The Journal of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

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.