The Journal of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

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in the early detection and nurturance of gifts leaves this obligation to the family. It is however, particularly unfair for gifted children who come from a low socioeconomic background, as uneducated parents do not have the experience to detect giftedness, and even if they do so, do not have the knowledge or the financial ability to help the development of their children’s gifts. For instance, one participant talented in music realized his gift when he was young because his family had hired a music teacher at home. “We took private lessons at home. First my sister and then I followed. Within a year I did the material, my sister had covered in two years. So we found that there was some talent, and my teacher thought the same.” (p. 9) If the family could not afford a private teacher, then the talent of this man would have never been recognized, because music education in primary schools in Greece is mostly theoretical and musical ability cannot be detected there (Zbainos & Anastasopoulou, 2008). As participants grew older, they described their motivation to be intrinsic and their goals to be mastery and task oriented. It was the process in which their gifts are being transformed into talents (Gagné, 2004). This transformation happened with hard work, participants found pleasure in it, but also sometimes they got frustrated and they had to put more effort to it in order to learn more and become better. “until I went to high school when I got my two telescopes. It was time now to actually see all this splendor. Endless hours ... understanding how the world around me works ... How the universe works. A world of magic, without boundaries and borders.” (p. 2) “The solving of an exercise, a difficult exercise... was everything to me... a great challenge... and yet a great pleasure ... I could manage it! And I had learned ... and I was moving on!! Further and further on! Making an effort is not easy... you should love what you do... and the more you learn... eventually, the more inadequate you feel, because you understand the great range of this science.” (p. 4) “You need to love what you do in order to carry on. The more you read the weaker and insufficient you feel when you understand the extend of the science.” (p. 6) “And then I started searching, mainly through the internet for everything – to find musical pieces that I would be able to play, that would make me happy and try to find some essence in them. And I managed to find them, although they were of an average musical difficulty.” (p. 10) The present sample consisted of winners of national and international competitions. Therefore, performance was at least partially an aim of their effort; performance goals were also set after they got involved with competitions. “When I heard about the competition prize wanted to win it to live this unique experience. For me it isn’t only the journey that matters, but the destination as well. I think that both ’count’ for me”. (P.1) “Competitions give you the opportunity; they are a way to distinguish. Because at school you are not given this opportunity, and when you can do it, you go after it.” (p. 5) “Whether it’s for my participation in a competition or just because I realize that I’m weak in one area of mathematics, I set goals to make up for them. I want to do better in the next competition, which may be held in 8 months or even a year later. In this case, I plan my moves.” (p. 6) “After all this training, so much work, so much tiredness, going on the podium gives you relief, calmness. This moment cannot be described. Your feelings are so much, you feel so full inside you, you feel unique, you have a feeling of awe.” (p. 7) Performance motivation is evident in participation in competitions. However it does not exist solely by itself but, for many participants together with other motivational components such as socialization, cultivation of self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation and mastery orientation as described earlier. “Participating in the competition made me feel more certain for myself. More secure.” (p. 2) “You don’t go to competitions only because you want to win. You also do it because you like the subject. And you work all the time to move on.” (p. 5) “I was happy to meet other kids who love mathematics, to count my ability and, in general, to live the experience.” (p. 4) The above extracts demonstrate that the participants of this study were motivated by many of the different motivational constructs described in the literature. Their descriptions of their Gifted and Talented International – 26(1), August, 2011; and 26(2), December, 2011. 137
The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children motivation tends to support Elliot’s (2008) conceptualization of performance motivation, defined as the energization of behavior by, or the direction of behavior toward, positive stimuli (objects, events, possibilities). The participants of this study were energized towards positive stimuli, whether these were their love for their science, or a position on the podium, or a prize in a national or international competition. One of the interesting views expressed by one participant was that competitions were attractive to him because they provided an alternative way of interacting with knowledge in comparison to formal schooling. “Competitions make u think, they teach to solve problems of logic, they force you to have your mind in vigilance… Maybe on purpose everything that requires imagination or creative thinking, is automatically out of the material. The perspective of a shape that needs another way of thinking, which might be more difficult, even in advanced mathematics, is out of the material. Uniformity of tasks has prevailed.” “Only for competitions I felt happy. Five teachers were occupied with three children. Especially the last weeks before the competition every day for two hours we were in the labs for biology, for chemistry, for physics. Separate labs for those subjects in our school!!! Later when I thought of what had happened I got angry. Because I had seen that so many resources, so much potential had remained inactive.” (p. 3) According to this student, Greek formal education is completely uniform and not challenging for students. On the contrary, national and international competitions require different thinking and therefore are more challenging and motivating, and therefore more suitable for students with high abilities. The most important part of that interview is that he felt angry when he realized that the teachers at his school did some differentiated teaching in labs for some children for some weeks only before they went to the Olympiad. Having in mind that his school is considered one of the elite schools in Greece, then, it can be understood how things are in public schools, where uniformity of education does not allow the expression of any gift but the reproduction of memorizations. Conclusions The present study demonstrated that according to Greek competition winners’ descriptions, motivation has played an important role in the cultivation and expression of their talent. It showed that the occupation with what would later become their talent started either by chance, or by a member of the family who distinguished some ability and operated as their mentor. In the process, all participants described mastery goal orientation to motivate their actions, until they started participating in competitions, where performance orientation operated additionally to their existing mastery orientation. In general, their behavior was directed by approach motivation, while avoidance motivation did not seem to be present at all. The major conclusion of this study, however, is the complete absence of the role of schooling in the motivation of the children of our sample. Parents, books, the internet, and competitions are some of the sources of motivation mentioned by students, but school as a motivator was not mentioned at all. This demonstrates the (un)motivating effects of the personenvironment (un)fit (Eccles & Roeser, 2009). Gifted students need a more flexible schooling system, not only one that incorporates them, but also that motivates them to get better. Recently, some changes by the Ministry of Education are being made so that traditional teaching based solely on the memorization of the handbook is to be abolished. A lot more changes, however, are needed for the integration of gifted students to the Greek educational system. This study has certain limitations which do not allow any generalization of the results found. First of all, as described in the method section of this article, the collection and analyses of this qualitative data aimed at the exploration of participants’ experiences and not at generalizing the results for the motivation of all Greek gifted and talented students. Also, it is based on their descriptions and their narrations, not on an objective method of data collection such as experiments. Further, the sample consisting of competition winners has special motivational characteristics that may not resemble the characteristics of other Greek gifted students. In conclusion, research concerned with giftedness is in an embryonic state in Greece, and this study is only a minor contribution to what needs to be done. More research not only on the motivational orientations but also on other aspects of Greek gifted students may result in a change in educational practices toward a more inclusive education for the benefit of all Greek students. 138 Gifted and Talented International – 26(1), August, 2011; and 26(2), December, 2011.
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Book Reviews The World Council for
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Examining Opinions and Challenging
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Finally, many thanks go to Kevin La
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Name Full-time Gifted Class Gail* A
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Table 4: The results of the (2x2) t
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undertaking the unit, with many com
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Figure 1: Pre & post scores for ite
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(1 st , 3 rd & 4 th were negatively
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egulated and possible with almost n
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This article argues that competitio
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inborn. In the case of Vietnam, ano
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The Journal of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

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