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During the more than fifty years society has recognized the concept of superior ability, or giftedness, a related issue has come to light: the fact that many of our brightest students are not achieving to their potential. Researchers have not arrived at a single clear explanation for this behavior or met with success in consistently reversing underachievement. Given that some of the best minds in the social sciences have been steadily attacking this problem without reliable success, how is it that some students have managed to self-intervene and reverse former poor performance? And, what factor(s) do they perceive as being critical to both their underachievement and subsequent success? Was there some particular moment when they suddenly decided to change? How did individuals who had been consistently told as students they would never amount to anything become self-fulfilled, competent, and successful citizens? The purpose of this study was to examine the phenomenon of gifted students who once underachieved but who have since become achievers. The life-story qualitative research data were collected from four gifted adult participants via individual questionnaires and in-depth semi-structured personal interviews. Questions examined individual experiences of giftedness, related educational benefits and other issues, familial factors, social factors, and other pertinent information related to both giftedness and underachievement as well as perceptions related to both the moment and process of change. Data were then analyzed through inductive analytical processes. Once analyzed, the data described students who possessed both high intelligence and intellectual self-esteem, but who would not play The School Game. Participants came from families where important survival tactics such as study skills, self-regulation techniques, metacognitive processes or others were not taught, and parental involvement in children's education was minimal. Lack of success in school led to years of personal difficulty, including substance abuse and suicidal tendencies, leading to hitting bottom. After hitting bottom, each made the conscious choice to change, which included a return to college to successfully complete formal education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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The unique characteristics of gifted children's emotional development are located in numerous theoretical papers and small sample case studies found in the literature on giftedness. A novel, more comprehensive conceptual approach was applied to this exploratory investigation. Emotion development was distinguished into four components: awareness and organization, motivation, regulation, and communication. This study explored the emotional development of gifted and average ability students through their ratings of five basic emotions on measures of emotional awareness and organization. Students (N = 357) in grades three, six, nine, or twelve were designated into gifted and average ability groups based on their most recent Canadian Cognitive Abilities Test scores. Three multifaceted measures were used to elicit participants' responses through Likert scale ratings, open-ended questions, and an emotion-word card-sort. Participants' emotion awareness (sensitivity and valence) and emotion organization (intensity and complexity) were perceived through five basic emotions (happy, sad, scared, loving, and angry). Separate MANOVA's were conducted for emotion: sensitivity (e.g., sensitivity-happy), valence (e.g., valence-scared), intensity (e.g., dimensionality-amounts of pleasantness and arousal), and complexity (e.g., unitary, blended, multiple, and complex emotions perceived in three sad situations). Significant differences between gifted students and their average ability peers were displayed on the first and second dimensions of the intensity variable and on the scared emotion situations of the complexity variable. No differences were shown on their emotion ratings on the sensitivity and valence variables. Significant effects were observed on the variables between genders and among students' grade levels supporting the applicability of this conceptual approach and these measures of emotion with respect to development. Further discussions and studies are required to identify the theoretical models, variables, and items that measure the multiple facets comprising gifted students' emotion development. The findings from this exploratory study suggest that basic rating scales require more breadth and depth to measure gifted students' emotion perceptions. The differences displayed in the students' organization of emotions require further scrutiny to understand the structures underlying their statistical data and graphic representations. Studies that include sample groups representing the various types (e.g., creative) and levels (e.g., exceptional) of giftedness would also further our understanding. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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The magnitude of ethnic minority students' special education placement has been criticized on methodological grounds. Particularly, Reschly & Bershoff (1999) identified the prevalence rate calculation in Office of Civil Rights reports as over estimating the special education placement of ethnic minority students. Reschly & Bershoff (1999) identified the prevalence rate calculation found in descriptive epidemiology research for use. The present study calculated prevalence rates through the descriptive epidemiology method. The present study examined the role of cultural concerns in the assessment and placement practices of ethnic minority students in special and gifted education. The role of cultural concerns was particularly noted in federal and state definitions of special education categories. Campbell & Fiske's (1952) MMTM approach was outlined to conceptualize the cultural concerns research. The present study found that African-American students were overrepresented in the Emotional Disturbance (ED) and Specific Learning Disabled (SLD) categories, underrepresented in the Gifted (GI) category, and placed at a proportional rate in the Mentally Retarded (MR) and Speech Language Impaired (SLI categories. Hispanic students were overrepresented in the SLD and SLI categories, underrepresented in the GI and MR categories, and placed at a proportional rate in the ED category. Native American students were overrepresented in the SLD and SLI categories and underrepresented in the ED, MR and GI categories. Asian/Pacific Islander students were overrepresented in the GI category, underrepresented in ED category, and placed at a proportional rate in the SLI, MR, and SLD categories. Anglo students were overrepresented in the GI, ED, SLI, and SLD categories and underrepresented in the MR category. The significant finding on the proportional placement of African-American students in the MR category suggest that prevalence rates are reviewed. The underestimate of ethnic minority students in the GI category suggest a broadening to include cultural definitions of giftedness. Of the cultural concerns reviewed, cultural role taking, which may include consultation with interpreters, cultural advisors, healers along with training, was found critical in the assessment of cultural variables in psychopathology and placement of ethnic minority students in special and gifted education. Lastly, school practices such as problem solving approaches as well as culturally responsive teaching are recommended for use as prereferral interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)