PROGRAMA TALENTO METRÓPOLE: IDENTIFICATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF TALENT IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
giftedness; talent; information Technology; talent development; talent identification; gifted education.
The current moment is marked by large-scale global issues. However, societies do not seem to invest satisfactorily in the giftedness and talent of young people as an important way to deal with the complex socioeconomic, political, cultural and technological conditions of the 21st century. In this scenario, this thesis aims to characterize and present some results from the Metrópole Talent Program (PTM) linked to the Metrópole Digital Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. The PTM seeks to help gifted people develop talents in the field of information technology and, thus, build life trajectories that are beneficial to themselves and to society. Three studies were carried out, namely: 1) “Developing Talents: the experience of the Talento Metrópole Program”; 2) “Precursors for identifying adolescents with AH/SD in the Information Technology (IT) domain”; 3) “Life trajectories and milestones in the development of talent in adolescents and young adults in the IT domain”. Study 1 characterizes the Talento Metrópole Program (PTM), notably in terms of methodology for identifying and developing IT talents, basing itself on the developmental perspective of the Talent Development Mega-Model (Subotnik et. al 2011). Study 2 seeks to understand the different trajectories and specificities underlying the development of talent from the clinical-qualitative analysis of three cases, using the technique of narrative interviews. Study 3, in turn, investigated the prospective character of the instruments used for screening from the analysis of the precursor cognitive skills for the development of talent in the PTM: Intelligence (Raven´s Progressive Matrices test - General Scale); Prospecting Test, developed to assess general cognitive competencies and abilities in IT; Torrance Test (high school and undergraduate students) and test for Child Creativity (primary school students). It is believed that the results of this thesis will provide subsidies for the development of specific IT programs, with a view to the full development of talent, aiming not only at self-fulfillment, but also at proposing solutions to society's serious problems through research and innovation in IT.