The Comparison of the Social Skills, Problem Behaviours and Academic Competence of Gifted Students and Their Non-gifted Peers

The purpose of this study is to compare the social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence of gifted students at elementary level with their non-gifted peers, and to assess these based on the variables age, gender, and school year. The study group consists of 50 gifted students in second, third and fourth grade in state schools in Ankara in the 2017- 2018 school year and their 50 non-gifted peers. In order to obtain data for the study, The Social Skills Rating Scale Teacher Form was used which developed by Gresham and Elliot (1990) and translated into Turkish by Sucuoğlu and Özokçu (2005) has been used. The data has been analysed using the SPSS 22.00 software package. Descriptive statistics have been used for data analysis. According to the results of the study, it was observed that the social skills levels and the academic competence levels of the gifted students were statistically more developed compared to their non-gifted peers. On the other hand, it was observed that there was no difference between gifted students and their non-gifted peers in terms of problem behaviours. In this study, no significant difference was found in the academic competence levels of gifted students according to gender. It was found out in the study that 10-year old students display more problem behaviours in comparison to their 9-year old peers. There was no meaningful difference in the social skills and academic competence of gifted students based on the variable school year. Although the results of this study present that gifted students have better social skills and academic competence, and display less problem behaviours compared to their peers, further research needs to be conducted to clarify this situation.


INTRODUCTION
Researchers have been trying to understand, explain and assess gifted individuals for nearly a hundred years (Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius, & Worrell, 2011). A major part of these studies have been conducted to understand the social and emotional aspects of gifted individuals (Cross & Cross, 2017;Merrell & Gill, 1994). Does being gifted also mean having an extraordinary potential or performance socially and emotionally? Answers have been sought to this question since the beginning of such research. Ideas on whether gifted individuals are stronger or weaker socially or emotionally than other people have changed over time (Ogurlu, Yalın, & Birben, 2018). From the 1980s onwards, the experts in the field have dealt with the issue more than ever before to clarify this situation. For instance, Child (1981) compared the adaptive behaviour of 5-year old gifted and non-gifted children and found out that gifted students displayed higher adaptive behaviour scores than non-gifted students (Douthitt, 1992). During the 1990s, a lot of research was conducted to determine the social and emotional conditions of gifted children and their comparison to their peers (Delisle, 1990;Douthitt, 1992;Galloway & Porath, 1997;Garland & Zigler, 1999;Kitano, 1990;Luftig & Nichols, 1990;Merrell & Gill, 1994;Nail & Evans, 1997;Neihart, 1999;Sayler & Brookshire, 1993). According to Neihart (1999), the results of the studies carried out in the second half of the twentieth century present two contradicting thoughts. The first of these is that gifted students are more adaptive than their peers whereas the second one shows that gifted children have a higher chance of experiencing inadaptability (Neihart, 1999;Peterson, 2009).
It is seen that the researchers in literature generally focus on one subject. According to Ben-Eliyahu et al., (2017), a majority of the literature studied academic and social skills individually and implied that they were independent of each other. Only a few researchers have studied social and academic motivation together. It is observed that research focusing on social skills, academic success and problem behaviours of gifted children as a whole is quite limited (Galloway & Porath, 1997;Shechtman & Silektor, 2012;Vialle et al., 2007). As for Turkey, there are studies on the social skills academic success and behavioral problems of groups which need different types of special education. There are studies on the social skills (Demir & Özdemir, 2016;Doğuş & Şafak, 2019;Özkubat & Özdemir, 2012; and problem behaviours of students with visual impairment (Demir & Özdemir, 2016) as well as studies on autism (Demir, 2014a;Demir, 2014b); mentally retarded students (Serin & Girli, 2012;Sucuoğlu & Özokçu, 2005); and students with hearing impairment (Poyraz-Tüy, 1999). Similarly, there are also studies which focus on the social skills of students with special needs in inclusive education (Sülün & Girli 2016). However, no studies have been found on the social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence of gifted students. When this limitation is taken into consideration, it is believed that this study which focuses on the social skills, problem behaviours and academic success of gifted and non-gifted Turkish students taught in the same environment will contribute to literature. In order to develop the social skills of students with special needs, it is necessary to find out the present social, behavioral and academic skills of students, and to prepare and implement appropriate educational programs. In this respect, the aim of this study is to compare the social skill levels, problem behaviours and academic behaviour of gifted students at elementary level with those of their peers, and to assess the social skill levels, problem behaviours levels and academic competence of gifted students and their non-gifted peers according to the variables age, gender and class.

