational policies for gifted education. The first gap was the lack of a clear explanation for the definition of creativity and giftedness and their relationship and the contradictions in defining creativity and giftedness. The second gap in these documents was a lack of detail about implementation mechanisms that could benefit teachers in schools. Findings from the school level indicated that there were similarities in promoting creativity across the three school settings for most themes under the 3Ps framework. The teachers in the segregated school and class employed a teacher-centred approach, whereas teachers in the inclusive class utilised a student-centred approach, which seemed to have a more positive impact on promoting creativity. Comparing curricular and extra-curricular lessons revealed that extra-curricular lessons appeared to promote creativity more effectively than curricular lessons. Both teachers and gifted students perceived that the physical environment hindered creativity as did the prohibition of internet usage by students in school. Gifted students reported a preference for segregated classes and schools, and they, along with their teachers, concurred that teachers encouraged their intrinsic motivation. These findings make two contributions. Firstly, the research provided a comprehensive overview of the promotion of creativity among gifted students in three different school settings in Saudi Arabia, while also identifying gaps at both the policy and the school levels. Policymakers, educational leaders, and teachers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can benefit from this examination. Moreover, identifying the gaps in the Saudi policy context can benefit other educational systems by avoiding such gaps. The second main contribution was that this current research has extended the 3Ps framework by adding another (P) which is Policy, as well as additional themes/ sub-themes. That is, promoting creativity in the educational context needs 4 circles of Ps: Policy, Press, Process, and Person.