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The chapters in Parts 1 and 2 of this book provide considerable detail about myriad approaches to quantitative and mixed method research designs and important issues to consider when using those designs. The authors build a compelling case for the importance of using those designs in moving the research base in gifted studies toward greater sophistication. The first author’s awareness of the need to enhance the literature base by incorporating increasingly sophisticated research approaches crystallized in November 1997 at the National Association of Gifted Children conference just after a symposium on research methodology had ended, when Laurence J. Coleman, Michael Pyryt, and I stood talking about the session. I asked Michael if he thought the field of gifted studies was ready to move in a postpositivistic direction. As he was known to do, he thought about what I had asked him and carefully responded with his own question: “How can the field of gifted studies become postpositivistic when our research base is still prepositivistic?” That was Michael’s way of critiquing our field as being reliant on too many studies that were theoretically unsound and poorly conducted. The symposium had emphasized the epistemological and ontological assumptions of qualitative and quantitative approaches to research. Arguments were made during the session for the utility of both approaches, but with an emphasis being placed on the limitations of each in terms of the nature of the research questions that can and cannot be addressed by either. While few academics these days still question the usefulness of either quantitative or qualitative research (see Capraro & Thompson, 2008; Larabee, 2003), what Michael did in few words was summarize the research in the field of gifted studies circa 1997. This book is intended to be both a catalyst and a primer for future research in gifted studies to help us move from prepositivistic to positivistic and postpositivistic approaches. Michael would be pleased. In this chapter, we describe the various research approaches we have utilized over the years, including both qualitative and quantitative techniques. Other chapters in this volume have provided fodder for additional discussions about our research. As a result of the ideas generated by our fellow authors in this volume, we propose an enhancement to our existing research through the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) as described by Kline in chapter 7 of this volume. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Bias attributable to missing data conditions is often ignored by applied researchers. In response, journal editors (e.g., von Elm et al., 2007) and governing bodies (e.g., Wilkinson & APA Task Force, 1999) are increasingly calling for missing data analysis as routine assessment. The term missing data is traditionally used in reference to the condition of a study participant missing one or more, but not all, survey responses, test items, or other data points. In addition, methods to control the bias resulting from nonequivalent comparison groups could be viewed as a “missing data” scenario (Dates & King, 2009), though in this chapter we emphasize the former. Consideration of the effects of missing data is critically needed in studies of giftedness. Frequent causes of missing data include study dropouts in longitudinal studies of children through adolescence and adulthood and incomplete data records due to oversight on the part of respondents, refusal to answer certain questions, or a host of other reasons. Missing values can sometimes be safely ignored if observed for only a very small percentage of items. Yet even a few omitted responses can significantly bias results if the data are missing systematically. For example, consider a hypothetical study of 10,000 children in which 5% are categorized as gifted. Observing a modest missing data rate of 2% may nonetheless be of concern should the absent values all fall within the gifted population (i.e., 40% of gifted children would have missing data). In such an instance, ignoring missing values or applying ineffective adjustments may drastically alter study outcomes and lead to invalid conclusions. It is therefore imperative that giftedness researchers carefully examine the consequences of even modest amounts of missing data and familiarize themselves with best practices for handling these conditions. This chapter proceeds by briefly describing a typology for categorizing missing data. We then provide a review of the strengths and weaknesses of a number of traditional and contemporary methodologies for handling missing data, followed by discussion and detailed application of a new, “hybrid” approach that is capable of adjusting for both item-level missing data and missing cases in a nonequivalent groups design, a scenario frequently faced by the applied researcher. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

