Superior Students Research Articles

Identifying Gifted Students Using Teacher Rating Scales: A Review of Existing Instruments

The federal definition of giftedness conceptualizes giftedness as extraordinary intellectual and academic ability and high performance capability in creativity, the arts, and leadership. The practice of identifying gifted students in the schools typically centers on assessing intellectual and academic abilities. Rarely do schools identify the other areas of giftedness. This article reviews the technical adequacy and usefulness of three popular teacher rating scales designed to identify gifted students: the Gifted and Talented Evaluation Scales (GATES; Gilliam, Carpenter, & Christensen, 1996); Gifted Evaluation Scale, Second Edition (GES-2; McCarney & Anderson, 1989); and Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students (SRBCSS; Renzulli, Smith, White, Callahan, & Hartman, 1976; Renzulli, Smith, White, Callahan, Hartman, & Westberg, 1997).

Exploring Identification Procedures of Gifted Students by Teacher Ratings: Parent ratings and student self-reports in Hong Kong

Previous studies have provided equivocal results regarding the use of teacher and parent ratings in identifying gifted students. This study explored their use through identifying those student behavioral characteristics on which such judgments were based, assessing their correspondence with student self-report data, and evaluating the differences between teacher and parent ratings. Teachers and parents of 109 gifted students (45 boys and 64 girls) provided ratings using Chinese versions of the Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students (SRBCSS) (Renzulli, Smith, White, Callahan & Hartman, 1976). Results show a greater relevance for measuring leadership and motivation characteristics, and less relevance on creativity characteristics. Also, scales appear not to be good predictors of student self-report data on IQ, creativity and leadership. However, the Chinese SRBCSS was nevertheless demonstrated to be a viable instrument, yielding important data not available by self-report instruments for identifying gifted students.

The Identification of High Ability Students: results of a detection process in Navarra (Spain)

This article focuses on the development and analysis of a two‐stage early detection process (screening and diagnostic) for high ability students carried out in the region of Navarra (Spain) on a random sample of 1,274 elementary school students. Spanish versions of the Raven Progressive Matrices (SPM), the Renzulli Scales for Rating Behavioural Characteristics of Superior Students (SRBCSS), and participants’ academic achievement were the main variables in the initial screening phase. The Spanish edition of WISC‐R, as well as the Young Children's Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Gottfried, 1986), and the Self‐concept Questionnaire (Marsh, 1988), were the main variables in the diagnostic phase. The findings of the detection process show that the WISC‐R results were incompatible with those expected in accordance with the normal distribution of IQs. Results may suggest a clear problem with scoring rules, the Spanish norms for the test, or both. These possibilities are discussed in light of the results obtained. The paramount importance of validating and developing adequate instruments for the identification of the gifted is emphasized.

Catholic Grade Schools and Academic Achievement

The effect of a Catholic grade school education on the test scores of non-Hispanic whites is examined. Particular attention is given to the issue of selection into the Catholic grade school sector. It is shown that eight years in a Catholic grade school is associated with higher vocabulary, mathematics and reading test scores. No Catholic grade school effect is found on science test scores. Further, it is shown that there is not positive selection into the Catholic school sector. Thus, higher test scores cannot be attributed to selecting superior students. It is also shown that the positive Catholic schooling effect is driven by non-Catholics who attend Catholic grade schools. Once non-Catholics in Catholic schools are eliminated from the sample, the Catholic school effect becomes zero. Data from the third follow-up survey of the High School and Beyond 1980 Sophomore Cohort are used.

Program Assessment in Geography: Boondoggle or Opportunity

Abstract Holding universities accountable for the quality of their products (students), and how to assess relative product quality, have become major concerns of many academic units. The position taken in this paper is that the assessment process should be approached in a positive frame of mind, and that it should encourage development of meaningful curricular goals and strategies for their implementation. This approach will result in programs of improved quality that will attract superior students and enhance the standing of geography in the academic community. assessment

Reliability and Validity of Four Subscales of a Scale for Rating Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students as Self-Reporting Tools

Evidence for reliability and validity of Learning, Motivation, Creativity, and Leadership subscales of a Scale for Rating Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students as self-reporting instruments was obtained from 121 students in Grades 10 to 12 and 77 of their teachers. Determination of validity of the four subscales was based on comparisons of self-report testing and subjects' scores on the California Psychological Inventory. Analyses suggest the Leadership subscale appears to have potential as a reliable and valid self-reporting tool, in screening candidates for enrichment programs, but data do not support such use of the other three.