METHOD
A descriptive method was used in this study to compare the social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence of gifted children and their non-gifted peers.

Participants
The study group consists of 50 gifted students and 50 non-gifted peers in second, third and fourth grade from public elementary schools located in Ankara in the 2017-2018 school year. There are two study groups classified as gifted students at elementary schools and their non-gifted peers. The distribution of the students in the study group according to number, gender, age and grade were also showed in Table 1. First of all, Guidance and Research Center of National Education Directorate in Ankara were visited for the purpose of selecting students for the study. Through colloboration with these research centres, students identified as gifted in formal educational assessment reports who did not display accompanying special needs were identified. As the second step, interviews were conducted with the school counsellors in order to determine the classrooms and the grades of the gifted students. As the third and final step, interviews were conducted with the class teachers of the gifted students to inform them on the purpose of the study and the data collection tools. During these interviews, gifted students and their non-gifted peers in the same classrooms were randomly chosen using class lists.

Data Collection Instruments and Procedure
Social skills can be assessed by using different methods such as direct observation, conducting structured interviews with people who know the student well-such as parents or peers, self-evaluation, sociometrics and rating scales (Merrell, 2001). There are behavioral rating scales which are used widely, and the validity and reliability of which have been proved by data collected from different groups. The most widely used rating scale is Social Skills Rating Scale (SSRS). Rating scales, which are used by having the parents and teachers rate the listed social skills, are widely used for assessing the social skills of students with special needs (Buhrow et al., 1998;Sucuoğlu & Özokçu, 2005), to implement social skills programs (Meimer, DiPerna and Oster, 2006;Miller, Lane and Wehby, 2005;Silver, Elder & DeBolt, 2005) and to assess the effectiveness of the programs used (Celeste, 2007;Lane, Givner & Pierson, 2004;Mathews, Fawcett, & Sheldon, 2009).
The Social Skills Rating Scale Teacher Form is an instrument which is developed by Gresham and Elliot (1990) in order to obtain data from teachers about their 6 to 11 aged students' social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence. Sucuoglu and Ozokcu (2005) translated The Social Skills Rating Scale form into Turkish and conducted reliability and validity analysis. Gresham and Elliot (1990) developed the Social Skills Rating Scale which includes three scales: Social Skills Scale (SSS), Problem Behaviours Scale (PBS), and Academic Competence Scale (ACS).
The Social Skills Scale (SSS) is the first of the SSRS and consists of 30 items. The scale has two different parts. The first of these have been developed to find out how often the student displays certain social skills whereas the second aims to find out how important these skills are for achieving success in the classroom. There are two sub-scales in Social Skills Scale. When the first part of the Social Skills Scale was to be filled in, the class teacher was asked to think about the behaviour displayed by the student in the one or two months and to decide on how often the student displayed each behaviour. The teachers were asked to circle zero (0) if the student never displayed a certain behaviour. If the student sometimes displayed the specific behaviour, they were asked to circle one (1). The teachers were asked to circle two (2) if the student displayed certain behaviour often. When the second part of the Social Skills Scale was to be filled in, the teachers were asked to rate the items from 1 to 30 to understand how important such behaviour was for success in the classroom. They were asked to circle zero (0) if a ceretain behaviour did not play a role on success in the classroom, to circle one (1) if the behaviour was important for success in the classroom, and to circle two (2) if the behaviour was of critical importance.
The Problem Behaviours Scale (PBS) was the second scale to be used and consisted of 18 items. Similar to the Social Skills Scale, the class teacher was asked to think about the behaviour displayed by the student in the last one or two months, and to decide on how often the student displayed the specified behaviour. They were asked to circle one (1) if the student sometimes displayed the behaviour. They were told to circle two (2) if the student displayed the behaviour often.
The Academic Competence Scale (ACS) was the last of the scales and consisted of 9 items. The teachers were told that they had to decide on the academic and learning behaviours of students that they observed in class using the 9 items defined in the scale. They were asked to rate each item 1 to 5, and to circle the number that best reflected their thoughts. The number 1 meant that the student displayed the lowest performance and was placed in the lowest 10% in the class whereas the number 5 meant that the student displayed the highest or most appropriate performance, and was placed in the highest 10% in the class. That they had to compare the rated student to other students in the classroom was also emphasized.

