Career Adapt-ability, Emotional Intelligence, Resilience and Career Readiness in Gifted and Non Gifted Middle School Students

Career development has always been an important issue for an individual from birth to the end of their life. With the diversification of educational theories and programs, it has become more visible in the 21st century, and today, career development is even more important for both the individual and their family. There are a number of factors such as the future of the profession, economic factors, family and environmental effects that may negatively affect the decisions of gifted secondary school students, especially in the course and field selection, career preference and selection process. This study was conducted to provide insights into whether the perspectives of gifted and typically developing secondary school students on the future have changed and how they manage and experience their career futures. The aim of the research is to determine the relationships between the career adaptability, career readiness, resilience and emotional intelligence in secondary school students and to compare gifted vs not gifted students. In addition, the aim is to examine under which variables these concepts change. The career adaptability, career readiness and academic resilience levels of gifted and not gidted students were examined comparatively according to variables in the form of personal information such as the child's gender and age. Along with the Personal Information Form, Career Adaptability, Resilience at Secondary School Scale, Emotional Intelligence and Career Readiness Scale were applied. A total of 77 secondary school students, 44 girls and 33 boys, from Turkey were interviewed to apply the scales. t-test, Anova, regression and correlation analysis were performed to evaluate the data. In order to analyze the students' perspectives on the future, thematic analysis was performed to extract themes from the participants' answers to open-ended questions and regression analysis was performed to derive a model from the relevant variables. In this study, while no significant difference was observed in the four main variables between gifted and typically developing students, a statistically negative relationship was found between resilience, EI and CAAS variables and age. Gifted students preferred the fifth category, which includes high-level professions, more than typically developing students.