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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Gifted children--Education;

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine some of the factors leading to the variability of teacher judgments in the identification of intellectually gifted elementary school children.

Subjects: The study was conducted with 14 female teachers having a total of 317 students in their classes. The schools were located in a small urban center in an agricultural region of northeastern Iowa.

Procedure: Teachers were asked to rate the children in their classes as to whether they should be classified as intellectually gifted. The research criterion used was a percentile score of 98 or higher on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. Teachers used three rating methods for their classifications. Method I was the naive judgment of the teachers. By naive judgment is meant the fact that the teachers involved were neither prompted nor cued by test scores, behavior checklists, or other outside information. Method II employed teacher's naive judgment and a behavioral characteristics checklist. Method III included the teacher's naive judgment, the behavioral characteristics checklist, and scores from a group achievement test.

Effectiveness and efficiency percentage ratings were computed for the overall N, and for the first and second grades separately.

Results: For the total population, Method I was the least effective as well as the least efficient identification method. Method II was the most effective method overall, but Method III was the most efficient.

For the first grade teachers, Method II was most effective, and Method III the most efficient. For the second grade teachers, all methods were equally effective, but Method I was the most efficient.

In summary, the results of the study indicated that the teacher's naive judgment alone was the poorest means for the nomination of children as intellectually gifted. The other two methods had slightly different effectiveness and efficiency ratings, but either Method II or Method III was a more sound choice than Method I alone. The results are limited in their applicability to the elementary school level.

Year of Submission

1978

Degree Name

Specialist in Education

Department

Department of Educational Psychology, Foundations, and Leadership Studies

Department

Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations

First Advisor

Donald W. Schmits

Comments

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Date Original

1978

Object Description

1 PDF file (47 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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