Data Analysis
The class teachers rated the social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence of the students in the study group using the SSRS. The data was analysized using SPSS 22.00 software package. Descriptive statistics method was used for data analysis. Independent sample T-test was used to observe if there was a significant difference between the social skills, problem behaviourss and academic competence scores of gifted students and their non-gifted peers. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence scores of the students according to gender whereas the Kruskal-Wallis H Test was used to compare the students' scores according to age and grade.

RESULTS
In the presentation of the analysis, the comparison of the social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence of gifted students and their peers, and the interpretation of these depending on gender, age, and grade are studied in seperate headings.

Differences Between Gifted and Non-gifted Students
The findings obtained by using the t-test to identify whether the social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence scores of gifted students and their non-gifted peers display a significant difference were sshown in Table 2. The results shown in Table 2 indicate that, there were a statistically meaningful difference between the social skills levels of gifted students and their non-gifted peers (t=2,06; p<.005). Similarly, it is observed that the academic competence scores of gifted students are statistically higher than those of their non-gifted peers (t=5,23; p<.005). As for problem behaviours, it is seen that there is no difference between gifted students and non-gifted students concerning problem behaviours (t=0,66; p>.05).

Scores of Gifted Students and Their Non-Gifted Peers according to the Variable Gender
The Mann -Whitney U test was used to find our if there was a difference in the social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence scores of gifted students and their non-gifted peers according to the variable gender, and the findings are presented in Table 3, As can be seen in Table 3, there is a statistically significant difference in the social skills (z=-3,59; p<.05) and problem behaviours (z=-2,12; p<.05) of gifted children according to the variable gender. In this respect, it was found out that female students had better social skills whereas males students displayed more problem behaviours. No statistically significant difference was found in gifted students concerning academic competence depending on gender. (z=-1,85; p>.05).

Table 3. The Results of the Mann Whitney-U Test Conducted to Find out Whether there was a Difference in Social Skills, Problem Behaviours and Academic Competence Scores of Gifted Students and Their Non-gifted Peers According to the Variable Gender
On the other hand, significant differences were found among non-gifted students concerning social skills (z=-2,98; p<.05), problem behaviours (z=-2,07; p<.05) and academic competence levels (z=-2,76; p<.05) depending on gender. Thus, as can also be observed in the means of social skills scores, it was found out that female students performed better social skills and academic competence compared to male students, which presented statistically significant differences. It was also found out that male students displayed more problem behaviours.

The Comparison of the Social Skills, Problem Behaviours and Academic Competence of Gifted Children and Their Non-gifted Peers According to the Variable Age
The Kruskal-Wallis H Test was performed to find out whether age affected the mean scores of social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence. The results are presented in Table 4. It is observed in the table that the social skills (x 2 =4,28; p>.05) and academic competence of gifted students do not change according to age (x 2 =3,89; p>.05) It is also observed that the socials skills (x 2 =5,01; p>.05) and problem behaviours of non-gifted students do not change according to age (x 2 =1,24; p>.05)  Table 4 is studied, it is observed that there is a significant difference between 10-year olds and 9-year olds concerning problem behaviours. It was found out that 10-year olds displayed more problem behaviours compared to their 9-year old peers. (x 2 =9,45; p<.05). Similarly, it was found out that there was a significant difference in 8-year old and 10-year old non-gifted children in academic competence, and in this context the academic competence of 10-year old students was higher than that of 8-year old students (x 2 =4,61; p<.05).

The Comparison of The Social Skills, Problem Behaviours and Academic Competence of Gifted Children and Their Non-gifted Peers in Relation to Grade
The Kruskal-Wallis H Test was used to find out the differences in social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence scores of gifted and non-gifted students according to grade, and the findings are presented in Table 5. According to Table 5 the social skills (x 2 =4,36; p>.05) and academic competence (x 2 =5,88; p>.05) of gifted students were not found to be significant in relation to grade. However, it was found out that fourth grade students displayed more problem behaviours in comparison to peers in third grade (x 2 =8,54; p<.05). It was also found out that there was no difference in the social skills (x 2 =5,82; p>.05) and problem behaviours (x 2 =1,31; p>.05) of non-gifted students in relation to grade. However, it was found out that fourth grade students had better academic competence compared to peers in second grade (x 2 =6,11; p<.05).

