TEACHER COMPETENCIES IN IDENTIFYING GIFTED STUDENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN PALESTINE

The study aimed to identify the essential competencies that teachers in public schools in the northern governorates of the West Bank should possess to identify gifted students, from the perspective of the teachers themselves.To achieve this, the researcher used a descriptive methodology by collecting quantitative data through an electronic questionnaire distributed to a convenient random sample of 999 male and female teachers from public schools in the governorates of Nablus, Jenin, and Tulkarm.The study results showed that the overall teacher competencies in identifying gifted students reached 65.8%, with a moderate rating.The "personal competencies" dimension ranked first, followed by the "academic competencies" dimension.The findings also indicated that the items related to effective communication with students ranked highest in the "personal competencies" dimension, while advanced personal competencies, such as knowledge of different types of giftedness, the characteristics of gifted students, methods of identifying them, understanding their needs, and recognizing the challenges they face, ranked lower.Regarding the most important items in the academic competencies dimension, those related to mastery of the subject matter, enriching its content, accepting questions from gifted students, using incentives, and responding to them ranked highest.On the other hand, the least important items were selecting appropriate educational materials for gifted students, developing and preparing educational activities targeting higher-order thinking skills, updating teaching methods, and using technology in the evaluation process.In light of the study's results and discussion, the researcher recommended providing teachers with guidance materials on identifying gifted students and using supportive tests and measures.Additionally, the researcher emphasized the importance of training educational supervisors and encouraging them to utilize supervisory visits to enhance both personal and academic competencies among teachers.