Learning adaptation refers to individual adjustment and interaction with the learning environment during the learning process. Students overcome external stress while seeking knowledge by continually adjusting their behaviors and adopting appropriate skills and strategies. Adaptive learners form positive relationships with students, teachers, and the school in addition to enhancing their learning performance and pursuing self-realization.

Following the implementation of the 12-year basic education policy, the K-12 Education Administration of the Ministry of Education (MOE) undertook a long-term follow-up and guidance program for gifted students from 2016–2020 based on a middle-term plan for promoting the quality development of gifted education. The project systematically tracked the learning pathways of students receiving gifted education services to gain a holistic understanding of their learning status (Kuo et al., 2020). The research team designed an online learning questionnaire (divided into elementary, junior, and high school versions) to collect the learning adaptation profiles of gifted students at school. However, this questionnaire only investigated the learning adaptation of students with superior intelligence or academic talents and did not include gifted students with artistic talents. Therefore, this study extended the survey to include artistically talented students to gain a comprehensive understanding of gifted students with different strengths.

The 12-year basic education policy poses great challenges to school curriculum development, as it requires teachers to develop gifted programs on the basis of student profiles and their special educational needs for talent development in subjects such as music, art, and dancing. Therefore, it would be helpful for teachers and schools to collect student feedback on learning satisfaction for various courses as a reference for the school’s follow-up curriculum design.

Our research tools included a version of the High School Student Learning Questionnaire (HSSLQ) modified for artistically talented students and the Taiwan Longitudinal Study and Gifted Support Network (TLSGSN) website. The questionnaire was divided into two parts. The first part was a learning adaptation survey, which investigated different aspects of learning status, and the second part was a curriculum satisfaction survey, which addressed first-year courses for artistically talented students in

senior high schools.

a. The HSSLQ (artistically talented version) was modified from the HSSLQ constructed by Kuo et al. (2020). The learning adaptation survey included three dimensions: learning development, life adjustment, and future career. A 4-point Likert scale was used. Participants responded to questions with either “strongly agree ,” “mostly agree,” “mostly disagree,” or “strongly disagree,” and these were scored from 4 to 1, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to analyze the fit of the measurement model. The result of both the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin and Bartlett’s sphericity tests was .96, and the cumulative explained variance was 56.76%, indicating that the measurement items were representative and appropriate. Only three items had factor loadings ranging from .65–.68. All other factor loadings were above .70, showing convergent validity. The confidence intervals of the correlation coefficients for the three subscales were less than 1, demonstrating reasonable discriminant validity. The goodness of fit index (= .86), adjusted goodness of fit index (= .83), root mean square error of approximation (= .08), standardized root mean square residual (= .05), and comparative fit index (= .90) indicated constructive validity and a good fit. The average variances extracted of the three potential variables were .63, .56, and .53 , they and were all greater than .50; the construct reliability values were .89, .90, and .93; and the correlation coefficients for the three potential variables were .65, .77, and .67. The result of CFA indicated that our measurement model fit that which we hypothesized.

b. The curriculum satisfaction survey gathered students’ views on gifted education courses and teaching methods. In this section of the questionnaire, students chose between the responses of “like” and “dislike” and “beneficial” and “not beneficial” for each course they had taken. Students could choose “not applicable” to indicate that they had not taken a course. This section also examined students’ perceptions of types of gifted education classes. The researchers adjusted the original HSSLQ’s “class methods” to produce 14 categories of classes: teacher-led lectures, group learning, teacher-student discussion, individual guidance, games, competitive activities, hands-on activities, off-campus teaching, special lectures, online learning, teaching by demonstration, practical exercises, performance activities, and teamwork. Students chose “like” or “dislike” and “beneficial” or“not beneficial” in response. They could respond with “not applicable” if they had not experienced a class type. The students’ feedback will be compiled into a catalog of courses for future analysis.

This study investigated the learning adaptation of second-year gifted senior high school students specialized in art‚ music, and dance in Taiwan. The survey was undertaken using the TLSGSN website. According to the Special Education Statistics Annual Report 2020, there were 536 grade 11 students in the music category, 748 grade 11 students in the art category, and 170 grade 11 students in the dance category. In total 1,454 artistically talented grade 11 students participated. This questionnaire was facilitated by the research project commissioning unit of the MOE sending a letter to each school asking teachers to guide students in completing the questionnaire online. The response rate for the first section was 100%. Six students in the music category and 21 students in the art category did not complete the second section, which had a response rate of 98%. Sex differences were considerable, especially for dance students, of whom only three were boys.

Our major research findings are as follows:

a. The mean response scores for students regarding learning development, life adjustment, and future career were 3.18–3.52, 2.92–3.24, and 3.11–3.33, respectively. Kuo et al. (2020) found that the mean response scores for the three subscales were 3.13, 3.00, and 3.14, respectively. This shows that when applying the same assessment tool, the self-evaluated learning adaptation scores of gifted senior high school students mostly fell between 3.00 and 3.50, indicating considerable learning adaptation.

b. The mean scores for the three subscales of learning development, life adjustment, and future career were 3.22, 3.01, and 3.15 respectively. The differences in mean scores between the three sections were significant (learning development: F = 29.68, p < .001, η2 = .04; life adjustment: F = 25.90, p < .001, η2 = .03; and future career: F = 13.69, p < .001, η2 = .02).

c. Dance students reported significantly better learning adaptation across the three subscales than art and music students did (learning development: F = 29.68, p < .001; life adjustment: F = 25.90, p < .001; and future career: F = 13.69, p < .001).

d. Male students reported significantly better learning adaptation than female students; male students in the art category scored significantly higher for life adjustment (F = 4.40, p < .001) and future careers (F = 2.55, p < .01) than did female art students.

e. Art students from central Taiwan reported significantly better life adjustment than art students from northern and southern Taiwan (F = 3.72, p < .05).

f. Respondents exhibited great satisfaction with gifted education courses and teaching methods: 83.1–95.3% of respondents indicated that they liked their courses and 93.2%–100.0% indicated that they found their courses beneficial.

g. The study found that students preferred and considered it beneficial to be given individual tutorials, demonstrations, or chances to practically implement techniques.

h. Recommendations are made for educational administration and future research.