DISCUSSIONS
According to the results of the study, it was found out that the social skills levels of gifted students were statistically significantly more advanced than those of their non-gifted peers. These findings are consistent with studies which state that gifted individuals have similar or better social and emotional traits when compared to their peers (Bracken & Brown, 2006;Cornell et al., 1995;Chan, 2006;Eklund et al., 2015;França-Freitas et al., 2014;Francis et al., 2016;Garland & Zigler, 1999;Kroesbergen et al., 2016;Merrell & Gill, 1994;Nail & Evans, 1997;França-Freitas et al., 2014;Robinson, 2008;van der Meulen et al., 2014;Vialle et al., 2007). Some experts in the field have argued in their research that gifted individuals are more vulnerable socially and emotionally (Farrent & Grant, 2005;Francis et al., 2016;Lee et al., 2012;Peterson, 2009;Robinson, 2002). Vialle et al., (2007) have argued that although most of the gifted group displayed high academic performance, social and emotional data has shown that some gifted individuals are under risk. In this respect, the findings of our study are not consistent with these limited studies.
The findings of this study indicate that the academic competence of gifted students is statistically more advanced than the academic competence of their non-gifted peers. These findings are consistent with literature (Gubbels, Segers, & Verhoeven, 2018;Gottfried et al., 1994;Košir et al., 2016;Kroesbergen et al., 2016;Litster & Roberts, 2011;Masden, Leung, Shore, Schneider, & Stephen, 2015;Neihart, 1999;Sak, 2012;Subotnik et al., 2011;Vialle et al., 2007;Wai et al., 2005). Vialle et al., (2007) have stated that gifted students have much higher academic competence when compared to their non-gifted peers (Subotnik et al., 2011). In addition, it is assumed that gifted individuals have judgement skills that enable them to succeed in different areas and that they remain gifted throughout their lives even if they do not really achieve success. It was also observed in the meta-analysis conducted by Litster and Roberts (2011) that gifted children had higher scores in academic competence.
According to the findings of the study, it is observed that there is no difference in problem behaviours between gifted students and their non-gifted peers. (Cornell et al., 1995;Francis et al., 2016;Galloway & Porath, 1997;Gallucci et al., 1999;Garland & Zigler, 1999;Litster & Roberts, 2011). For instance, Francis et al., (2016) have shown in their study that gifted children display outstanding social emotional adjustment and less behavioral difficulty than their typically non-gifted peers. Gallucci et al., (1999) have assessed the behaviour scores in Child Behaviour Control List, and differences in competence rates of 78 gifted students and 62 non-gifted students. No significant difference was found between the two groups in the whole of the scale and its sub-dimensions. Although the findings of this study are consistent with international literature, they contradict the findings of studies conducted in Turkey (Çetinkaya et al., 2012;Çitil, 2016;İnci, 2014;Kurnaz, 2009;Sezer, 2015;Talas et al., 2013;Yıldırım, 2012). The reason for this contradiction may be due to the limited number of studies in Turkey. Fort his reason, further research should be carried out in Turkey on social-emotional aspects of gifted individuals.
In this study, no statistically significant difference was found in the academic competence of gifted students in relation to gender. These findings are also consistent with literature (Ogurlu et al., 2018;Vallerand et al., 1994;Subotnik et al., 2011). It was found out that female students have better social skills, and that male students display problem behaviours more often. There is no agreement in literature on the effect of gender on social skills and problem behaviours (Aydın & Konyalioğlu, 2011;Cross et al., 2008;Lee et al., 2012;Ogurlu et al., 2018;Peters & Bain, 2011;Swiatek, 2002;Ural & Kanlıkılıçer, 2010). Some studies in literature have reached the conclusion that female students have higher social skills compared to male students (Bacal, 2015;Masden et al., 2015;Gagné & Gagnier, 2004). For instance, Ural and Kanlıkılıçer (2010) concluded in their study that males display more problem behaviours in comparison to females. In another study, Algozzine et al., (2008) stated that male students are sent to the discipline office three times as much as female students. Some research states that male students have higher social skills than female students (Amini, 2005;Luftig & Nichols, 1991;Yıldırım, 2012) whereas some researchers have found no differences (Howard-Hamilton, & Franks, 1995;Foust et al., 2006;Vallerand et al., 1994).
