Social and Emotional Strategies: The Perspectives of High School Gifted Students and AIG Directors

Limited studies address high school gifted students' social and emotional needs (Knudsen, 2018; Kregel, 2015). Additionally, there is a lack of research regarding high school gifted students' and AIG directors' perspectives on the social and emotional strategies implemented locally within their school districts (Clinkenbeard, 2012; Kitsantas et al., 2017). Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation was (a) to discover the services school districts proposed to implement to meet the social and emotional needs of high school gifted students and (b) to explore high school gifted students’ and AIG directors’ perspectives about these services. Using purposeful sampling, this qualitative research included five participants from two school districts. The data collection methods implemented during this study were compiling school documents (i.e., 2022–2025 Local AIG Plans ) and conducting five separate interviews. I used document analysis to analyze data from the Local AIG Plans and thematic analysis to analyze data from the interviews. Results from the document analysis yielded three themes: program-level and curricula strategies, resources and support, and collaboration and counseling strategies. Results from the thematic analysis of interviews yielded three themes on how schools implement social and emotional services from the participants' perspective: social and emotional services, interaction, and gathering and sharing information. Further, the thematic analysis of participants' in-depth perspectives about these services yielded three themes: satisfaction and awareness, counseling, and limitations and improvements.