Kingsley Nyarko

This study explored the nature and indicators of giftedness in school children from the perspective of Ghanaian school teachers (n = 30, females = 40%; age range = 24 to 60years). The teachers responded to semi-structured interviews. Results from thematic analysis of the data revealed that teachers perceive giftedness to be domain-specific and mostly identified by teachers during instruction of the learners. The teachers were of the view that parents/guardians of the learners are less helpful in the identification of giftedness in their children, as compared to teachers. The findings have some implications for giftedness research in Ghana and beyond.

The study investigated the psychological effects of youth unemployment in Ghana. Youths within the ages of 18 and 35 years in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana constituted the research population. A sample of 362 youths were purposively selected. They comprised both the employed (n=172) and the unemployed (n=190). The employed youths served as a control group for comparative analyses. The cross-sectional survey design was adopted. The Hopelessness Depression Symptom Questionnaire (HDSQ), the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ), the Rosenberg’s Self-esteem Scale, and the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R) were used to assess psychological health (i.e., depression, cognitive distortions, self-esteem, and suicidality) of the respondents. The Pearson r test, the Linear Regression test, and the Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) test were used to analyze the data. The findings showed poorer psychological health among unemployed youths than employed youths. Duration of unemployment significantly predicted poorer psychological health among the youths. The findings and their implications are discussed with references to the existing literature and theories.