The Journal of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children
selective coding procedures on responses of 147 teachers. A reliability of 88% was calculated for
20% of analyzed content, performed by two independent coders. Table 3 presents examples of
the coding procedure.
Table 3: Examples of three levels of coding procedures.
Level I Codes
Original Responses From Teachers
Level II Codes
Categories Generated From
Level I Codes
Level III Codes
Consistent Themes
Created From
Level II Codes
"Able to build close relationships."
“Attentive, open and flexible.”
Personal Characteristics Teacher
"Promotes creative thinking."
Cognitive
"Enhances the ability to think."
“Designs special curriculum.”
“Asks challenging open-ended questions.”
Characteristics
Pedagogical
Characteristics
Gifted students
"Students are bored quickly."
"Students have special talents and abilities.”
Characteristics
"Subjects are more varied." Course
Subject Matter
“Subjects are different than regular school.”
Characteristics
"Freedom of thinking."
“Open and accepting.”
Climate Characteristics Milieu
“Challenging” Learning Environment
"Higher level and faster pace."
Characteristics
Our memos on the initial stage of analysis and coding exhibited the following subcategories:
teachers’ knowledge, teachers’ personality, teaching methods, teaching tools, level of
studies, pace of studies, level of interest, students’ social contribution, students’ personal skills,
climate, and subjects taught. Core categories that emerged were: teacher, studies, teaching
strategies, students, courses, and teaching-learning environment. Some sub-categories were
renamed, refined and combined to form one core category. Core categories emerging, describing
the teaching-learning situation in pullout programs, were found similar to the commonplaces
suggested by Schwab (1973, 1978).
Quantitative data analysis
Teachers’ reference to a single characteristic of any of the commonplaces was scored 1.
The summed scores of Jewish and Arab teachers for each commonplace were compared to reveal
differences in their perceptions of the inherent importance of each commonplace, as expressed by
the number of characteristics they assigned to it. Mean values of participant scores in each group
were calculated for open-ended question. Repeated measures ANOVAs were performed to establish
the differences between Arab and Jewish teachers’ perceptions of various characteristics of pullout
centers and teachers’ desired characteristics. Repeated contrast tests were used post hoc.
In the pilot test, results of a factor analysis of 60 Jewish and Arab teachers’ responses to a
questionnaire of 52 items (9 items omitted, 3 rephrased) yielded three scales of teacher
characteristics. The internal consistency of the 43-item instrument yielded a reliability of Cronbach’s
alpha = .85 describing three dimensions of teacher characteristics: (a) cognitive characteristics (13
items, Cronbach’s alpha = .77); (b) personal characteristics (17 items, Cronbach’s alpha=.86); and (c)
pedagogical characteristics (13 items, Cronbach’s alpha = .80).
The mean values of statement scores of group participants were calculated for each dimension
of teacher characteristics, and two-way MANOVA tests were performed to establish differences
between Arab and Jewish teachers’ ratings. Pearson correlations were performed to establish the
relevance of the collectivism variable. Differences between Arab and Jewish teachers’ ratings on
statements within groups were established by t-tests.
150 Gifted and Talented International – 26(1), August, 2011; and 26(2), December, 2011.