Achievement of African American and Caucasian Students Referred and Placed or Not Placed in Gifted Programs

Abstract

The identification of students who are gifted traditionally has been grounded in criteria with an emphasis on unitary measures of intellectual ability. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the performance of elementary school children in a Southeastern state identified as gifted using an assessment process based on MI theory, the Problem Solving Assessment, with a comparable group of students referred for assessment but not identified as gifted. We compared scores on statewide end-of-grade reading and math tests to evaluate the performance of African American and Caucasian students. Although scores for African American students were below those for the Caucasian peers in both groups, the difference between the groups was smaller in reading and mathematics for students identified and placed in gifted programs. We discuss the implications of our findings as they related to identification and program development.