In this chapter, I want to capture what it is like to be young, gifted, and Black in America. My theoretical perspective is that of a motivational psychologist, so I focus on how contemporary approaches to motivation research can shed light on giftedness in African American adolescents. I organize my discussion of African American gifted adolescents around overarching questions about "can" and "want." In framing my discussion, I focus on both the normative challenges of adolescence relevant to giftedness as well as the unique challenges that gifted Black adolescents are likely to encounter. To do this, I must cast a broad net and begin with factors that are unique to the everyday lives of people of color. Everything that I write in this chapter is shaped by the recognition that many racial and ethnic minority groups in contemporary America are positioned at the bottom of a status hierarchy wherein barriers to opportunity often override personal strivings for achievement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Lynn Liben raises three broad, thought-provoking issues in her chapter on giftedness in the spatial-graphic domain (see chap. 4, this volume; see record 2009-00231-004). First is the role of the study of giftedness in developmental psychology and the question of why giftedness is such a neglected area of study within psychology. Second, she prods readers to consider just how one should undertake the study of spatial giftedness, which is itself a much neglected domain of study within the area of giftedness relative to the study of mathematical and verbal giftedness. And finally, she leads readers to recognize what can be learned from the study of spatial-graphic giftedness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

In this chapter, the authors have presented here a model of giftedness by referring to the specific domain of music. The model defines giftedness as a transitional process in which different characteristics contribute to the transformation of abilities into competencies and expertise and, in exceptional cases, into scholarly productivity or artistry. This transformation is made possible through the interaction of innate abilities and context, as specified at each stage. The authors have also outlined how they believe education can best facilitate the passage from abilities to competencies to expertise and scholarly productivity or artistry. They offer this model, based on research in the domain of music in the United States, as a useful framework for understanding, comparing, and nurturing talent development in other domains and other countries. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: create)

This chapter briefly discusses programming options for the primary grades, intermediate grades, and upper grades. Adopting a talent development framework for gifted education services in schools requires significant shifts in perspective and practice, but these are shifts that many administrators find appealing and that communities will support. A talent development approach expands the traditional concept of a gifted education program. Gifted education programs that emphasize domains of talent instead of a notion of global giftedness are easily understood and embraced, not only by other education professionals, but also by the public, which can lead to expanded parental, legislative, and corporate support for services for gifted students. With this support from important stakeholders, parents of gifted learners and K–12 educators are able to address a wide variety of challenges that impede school districts from providing appropriate services across all grade levels on a day-to-day basis for students with gifts and talents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

The consideration of giftedness and talent in a developmental perspective requires an understanding of the current issues in developmental theory with respect to the origins of individual differences and prediction across the life span—from infancy through the adult years. In this chapter I discuss these matters along with changes in the definition of giftedness and talent, the emerging themes in the developmental discourse on giftedness and talent, the role of cultural contexts and matters of diversity, and the implications of all of these issues for setting the research agenda in the field. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

In this chapter, I consider some of the specific challenges experienced by high-ability learners as they grow out of childhood and into adolescence. I also address evolving perspectives on giftedness that can work to obviate some of the added complications, with a focus on talent development and other theoretically grounded evidence-based approaches that incorporate individual and developmental diversity, including the domain specificity and fluidity of cognitive development, and the importance of mindsets in regulating young adults' responses to the challenges and opportunities in their lives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Although there is considerable overlap in the scientific study of giftedness and of child development in terms of research traditions as well as participating investigators, it is important to recognize that there are substantial differences in the history of each research tradition. The historical divergence in the core conceptual frameworks guiding each field has led to conflicting positions at least as often as to a productive connection between them. At the risk of overemphasizing the conflict between these conceptual frameworks, it is important to draw out the distinctions because they illuminate many important issues, particularly with relevance to the goal of this volume, an integration of developmental science and the study of giftedness. I thus first provide a brief history of those two approaches, recognizing of course that there is a personal filter through which such a historical analysis must proceed. I take up the implications for a life-span integrative framework in the final section. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

The purpose of this chapter is to expand the perspective of psychology to include the dynamics of the later years of life. I describe the stages of late life that have been proposed and the diversity of the older population as revealed by longitudinal studies. The abilities of older adults are described in terms of social intelligence, self-regulation, creativity, and wisdom. Unique contributions by elderly persons are described as the products of late-life bloomers, or individuals who express latent talents late in life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

