A New Paradigm for Identification and Programming: Advanced Academic Need

• In Event: Perspectives on the Role of and Relationship Between Gifted Education in Research and in K-12 Schools

Abstract

As mentioned in paper 1, gifted education / gifted student identification almost always proceeds or is implemented from a trait-based perspective. In other words, most schools set out to “find the gifted” students in their school populations often using general measures of intelligence and national norms. What this leads to is a serious mismatch between identified student needs and service provided.
Instead of a trait-based “who has giftedness?” perspective, we believe gifted education identification should take a student-need, domain-specific perspective. The inherent purpose in student identification should be to learn which students are not currently having their educational needs met by the standard school curriculum. This decision should ignore any attention to future aptitude for “eminence”, and should eschew national comparisons or norms. With national norms some schools may have very large gifted populations while others very small. The former might be a very low-performing school when evaluated using state content standards and because of this even average-performing students are in need of more challenge than is available in the classroom. The latter could be a high-performing, high-income school where a wide range of programs are offered in order to meet students needs regardless of students status as gifted or not.
For these reasons we believe gifted student identification and programming need to take into account three factors: current level of student mastery (or need), current level of general classroom curriculum, and relative risk of an improper placement in a program. The first point has already been discussed. If a student is having his or her needs met by the general classroom teacher, then a gifted program or special service is not needed. Of course, this all depends on what is offered in that regular classroom and also to what extent the teacher differentiates to meet diverse student needs. Finally, relative risk should consider what kind of negative outcomes might result if a student is improperly placed in or withheld from a program. For example, if a student is not placed in an enrichment program even though he could benefit from it (i.e., he needs it), then there is little danger of a negative outcome. At the same time, if a student is grade accelerated even though she really had no need for such an intervention, negative outcomes could be possible.
This session will walk attendees through this philosophical structure and then apply it using achievement data from a single diverse school before considering wider identification procedures. Through real data this session will show how a school staff member could evaluate which students are likely having their needs met and which may need more challenging curriculum or interventions. This discussion will also lead to alternative measures of student need within the content areas identified by a local school as being priorities for advanced programming. Potential interventions will also be evaluated from the standpoint of relative risk.

Authors

• Scott Joseph Peters, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater

• Michael S. Matthews, University of North Carolina - Charlotte