Gifted, residential education: Outcomes are largely favorable, but there are some cautions

Questionnaire data on attitudes, beliefs, and feelings were collected from both parents and students at the beginning, middle, and end of the first year of operation of the South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics. Significant differences between parents and students were found on several measures, and responses of both groups varied significantly over the different administrations of the questionnaire. General findings indicated that participation in the Governor's School was a positive experience throughout the year for both parents and students. Some specific findings of interest included: (a) the students tended to be more worried than were the parents, (b) the parents thought the students were coping with the Governor's School experience better than the students thought the parents were coping, (c) the parents rated the students as being healthier than the students rated themselves, and both groups perceived a slight decline in student health during the initial part of the year, and (d) both parents and students became somewhat less optimistic as the year progressed about the student's potential for getting into better colleges as a result of their attendance at the Governor's School. These and other findings are discussed and recommendations are made for conducting this type of research in the future.