Centre for Gifted Research Overview

Centre for Talented Youth, Ireland has been leading gifted education focused research in Ireland for over twenty years. Below are just some of the Centre's previous and ongoing projects.

In collaboration with the Center for Gifted Education at College of William and Mary, CTYI has produced reports on students, parents and teachers' attitudes toward gifted education in Ireland. Those reports can be accessed via William and Mary Scholar works here.

Dr. Orla Dunne and Dr. Leeanne Hinch, CTYI Academic Programme Managers, work in conjunction with the School of Inclusive and Special Education at DCU Institute of Education and their research profiles can be accessed by clicking their names. (please link our research pages)

CTYI is a partner in an Erasmus+ research project titled Equity in Gifted Education, with partners in the Netherlands, Belgium and Kosovo. 

The Centre has three current PhD students, working on projects related to pedagogical methods in teaching engineering, strengths based interventions for gifted students with autism and best practices in science education for gifted students.

CTYI team members are also working on research related to gifted students from marginalised and low income backgrounds, LGBTQ gifted students, dual enrollment and acceleration programmes, social and emotional experiences and best practices for summer enrichment programmes.

CTYI Parent Research Report

In 2016 the parents of all 13,000 active CTYI students were invited to take part in a survey to capture their experiences and beliefs around bringing up high ability children. The survey covered demographic information about the parents and their children and a quantitative and qualitative exploration of their experience with the Irish education system, with CTYI and its programmes and with what it means to provide for highly able students in a way that is both effective and equitable.

The 1,600 responses make this report one of the world's largest sources of data on the parents of highly able students, and it has yielded a range of insights which will be invaluable to parents, educational policymakers and anyone interested in providing an appropriate education to academically able students.

Along with the 2016 report on Educator's beliefs and practices around the highly able and the forthcoming report on the students' own opinions, the Centre for Gifted Research is building a comprehensive set of resources describing the highly able in Ireland and exploring how best to provide for them.

Please find below a pdf copy of the executive summary of the report, outlining its main findings, as well as a pdf copy of the full report with all of the methodological details.

Click here to view the full report for 2019:

Gifted Education in Ireland: Parents’ Beliefs and Experiences

Click here to view the summary report for 2019:

Gifted Education in Ireland: Parents’ Beliefs and Experiences