Abstract
Although considerable research has addressed development from childhood giftedness to adult excellence, subjective perceptions of this development by gifted individuals themselves have remained largely unexplored. This multiple case study examined the ways in which young adults, who in the past had been identified as gifted, made sense of their giftedness based on cues obtained from their social environment and the impact of this sensemaking on their development.
Some participants made sense of their giftedness in a way that prevented them from developing a sense of agency in their education: Their sensemaking was based on social control or, conversely, on effortless learning and easy victories they experienced in childhood. The participants who showed the highest level of achievement and motivation in early adulthood perceived themselves as agents of their learning and made sense of their extraordinary outcomes as resulting from effortful, proper, and self-directed practice.
Our findings indicate that a sense of agency is critical to maintaining gifted-level achievement through adolescence. We have identified some of the social environment factors that can diminish or enhance that sense of agency in high-achieving children.