Parallel Session Proceedings »
5.5.5 Diversity of Characteristics of Gifted Anxiety Among Arabic-Islamic Culture
The study aims at identifying the characteristics of anxiety in gifted children in four different Arab countries: Tunisia, KSA, Lebanon and Oman. All gifted participants from the four different countries share the same Islamic-Arab culture and differ in terms of age, gender and grade level, with the country of residence as the independent variable which will be discussed in detail. This study hypothesize that the different gifted participating children have some common behavioural characteristics and that their future academic and professional life will be affected by the level of anxiety they possess. For this reason, the researchers consider the application of the Anxiety Scale (Jamalellil, 2017) to assess the level of anxiety these gifted individuals might possess, could help special educators and counsellors predict the possible future career of these individuals. The researchers applied the Anxiety Scale (35 items) to four samples of middle and high school students of both genders and different academic backgrounds (each in his/her own country: 171 in Saudi Arabia, 48 in Oman, 24 in Tunisia and 12 in Lebanon). The general results, using One Way Anova, revealed that there is no difference in the four various samples in terms of items 3, 4, 11, 14, 23, 29, and 35, which deal with the gifted child’s relationship with his/her high ability, academic performance and future. This raises the question of the geographical and environmental location of the study and the level of anxiety the participants’ experience, especially in the scientific fields in the various Arab countries as compared to the various Western countries where the relationship is usually the opposite. This is confirmed by the results of the partial comparisons using possible binaries between the sample averages (Tunisian-Lebanese; Tunisian-Omani; Tunisian-Saudi; Lebanese- Omani; Lebanese- Saudi; Omani-Saudi). Moreover, the results of the possible binomials among the samples are not valid for the above mentioned seven terms, while there are differences in the rest of the 28 terms of the scale, especially between the Omani and Saudi samples in addition to the Tunisian and Omani samples and the Lebanese and Omani. This leads to an in-depth analysis of the differences between gifted and gifted students in Gulf countries close to one another (Saudi Arabia and Oman) as compared to the other countries that are geographically apart but share a common history (Tunisia and Lebanon).