In this study, it was found out that 10-year old students display more problem behaviours compared to their 9-year old peers. It was also found out that there was asignificant difference in the academic competence of 10-year old and 8-year old students who had similar development. Thus, it was found out that 10-year old students had higher academic competence than their 8-year old peers. There is limited data in literature on this topic (Francis et al., 2016;Martin et al., 2010;Neihart, 1999). For instance, according to Richards et al., (2003) gifted adolescents in upper classes display less problem behaviours in comparison to their non-gifted peers. Gagné and Gagnier (2004) have stated that there is no difference in behaviour, social integration, academic maturity and academic success between gifted students and their non-gifted peers in terms of grade and age. Similarly, Vallerand et al., (1994) have reported no difference in social skills in different grades. Cornell et al., (1995) compared 675 gifted students and 322 non-gifted students in second and third grade in their study, and reported no significant difference in problem behaviours in relation to grade and age. Likewise, Shechtman, & Silektor, (2012) compared the social-emotional difficulties of 974 students in fifth and twelfth grade. They have not reported any differences in relation to grade and age.
In this study, the social skills and academic competence of gifted students were not found to be meaningful in relation to grade. However, it was found out that fourth grade students displayed more problem behaviours in comparison to their third grade peers. It was also found out that there was no difference in the social skills and problem behaviours of non-gifted students in relation to grade. However, it was found out that fourth grade students had higher academic competence in comparison to their second grade peers. There is limited data in literature on the social skills and problem behaviours of students in relation to grade and age (Çitil & Ataman, 2019;Francis et al., 2016;França-Freitas et al., 2014;Ogurlu et al., 2018;Martin et al., 2010). This is so because studies on this topic focus mainly on the comparison of two groups of gifted individuals and non-gifted individuals. According to the limited number of research, when age and grade increase, there is an increase in social skills and a decrease in problem behaviours. For instance, in a study conducted in an elementary school for gifted children, Çitil (2016) found out that problem behaviours was more common among first grade students. According to Robinson (2002), gifted individuals may have difficulty making friends especially when they are younger and when their environment is limited to classroom, school, neighbourhood or a small town. It may be true that students have more stable relationships as they get older. For instance, according to Swiatek (2002) comparisons on grade revealed that older students focus on popularity more than younger students.
In conclusion, research on gifted individuals focuses more on cognitive variables and less on the social and emotional needs of students (Foley-Nicpon et al., 2017;Mueller, 2009;Sisk, 2005;van der Meulen et al., 2014;Zeidner, & Shani-Zinovich, 2011). Research results on the social emotional aspects of gifted individuals are inconsistent (Bain & Bell, 2004;Peterson, 2009van der Meulen et al., 2014. It may be said that the findings of this study contribute to studies on this subject. Different from many studies in literature, social skills, problem behaviours and academic competence were studied together in this study, and comparisons were made between two groups. However, the greatest limitation of this study was the small sample size. It will be useful to conduct this study again with a bigger sample group in order to achieve stronger results. This study tried to find out the social skills, behaviour and academic competence of gifted students and non-gifted students with data received from teachers. To present the situation on this topic, gathering simultaneous data from families, students and peers as well as teachers, and making appropriate comparisons will present stronger results. As França-Freitas et al., (2014) have also recommended, it will be beneficial to conduct similar studies using different data collection tools and procedures such as sociometric assessment. Although the results of this study show that gifted children have higher social skills and academic competence in comparison to their peers, it is necessary to carry out further research to clarify this situation. It should also be kept in mind that gifted individuals are more sensitive in some aspects and academically more advanced than their peers. These factors should be taken into consideration in the classroom and the school environment, and effective measures should be taken for students with adjustment problems. The key issue in the field of gifted individuals is identifying individuals who will be able to solve the serious problems the world is dealing with (Glăveanu & Kaufman, 2017). According to Sternberg (2017), thinking on one's own as an individual can never solve the difficulties of the present and the future in the present century. For this reason, social skills are the main factor through which intelligence and giftedness can be of benefit to the individual, the society and the world. Social skills may be one of the biggest problems and the solutions of the present century.