A follow-up study of the high school performance of students who were members of the inaugural major work classes in Winnipeg
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Date
1962
Authors
Hersom, Naomi,
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Abstract
The Winnipeg School Division offers a special program for intellectually gifted students in grades four through nine in its Major Work classes. When students who had been enrolled in the special classes entered high school along with equally gifted students from regular classes it was proposed to compare the high school performance of the Major Work class students with that of their non-Major Work class peers. The Major Work sample group was drawn from the sixty students who were members of grades four and five Major Work classes in September, 1954... The findings of this study suggest that the Major Work program in Winnipeg has succeeded in helping intellectually gifted students make better use of their talents in high school... The fact that gifted students from Major Work classes were not rated differently from gifted students from regular classes on behaviour traits by their home room teachers in high school indicates that the special program has not adversely affected the personal development of its members. Academic achievement in high school falls short of measuring the effectiveness of the Major Work program. Such intangible benefits as the opportunity to develop leadership abilities, to carry on independent research, to practise oral skills, to benefit by the stimulation and challenge of associating with a group of intellectually gifted students do not lend themselves to measurement.