Author	Chan, Kim Seng
Title	Talent and its developmental factors
Institute	Thesis (M.Ed.) National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University
Year	2009
Supervisor	Cheng, Yuan Shan; Teo, Chua Tee
Call no.	LC3998.S55 Cha
Summary
Talent development is the aim of many if not all educators. Gagné (1995) postulated that talents will develop with giftedness or natural abilities and aptitudes progressively transform to talents as they interact with two main types of catalytic factors, namely the intrapersonal and environmental factors. The current study aims to examine the development of self-knowledge and other school factors in Raffles Integrated Program (RIP), a talent development program for the gifted, talented and highly-able teenagers in Singapore. This study explores the characteristics of Singapore's talented students in their teenage years and the various factors that may aid these students in the process of their talent development in the RIP. The purpose of the study was to track the development of self-knowledge - an intrapersonal factor, of the highly academically talented adolescent students after they have emerged through the talent development RIP school program, which serves as the environmental factor. The whole study is comprised of two sub-studies. The quantitative study involves a cross-sectional study of the self-knowledge of gifted students in Grade 7, 1 l, and 12 students. The self-knowledge of the students from different grade levels was measured by using the Self-Knowledge Checklist (SKC) developed by Teo (2003). Results of the study show a significant difference in the level of self-knowledge between RIP’S and non-RIP’S students for both genders. The male students in Grades 11 and 12 had a significantly higher level of self-knowledge than the female students. The study also shows that the RIP’S students had a lower level of self-knowledge than the non-RIP’S students. This indicates that the RIP has not made a significant impact in making a positive change to the level of self-knowledge of the gifted students. In addition, the levels of self-knowledge of the MP’s students have decreased as they progressed through their journey within the program. There was a more drastic decrease for the female RIP’S students than their male peers. Such differential decrease was reflected as a significant difference in the levels of self-knowledge at Grade 11 for both genders. The qualitative study attempted to identify the characteristics features and factors that were present around the talented students which may aid in the development of their latent potential and interests. The study postulates the following factors as crucial for fostering talent in the highly-abled students: intellectual ability, goal, motivation, coping strategies, self-knowledge, sociability, challenges, support, role-model, and multitude of activities. Results of this study inform educators that successful nurturing of talents might be a result of the interaction between the intra-individual traits and environmental factors. In addition, the study also shows that the various mentorship programs had some positive effects on the affect and motivation of the students.