Abstract:

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the differences between intellectually gifted achieving and underachieving high school students on thinking styles. A total of 206 United Arab Emirates high school students (15-19 years of age) participated in this present investigation. Participants were assigned to the following two groups: intellectually gifted achieving students (n= 124) and intellectually gifted underachieving students (n= 82). The Arabic version of the Thinking Styles Inventory was used to assess gifted students’ thinking styles. Multivariate analysis of variance results indicated significant differences between the two intellectually gifted groups on the Legislative, Judicial, Anarchic, Global, External, Liberal, Executive, Oligarchic, and Conservative styles. Further discriminant analysis revealed that Judicial, Executive, and Global styles were the most discriminating variables that separate the intellectually gifted achieving students from their underachieving peers.

Keywords:

Underachieving gifted students, UAE.