A Writing Exercise to Stimulate Creativity and Improve Style in the Advanced Conversation and Composition Classroom

tor in the third and fourth year conversation and composition course is how to get beyond the level of merely writing English with German vocabulary words and how to increase creativity in the foreign language. To this end, I have developed the following exercise as a supplement to the weekly Aufsatz. Its purpose is to stimulate creativity, promote sophistication of style, and generally to build confidence in writing German. It is an exercise that allows all students to take part on a fairly equal basis, since superior students do not necessarily always perform the best. It should be repeated at least once in the same semester, as the students are more relaxed the second time and hence more creative and stylistically innovative. The instructor carefully selects four nouns and four verbs from two easily understood literary texts by an established author. The nouns and verbs must be ones that the students are already familiar with, since this is an exercise in writing proficiency and not vocabulary enrichment, although through the course of the whole exercise there is inevitably some gain in vocabulary. The reason for using an established author is that he/she represents an unassailable authority of clear and concise writing and, if the sentences are well chosen, is a source of confidence building for struggling students in often frustrating attempts at writing in a foreign language. That is, the sentences must not only be ones that the students can easily understand, but also must contain style and use of vocabulary they can emulate. Most recently I used the following two sentences from Arthur Schnitzler, the first example as the source of nouns and the second as the source of verbs:

Ret in the college classroom

Thirty-five undergraduates participated in an outcome study which compared the results of enrollment in an RET seminar with enrollment in a seminar on another psychotherapy topic, Humanistic Psychology, and two seminars which lacked a psychotherapeutic orientation: Social Development and Extra Sensory Perception. RET instruction failed to decrease irrationality significantly. However, students who received RET instruction had significantly higher perceived self-efficacy than did those in the two nontherapy oriented seminars. There was a significant, inverse relationship between academic achievement (grade point average) and irrational beliefs about need for comfort, need for approval, awfulizing, and low frustration tolerance. Perceived self-efficacy was significantly and positively associated with high academic achievement. Superior students were significantly less likely than their peers to awfulize or exhibit low frustration tolerance; the poorest students were the least likely group to perceive themselves as effective. The implications of these findings for educators and counselors were addressed.

Honors Anthropology and the Four Rs

This article is a precis of an honors introductory cultural anthropology course taught for the first time in the spring of 1987 at California State University, Chico. Sixteen superior students in that course helped me refine my methods for teaching it. While standard introductory cultural anthropology at Chico is designed to familiarize students with the basic premises of our discipline and provide exposure to several cultural systems, the honors course goes beyond this and includes a substantial writing component and strategies to assist students in development of their critical thinking skills. It also helps students learn something about the theoretical bases of the discipline and, where practical, provides opportunities to do some analysis. In order to meet the goals of the honors curriculum, as well as my own personal goals of teaching, the crux of my honors course is what I call the four Rs: recruitment, relevance, reinforcement, and responsibility. They provide a structure for both teaching and learning. While not mutually exclusive, I will discuss them in order. In practice, however, reinforcement, relevance, and responsibility are so intertwined that it is sometimes impossible to untangle them. Recruitment

Mother‐child verbal interaction and children's ability level

The study examines mother‐child interaction characteristics of elementary school children at three ability levels. Factor analysis of interaction variables revealed one general factor of mother‐child interaction style named Maternal Verbal Guidance (MVG). It correlated significantly with academic achievement. A curvilinear trend was found, suggesting an interdependence between task difficulty and t he MVG factor for average and superior students, but not for low achievers. Discussion of the results are framed within a Vygotskian perspective of intellectual development.

Valedictorians: Profiles of Excellence

How do valedictorians differ from other superior students with regard to background, home life, hobbies, and hopes for the future? Are they becoming obsolete? This author creates a profile of today's valedictorian.

International Potpourri: Foreign Language for the Gifted and Talented in Arkansas

ABSTRACT Foreign language “camps” and international festivals have become standard extracurricular activities in the U.S. The “International Potpourri” combined features of both. It was a two‐week residential summer enrichment program held in 1986 and 1987 at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas for gifted and talented rising ninth and tenth graders. The purpose was to present the basics of French, German, Spanish and Japanese languages and cultures to superior students who had little or no previous foreign language study. This was accomplished through a variety of intensive activities centering on beginning conversation, songs, dances, craft and food workshops, field trips, travelogues and guest speakers. In addition, the participants engaged in discussion sessions with professional counselors, where the affective needs of the gifted and talented adolescent were addressed. This essay describes the program's successful marriage of two areas increasingly emphasized in Arkansas today: Gifted and Talented and Foreign Language Education.

The effectiveness of the leadership studies program

The Leadership Studies Program is designed to fulfill the societal need for future leaders. It is a systematic, comprehensive approach for training average to superior students with leadership potential in grades six through eleven. The major purpose of the program is to give these students the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve optimum growth in leadership development. The program focuses on nine areas necessary for leadership development as derived from the literature on adult leadership training: fundamentals of leadership, written and speech communication, group dynamics, problem solving, values clarification, personal skills, decision making, and planning. As a result of this training, the students who participated in this study gained significantly in all nine areas of leadership as measured by the Leadership Skills Inventory.

Predictive Validity of the Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students for Gifted Children from Three Sociocultural Groups

AbstractThe predictive validity of a recently published behavioral rating scale for identifying gifted and creative students (Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students [SRBCSS]) was investigated for three ethnic by socioeconomic groups. Regression analyses were computed between the SRBCSS and both the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) and a standardized intelligence test. The results indicated low to moderate relationships between the variables for Anglos from mid-high and low socioeconomic backgrounds. Correlations were higher for a group of low socioeconomic Hispanics, with the highest correlations being between the Reading Comprehension subtest of the SAT and the Creative scales of the SRBCSS. Implications for practice and future investigations are discussed.

