Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
How verbally gifted students describe and interpret critical incidents in their school experiences: A symbolic interaction study
Abstract
This exploratory study presents stories of school incidents that were reported by thirty-four high school gifted informants. Through ethnographic interviews, informants provided detailed descriptions of critical incidents at school, how they made sense of these events, and how these meanings influenced their feelings about school and their achievement behaviors in school. The assumptions of this qualitative study imply the informants' own perspectives of school events provide a basis for understanding how school practices and programs are interpreted by able learners. Symbolic interactionism, a research tradition derived from the Chicago School of the 1920's and more recently applied in educational research, provided a conceptual framework for the study. Textbase Alpha, a qualitative analysis program, provided the means for online coding and retrieval of segments from the transcribed interviews. Coded segments of the interviews were clustered into categories within three overall domains within symbolic interactionism--interactions, meaning, and behaviors. Verification was accomplished through member checks with informants, peer examination of the coding process, an external auditor, memos and journals, and extensive peer collaboration throughout the data collection and analysis process. The domain of interactions consisted of informants' interactions with teachers, peers, and institutional routines in classroom settings--the primary type of interactions considered for this study. In the domain of meanings, informants described four meaning themes that served as filters through which interactions were translated into behaviors. Informants elaborated meaning systems about self efficacy, a sense of belonging, school as boring/challenging and school as rigid/flexible. In the behavior domain, informants described five themes in classroom achievement--Authentic Achievement, Qualified Achievement, Alternative Achievement, Coping, and Resignation. Cultural themes emerged from the findings to reflect the informants' perspectives of school: caring, grades, boredom, behavior modification, learning styles, fault, and "whatever." Twelve working hypotheses for further research concluded this study.
Subject Area
Curricula|Teaching|Teacher education|Academic guidance counseling|Special education
Recommended Citation
Peterson, Jean Evelyn Dworak, "How verbally gifted students describe and interpret critical incidents in their school experiences: A symbolic interaction study" (1993). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9406089.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9406089