An exploration of the experiences of four gifted children in the Western School Board of Prince Edward Island

This research is a qualitative study that uses the case study approach to explore the experiences of gifted students in the Western School Board of Prince Edward Island. Prince Edward Island does not formally identify gifted students and does not have any programs directed towards gifted students. Four middle school students, 2 females and 2 males, were asked to participate in this research study along with their parents. The students were identified by their teachers as having outstanding talents relative to their peers in mathematics, language arts, French, and music, which satisfies the United States Department of Education definition of giftedness (1993). Semi-structured interviews with the participants, the students and their parents, resulted in several common themes emerging. Despite finding school boring at times, which is a common experience for gifted students (Gallagher, 1997; Kanevsky & Keighley, 2003), the student participants generally found school very enjoyable. A vibrant extracurricular life seemed to be very important to these students and added enjoyment to their school life. The student participants had never been challenged by anything they encountered in the educational system; they all expressed a desire for more challenge in their school work. Except for one student who had taken part in a pull-out enrichment program in elementary school, none of the students had experienced a differentiation of instruction (Tomlinson, 2002). None of the students had been formally identified as being gifted or academically talented and they did not report any significant differences in the ways they were taught compared with their classmates.