LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTIC AMONG GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS AT MALAYSIA NATIONAL GIFTED CENTER

Rorlinda Yusof; Noriah Mohd Ishak; Azizah Mohd Zahidi

Volume : IV, Issue : VIII, August - 2015

LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTIC AMONG GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS AT MALAYSIA NATIONAL GIFTED CENTER

Rorlinda Yusof, Noriah Mohd Ishak, Azizah Mohd Zahidi

Abstract :

The purpose of this study is to identify the leadership characteristics amongst Gifted and Talented Students (GTS). Leadership is an important characteristic that enables GTS to assume responsibility in the near future. This research reports two main objectives, which are the leadership characteristic profiling, and the level of GTS�s leadership characteristic.The research was conducted by distributing Student Leadership Characteristics Questionnaire (SLCQ). The questionnaire was distributed among the students of High School Gifted Education PERMATApintar Program and the Pre–University PERMATApintar Program. Participants included 171 of the students, 93 were High School Gifted Students and 78 were Pre–University Gifted Students. They were randomly selected to respond to Student Leadership Characteristics Questionnaire (SLCQ). The SLCQ consists of 70 items, which is divided into 14 constructs. Student reponded using a 5–point scale by applying Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. Descriptive statistics was used to determine the mean and standard deviationsby using SPSS software (version 19.0). The overall findings revealed that the GTS posses a high level of leadership characteristic. Collegiality indicates the highest score of the leadership characteristic, followed by leadership behaviour, influence competency, spiritual ethics, work relation, transformation and cohesion. Whereas, self–esteem, leadership efficacy, and visionary were among the average high leadership characteristic, and and self–monitoring was the lowest. The findings also indicated that female students possess higher leadership characteristics in comparison to the male students. Interm of leadership scores position according to races, the Punjab, Bumiputra Sabah and Sarawak possess higher scores compared to the Chinese and Malays, whereas the Indians scored the lowest. Lastly, students from the High School Education Program possess higher leadership characteristics in comparison to the students from Pre–University Gifted Program. The study has proven that leadership characteristics were embedded in the GTS personality. Implication of the findings on character building program for the gifted students were discussed.