The accuracy of parent and teacher nominations in gifted identification in Saudi Arabia

The identification of gifted students remains a critical challenge for contemporary education systems, particularly in ensuring both accuracy and equity. This study examined the effectiveness of parent and teacher nominations in the identification of gifted students within Saudi Arabia, drawing upon a large archival dataset of 541,358 nominations collected from 2015 to 2025. Using quantitative methods, the study compared nomination accuracy rates and analyzed the moderating effects of student gender and grade level. The results demonstrated that parent nominations yielded a significantly higher accuracy rate (39.6%) than teacher nominations (31.9%), with a statistically significant mean difference of 7.7 percentage points. The analysis also revealed nuanced gender patterns: parents were significantly more accurate in nominating males, whereas teachers were significantly more accurate in nominating females. Furthermore, a strong grade-level effect was observed, with nomination accuracy for both sources more than doubling between the elementary (grades 3–5) and secondary (grades 6–10) levels. These findings highlighted the complementary value of parent and teacher perspectives in capturing diverse expressions of giftedness and underscore the profound influence of demographic factors. The results carried important implications for refining multi-source identification systems, particularly in non-Western contexts, and contribute to ongoing theoretical and practical debates on achieving equitable and equitable gifted education.