Gifted Education Self-efficacy Scale for Teachers (GESST)

The Gifted Education Self-Efficacy Scale for Teachers (GESST) is a multidimensional measurement tool developed to assess teachers’ perceived self-efficacy in relation to the education of gifted students. The scale consists of six factors, each representing a specific domain of teacher competence in gifted education.

Factor 1 – Academic Competence includes items 1, 2, and 3, measuring teachers’ academic knowledge and scientific engagement concerning gifted learners.
Factor 2 – Mentorship (Advisory) Competence includes items 4, 5, 6, and 7, assessing teachers’ ability to provide guidance, mentoring, and emotional support to gifted students.
Factor 3 – Responsibility consists of items 8, 9, and 10, focusing on teachers’ sense of responsibility in addressing the special educational needs of gifted students.
Factor 4 – Personality Traits comprises items 11 through 17 and evaluates personal characteristics such as patience, tolerance, humor, energy, and trust-building ability.
Factor 5 – Creativity Fostering Competence includes items 18 to 23, measuring teachers’ ability to stimulate students’ curiosity, motivation, and divergent thinking skills.
Factor 6 – Instructional Planning Competence includes items 24, 25, and 26, addressing teachers’ skills in preparing differentiated and curriculum-aligned instructional plans.

Criterion validity was established by examining the correlation between GESST and the Science Fair Mentorship Self-Efficacy Scale for Teachers (SFMSST). The results indicated a significant and positive correlation between the two scales (r = .76, p < .01).

Regarding reliability, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for each subdimension were calculated as .86, .93, .77, .91, .94, and .94, respectively. The total reliability of the scale was found to be .90. The scale explained a total variance of 78.10%. Item-total correlations ranged from .30 to .73, while subdimension-total correlations ranged between .373 and .771. These findings indicate that GESST is both a valid and reliable measurement tool.

Note: The scale does not include any reverse-coded items. It consists of six subdimensions. Analyses can be conducted based on the overall self-efficacy score or the competence scores of individual subdimensions.