The Effect of an Enrichment Program on Developing Analytical, Creative, and Practical Abilities of Elementary Gifted Students

The current study investigated the effects of a school enrichment program on the analytical, creative, and practical abilities of elementary gifted students. Forty-two students (N = 42) from the fifth and sixth grade of the Al-Shawkany School in Saudi Arabia were randomly chosen to participate in the study according to two criteria: (a) being among the top 5% on the general ability test designed for the Saudi environment and (b) a general studies achievement test score of 90% to 100%. The enrichment program lasted 6 weeks. The Aurora Battery was administered to the participants at the beginning as well as at the end of the program. The Mann-Whitney U test for independent groups yielded statistically significant differences between the medians of the experimental and control groups in analytical and creative abilities in favor of the experimental group. There were no statistically significant differences in the practical abilities and the total score. Results of the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test showed that there were statistically significant differences between the medians of the experimental group on pretest and posttest of the analytical and creative abilities, whereas there were no statistically significant differences in practical abilities and in the total score. A multivariate Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that there were significant differences among the three abilities in favor of analytical abilities.