Teachers' attitudes towards talent searching programmes

Abstract

The purpose and the aim of this study was to investigate Teachers perceptions of Talent Searching Programmes in Maltese schools. The research was based on questionnaires given out to 60 secondary P.E. teachers around government, private and church schools in order to evaluate different perceptions from teachers teaching in different schools in the Maltese society. The study was aimed at understanding whether Talent Searching Programmes can be introduced in Maltese schools during Physical Education lessons. The results indicate that 96% of the P.E. teachers are not trained to identify talented students, however 80% of the teachers expressed their interest to learn about the topic. Through our research, we identified a number of Talent Search Programmes around the world and we understood that programmes like these were of great benefit to the countries implementing them. These programmes mainly consist of 3 phases. Phase 1 takes place in school P.E. lessons, which include general physical education, phase 2 includes sport specific testing, where tests are taken with more accuracy, and phase 3 is the talent development stage, where after being identified as talented, students are invited to join specific talent development programmes. The number of athletes taking part in sport has grown altogether and the number of elite athletes taking part in top level competitions such as the Olympics has increased and therefore medal success has also increased. Our main interest was to understand whether P.E. teachers are interested in taking on the role of talent identification after having had some formal training on the topic. Investigating foreign Talent search programmes, we learnt that physical education teachers are the first to identify talented students by assessing them through specific tests that can identify a student as talented. The role of the P.E. teacher in Malta does not yet include talent identification, however with the willingness of the teachers, as our research suggests, and with the support from the authorities, we believe that such programmes can be implemented in Malta with success.