IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ugtixx/v24y2009i1p11-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intellectually Gifted Individuals' Career Choices and Work Satisfaction: A Descriptive Study

Author

Listed:
  • Roland S. Persson

Abstract

This study set out to investigate which career path a group of intellectually gifted individuals chose, if any. How did they actually like their work, and what were the reasons for satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their chosen career? In all, 287 Mensa members (216 men and 71 women) constituted the research group. Their average age was 34.4 years (SD = 8.8) and all had obtained IQ scores equal to or higher than the 98th percentile. The study was designed as a survey operationalized as an Internet-based questionnaire using the SPSS Dimensions software. A shortened version of the Work and Life Attitudes Survey (Warr, Cook & Wall, 1979) was included as part of the questionnaire. Quantitative data were analyzed as dispersions within the research group whereas qualitative data were content-analyzed using the so-called VSAIEEDC Model. Results show that participants tended to pursue careers mainly in Technology, Science and Social Work and to a lesser degree in Practical and Aesthetic work. Work satisfaction for all these fields was shown to be average. However, for individuals choosing to start their own company and, or assume leading managerial positions, satisfaction with work and career is very high. This article focuses on possible reasons for differences between subgroups in the sample and discusses a possible way forward to improve work satisfaction for intellectually gifted individuals at work, where needed.

Suggested Citation

  • Roland S. Persson, 2009. "Intellectually Gifted Individuals' Career Choices and Work Satisfaction: A Descriptive Study," Gifted and Talented International, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 11-23, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ugtixx:v:24:y:2009:i:1:p:11-23
    DOI: 10.1080/15332276.2009.11674857
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/15332276.2009.11674857
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/15332276.2009.11674857?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ugtixx:v:24:y:2009:i:1:p:11-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/ugti .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.