I was asked to respond to chapter 7 of this volume by Sandra Graham on giftedness in adolescence (see record 2009-00231-007). When I read the chapter, I found, as expected, that Graham's social-psychological perspective and my psychosocial perspective have much in common, including a focus on the interaction of motivation and social context. Therefore, I have endeavored to expand on some of the issues that Graham addresses in her chapter, in the hope of stimulating discussion among researchers and practitioners concerned with giftedness in adolescence. In this chapter, I discuss identification practices in some detail, as I believe that there are some fundamental misunderstandings in this area. I highlight some of the more recent research on teachers and the messages that they send. I also address the potential role played by identity variables such as stereotype threat. In addition, I discuss the concept of oppositional identity, which relates to Graham's notion of "I can, but do I want to?" Finally, I briefly discuss the idea of cultural learning styles. Although much of what I discuss is applicable to adolescents of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, the implications may be different for youth who are traditionally underrepresented in gifted and talented education (e.g., African Americans, Latinos). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

Although my own research program was not intentionally designed to study gifted and talented developmental processes or outcomes, it nevertheless offers some relevant data and perhaps insights. The work discussed here concerns children's developing competencies in understanding and producing spatial-graphic representations. These may be defined as stand-for symbols (the representational aspect) that involve marks of some kind (the graphic aspect), whose representational components are distributed over the surface in a way that corresponds to the distribution of components of the referent (the spatial aspect). This chapter is organized as follows. First, I expand on what I mean by spatial-graphic representations (in the section entitled "Defining Spatial-Graphic Representations"). Second, I sample from work that my colleagues and I have conducted to study children's developing spatial-graphic competencies. In doing so, I highlight performance that might well be classified as gifted ("Illustrative Empirical Work"). Finally, I offer some speculations about implications this work has for research, public policy, and education ("Implications for Research and Practice"). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

"A Multidimensional Framework for Synthesizing Disparate Issues in Identifying, Selecting, and Serving Gifted Children" / Robert J. Sternberg and Rena F. Subotnik "The Study of Giftedness: Reflections on Where We Are and Where We Are Going / Franz J. Mönks, Kurt A. Heller and A. Harry Passow (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

The history of hierarchical linear models generally traces its roots back to the work of Robinson (1950) in recognizing contextual effects. The discovery that Robinson made is sometimes thought of as the “frog pond” theory and is fairly simple to relate. Suppose that a researcher was conducting an analysis on environmental factors affecting the weight of frogs. And also suppose that two of the frogs being analyzed both weighed 500 grams. However, the first frog that weighed 500 grams was drawn from a pond where it was the largest frog in the pond. The second frog that weighed 500 grams was drawn from a lake where 500 grams was the weight of the average frog for that pond. In a typical ordinary least squares (OLS) analysis, the researcher would have no way of honoring the pond nesting structure for these two frogs and would then erroneously assume that the environmental factors affecting frog growth were the same regardless of which pond was home to the frog. This same problem often presents itself when researchers are analyzing data obtained from school research. For example, suppose that a researcher were to try to run a regression analysis in which student grade point average (GPA) scores were used to predict performance on the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT). It stands to reason that, within a given school, GPAs might be good predictors of SAT scores where higher GPAs correlate with higher scores on the SAT. However, across schools, the relationship between GPA and SAT may be dramatically different. Whereas in a low-performing school, a student with a 4.0 GPA might score only a 1,000 on the SAT, a student with a 4.0 GPA in an elite, high-performing private school might score a 1,600 on the SAT. This happens because GPA scores are not independent of the school from which they are drawn. This problem of independence of observations is often a factor when collecting data in schools, yet until the development of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), no methods for dealing appropriately with such data existed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