Educating Able Learners: Programs and Promising Practices

American education has long been under a microscope. In a time when all aspects of our school system face close scrutiny, educators, administrators, and parents are asking critical questions about how we educate those superior students we call learners. Our schools reward behavior inappropriate for an independent thinker, researcher, or artist. Programming for our most capable students is fragmented and discontinuous. And yet there are schools and programs that hold significant promise. This four-year national study from the Sid W. Richardson Foundation provides a broad database, looks into the backgrounds of a few unusually creative individuals, and examines programs with a record of success. It argues in favor of comprehensive programming for able learners, providing a steady challenge for all students, helping to insure that no individual talent withers for want of opportunity. Included are recommendations for discovering and nurturing talent in students (including traditionally neglected groups, the economically disadvantaged, and the culturally diverse), building and administering sound programs, developing appropriately trained staff and teachers, and evaluating effectiveness of programs to assure accountability and add credibility. Compiling data from diverse sources-including 35 MacArthur Foundation Fellows, 400 schools, 1,172 school districts, and countless school personnel and students-the study looks at programs for able learners throughout the country, from Project Pegasus in Iowa to Oaks Academy in Texas, from Bronx High School of Science in New York to Bishop Carroll High School in Alberta, Canada. The authors' conclusions based on this broad investigation provide an impassioned call for coordinated schooling and cooperation among all segments of society to develop a new generation of creative, self-motivated students.

Providing Options for Superior Students in Secondary Schools

Many options are available to gifted students, say these writers, who urge administrators to review what they already have before expanding their school's gifted curriculum. That way, they say, a complementary pattern of options can be developed.

School and college: The need for articulation

To an educator “articulation” means linking, coordination. To someone in speech it signifies clear speech. To link school and college education for superior students, both types of articulation are needed. Collaborative activities are already in place, offering college work to gifted high school students, training high school teachers of advanced courses. Professional organizations are beginning to communicate. The purpose in calling attention to such efforts is to urge further collaboration. For education works best when the levels are properly articulated. Effective coordination can be achieved only if we talk to one another.

Treasures in the Groves of Academe

Pediatric chairmen have a privilege, certainly a unique and vitally important opportunity, to produce a new burst of energy within our discipline. Chairmen must possess an excitement about a wide range of issues, an enveloping perspective, and enthusiasm for administrative creativity that will produce an academic renaissance in American pediatrics. The reins of leadership can be grasped comfortably and flexibly, taking the job seriously but with a sense of cheer. We must take pride and share a belief in our discipline, position ourselves as striking examples for our students, and attract the very best of those students to pediatrics. Our mission must be underscored with a determination to educate superior students as superb pediatric clinicians or scientists or both.

The Validity of the Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students for the Identification of Gifted Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students (SRBCSS) for the identification of gifted students. Subjects were 130 third-and fourth-grade students who had been identified as candidates for inclusion in a gifted and talented program. Group ability and achievement tests were administered as part of the regular testing program of the school system, and classroom teachers completed the SRBCSS for each student. The SRBCSS scales were correlated to a low degree with the traditional cognitive tests but highly interrelated among themselves. Subsequent factor analysis yielded two factors, with the SRBCSS loading on a single Teacher Judgment Factor and the other measures loading on a Scholastic Aptitude Factor. Interpretation of the results suggest that the validity of the SRBCSS subscales for measuring separate sets of characteristics is questionable. However, the scales appear to make teacher ratings more objective.

The effect of different types of nomination forms on teachers' identification of gifted children

The present study sought to determine the effect of three different types of teacher nomination forms on a group of teachers' effectiveness and efficiency in identifying gifted children; to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of the three forms with each other, with that of the Renzulli-Hartman Scale for Rating Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students, and with that of a form that requested teachers to identify their gifted students; and to examine the relationship between the scores on the intelligence test, on the various nomination forms, and on the California Achievement Test (CAT). The subjects of the investigation were 183 children in grades K-5 and their teachers. Based on the findings of the study, the following conclusions were reached. First, the use of a behavior rating scale teacher nomination form will result in the greatest number of gifted children being correctly identified. Secondly, it is possible to increase the effectiveness, without overly affecting the efficiency, of any teacher nomination form by making the criterion standard for giftedness sensitive to the specific population it is screening. Thirdly, while the relationship between the scores was relatively low, because of its high effectiveness, its acceptable completion time, and its scores having the highest positive relationship with the intelligence test scores of any of the forms used, Form C is recommended as the teacher nomination form to be considered to assist teachers in the identification of gifted children. Fourthly, in schools where a large majority of the children score very high on a standardized achievement test, some other measure of academic success must be found if academic achievement is to be a component in the screening process. Finally, while, as a group, teachers in a school all may appear to be very good identifiers of gifted children, careful examination across grade levels, and within grade levels if the teacher sample size per grade is large enough, may assist in the identification of groups of teachers for in-service training.