An examination of personality types and career adaptability skills of gifted students and non-gifted students

The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between personality types and career adaptability skills among gifted and non-gifted students. The sample comprised 305 high school students from the Southeast Anatolia region during the 2023-2024 academic year, including 113 gifted students and 192 non-gifted students who participated voluntarily. Instruments used in this study were the Vocational Personality Types Inventory, Career Adaptability Scale, and a researcher-developed personal information form to collect demographic data. Data analysis involved independent samples t-tests, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson Correlation Coefficient, and hierarchical regression analysis. Significant differences emerged between demographic variables and both personality types and career adaptability skills. Pearson correlation analysis revealed a moderate positive relationship among gifted students between the personality types of researcher, entrepreneur, traditional, social, and artistic, and career adaptability skills, with a low positive relationship for the realistic type. For non-gifted students, moderate positive relationships were found between the entrepreneurial and traditional personality types and career adaptability skills, and low positive relationships between realistic and social personality types and career adaptability skills. No relationship was observed between the researcher personality type and career adaptability skills in this group. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analysis indicated that age, social personality type, and entrepreneurial personality type accounted for 28% of the variance in career adaptability skills among gifted students. In contrast, traditional, social, and realistic personality types explained approximately 19% of the variance among non-gifted students. The research findings are discussed within the context of existing literature, and recommendations are provided. Keywords: Gifted Students, Personality Types, Career Adaptability Skills, High School Students