The foundation for talent development as a framework for gifted education can be found in a synthesis of the psychological literature on creativity, eminence, giftedness, and high performance. The talent development framework acknowledges the contributions of both general cognitive ability and domain-specific abilities to achievement, as well as the malleability of these ability constructs. Talent development is also consistent with research on the contributions of non-cognitive or psychosocial factors to school achievement, as well as studies on factors that influence the attainment of scholarly productivity and artistry within specific domains of non-academic talent. Although there are several theoretical frameworks and models of giftedness, talent development, ability, and intelligence, each with varied areas of emphasis and desired outcomes, the research base and practical applications for the talent development megamodel (TDMM) can serve as a guide to leaders and school administrators in making fiscal and programmatic decisions that maximize short- and long-term impacts for individuals and society. In this article, we discuss some of the practical implications of the model for assessment, curriculum and instruction, and psychosocial development within a school context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

This chapter focuses on gifted and talented education (GATE) in service of US students who are given the label, gifted and talented, and students who have the potential to earn that label. It discusses that the notion of potential is related to the philosophy of giftedness. However, the focus on potential is also related to concerns about equity of identification and access to programs. The chapter is intended to help schools serve all students with high academic potential. It begins with a brief overview of the history of gifted education, a definition of giftedness, and an overview of the talent development megamodel on which the work is based. The chapter provides some guidance on how to use assessment as a tool for identifying students with well-developed talents as well as students with potential. Using the Cole and Siegel (2003) model, it discusses consultation in the context of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention and intervention, adapted for the context of maximizing talent development rather than managing risk. The chapter provides an annotated bibliography of print and electronic resources that can be used by educators and school personnel in working with gifted and talented students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

This chapter addresses the question of how gifted athletes were discovered and developed their potential into exceptional performance. It focuses on talent identification and talent development in game sports. Some coaches in youth basketball, football, or soccer may feel delighted when someone joins their team who appears to be "a natural," "a once-in-a- century-talent," or a prodigy, expecting that the individual's involvement in their practice program will lead to exceptional performance within a few years. On the other hand, coaches may believe that only hard work makes champions or perhaps hard work beats talent until talent starts to work hard. The chapter first outlines central tenets of general frameworks for research into giftedness and the developmental acquisition process of expertise. It describes significant particularities of the game sports domain and provides an overview of existing empirical research evidence with reference to the generic frameworks. Finally, it discusses implications and future directions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

In this chapter, the authors present a comprehensive conception of talent development that draws from research in the psychological sciences and is applicable across diverse domains, from academics and athletics to the visual and performing arts. The model is distinguished by the following components: (a) recognizing the varied beginnings of domain trajectories from the earliest manifestations of talent to expertise and beyond; (b) promoting the role of opportunities not only inside, but outside, and beyond school; and (c) the increasing importance of malleable social and mental skills as well as insider knowledge as individuals progress to higher stages of performance and creative productivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

Generating accurate and reliable data is critical to strong scientific inquiry and essential to furthering giftedness research yet is often neglected by even the most attentive researchers. From a measurement standpoint, much of the focus has been on the question of score validity (i.e., do assessments accurately identify gifted and talented students?) and test fairness (e.g., do assessments provide an unfair advantage based on socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, culture, language, and other contextual factors that may affect assessment results?). Although valid and fair measurement is certainly a goal within the larger fields of both measurement and giftedness research, before score validity and test fairness can be addressed, instruments must first generate consistently repeatable and replicable scores. If a measure cannot generate reliable scores across the population for which the measure is intended, it will not be able to generate valid scores. The ability of a measure to generate repeatable, consistent scores is a psychometric concept known as reliability. This chapter’s purpose is to explain the integral role of score reliability and reliability generalization across studies in advancing both the science of giftedness and the practice of identifying and measuring the progress of students that are gifted. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)

longitudinal investigations illuminate group and individual differences in gifted populations / longitudinal methods [investigate] the processes of change / longitudinal designs accomplish the following purposes: to describe and to provide causal explanations for intra-individual change; to describe and to provide causal explanations for inter-individual differences in intra-individual change; [and] to describe the interactions of developmental variables (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)