Ability, Effort Attribution, Interest and Implicit Theory of Intelligence With Perceived Ability

Gifted Child Quarterly54(2) 92 –101© 2010 National Association for Gifted ChildrenReprints and permission: http://www. sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0016986209355975http://gcq.sagepub.com

Exploring the Relationship of College Freshmen Honors Students’ Effort and Ability Attribution, Interest, and Implicit Theory of Intelligence With Perceived Ability

Del Siegle,1 Lisa DaVia Rubenstein,1 Elizabeth Pollard,2

and Elizabeth Romey3

Abstract

Although there are several explanations for why one succeeds or fails, effort and ability are the major causes that students report. The purpose of the present study was to measure the perceptions of 149 college freshmen enrolled in a university honors program about their skills in 15 talent areas. In addition, this study explored the relationship of interests and ability and effort attributions with self-efficacy and investigated gender differences in these perceptions. There was a positive relationship between students’ interest in a talent area and their assessment of their skill in that area. The strongest relationships tended to be in nonacademic areas. For some talents, males placed stronger attributions on the role that natural ability played, whereas females indicated that personal effort contributed to high levels of performance. Participants’ implicit theory of intelligence did not appear to influence their perceptions of the importance of ability in academic performance.

Putting the Research to Use

Educators and parents must recognize the important role interest plays in student achievement. Interest is one of the single best predictors of high performance in a variety of talent areas. For gifted students to sustain the effort necessary to reach high levels of academic rigor, they must either be interested in the topic or find the task meaningful. Educators may need to modify their instruction and curriculum to capitalize on student interests. Gifted students appear to be aware of their high ability and view it as contributing to their success. Although some researchers have cautioned against recognizing student ability at the peril of diminishing the importance of effort, educators and parents should not be fearful of discussing the role ability plays in gifted students’ performances, while also emphasizing the importance of hard work and perseverance.

Keywords

interest, achievement, ability, effort, implicit theory of intelligence

Students believe they achieve for a variety of reasons, and their beliefs and interests are very important in determining how they deal with failure, the risks they are willing to take, and the ways in which they interact with problems and learning opportunities. Therefore, students’ interests and their beliefs about the reasons they succeed or fail can dramatically affect their achievement.

Weiner (1992) suggested that people are constantly acting as scientists, evaluating their performance and environment, and using this knowledge to direct future actions. To under-stand how an outcome affects individuals, educators must first consider if that outcome prompted them to consider an attributing factor (the cause of the outcome). For example, if individuals expect success and achieve it or expect to fail and do so, they often will not consider the reason behind the

outcome (Weiner, 1986). In the face of an unexpected out-come, however, people will use and analyze various sources of evidence to support their explanation of the outcome. Good and Brophy (1986) found that students most frequently attribute their successes and failures to ability and effort.

Analyzing the components of ability and effort attribu-tion provides important information affecting future student

1University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA2Windsor High School, Windsor, CT, USA3University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

Corresponding Author:Del Siegle, University of Connecticut, 2131 Hillside Road Unit 3007, Storrs, CT 06269-3007, USAEmail: [email protected]

at UNIV OF CONNECTICUT on March 26, 2010 http://gcq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

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Siegle et al. 93

performance. Weiner (1985, 1986, 2000) examined three causal attribution properties: locus, stability, and controlla-bility. Locus specifies the degree to which an outcome was affected by factors within (internal) or outside (external) of the student. Stability refers to the degree to which a cause is changeable over time. Controllability describes the degree of influence an individual possesses to enact change. In this study, we examined these aspects by measuring the relation-ship of college freshmen honors students’ perceptions of their skills (self-efficacy), their interests, and their ability and effort attribution in 15 different talent areas. We also explored the relationship of their implicit theory of intelli-gence to these measures.

Implicit Theory of Intelligence and Goal OrientationsResearch suggests that students hold one of two explanatory theories of intelligence: a fixed entity theory or a malleable incremental theory (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). The fixed entity theory describes intelligence as stable and asserts that individuals have little control over their intelligence. The malleable incremental theory portrays intelligence as fluid, within an individual’s control.

The way in which individuals view their intelligence may largely predict the way in which they tackle learning. Two types of goals influence how a student will view a task: per-formance goals and learning/mastery goals (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Performance goals are designed to increase an individual’s talent recognition by others (e.g., getting a good grade, passing a test, or avoiding negative judgments). Performance goals can be further dissected into performance approach and performance avoidance goals (Elliot, 1999; Elliot & Church, 1997; Elliot & Harachiewicz, 1996; Middleton & Midgley, 1997). Students who are using a per-formance approach goal focus on being superior and winning the competition, whereas students who are using a perfor-mance avoidance goal focus on avoiding being inferior and not losing the competition. Learning/mastery goals, on the other hand, are directed toward increasing the individual’s knowledge and growing in understanding or ability (Dweck & Elliott, 1983; Elliott & Dweck, 1988). Both types of goals can be used to motivate students, but they are often in con-flict with each other. For instance, it may be difficult to appear intelligent (performance goal) if one is trying to grow in understanding (learning goal), because growth is often a product of struggle with new knowledge. Students who have a fixed entity intelligence theory tend to establish perfor-mance-oriented goals, and students who have a malleable incremental intelligence theory frequently set learning/mas-tery goals (Dweck, 2000).

Individuals who view intelligence as stable (fixed entity theory) and who set performance goals are concerned with gaining favorable judgments of their competence; they view

effort and ability as inversely related. For them, a require-ment to put in great effort implies low ability; conversely, a need for low effort implies high ability. In contrast, individu-als who view intelligence as malleable (incremental intelligence theory) and who set learning/mastery goals are concerned with increasing their competence and view greater effort on their part as manifesting more ability. Thus, stu-dents’ goal orientations interact with their ability and effort perceptions to influence how they approach future tasks. It is important to note that the fixed entity theory and the incre-mental intelligence theory were developed with the general population in mind, not a gifted population, which makes this study of gifted honors students unique in its approach.

Self-EfficacyAnother factor that predicts how an individual will approach a novel task is the construct of self-efficacy, first introduced in the late 1970s by Bandura (1977). Murphy and Alexander (2001) noted that self-efficacy was one of the most con-sistently defined motivational constructs and referred to self-efficacy as an individual’s judgment about being able to perform a particular activity. Outcome attributions can affect individuals’ self-efficacy, and individuals’ self-efficacy can affect their outcome attributions. Research during the past three decades has shown a positive relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and academic performance and persis-tence (Martin & Marsh, 2006; Multon, Brown, & Lent, 1991; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2004).

This relationship exists with a wide variety of subjects, experimental designs, and assessment methods. Those with high self-efficacy not only are more likely to attempt new tasks, but they also persist longer and work harder in the face of difficulties (Bandura, 1986; Lyman, Prentice-Dunn, Wilson, & Bonfilio, 1984; Multon et al., 1991; Schunk, 1981). In a study of elementary and middle school students, Siegle and Reis (1994) found that gifted boys reported higher self-efficacy than did gifted girls in mathematics, social studies, and science. Gifted girls showed higher self-efficacy in language arts. However, Siegle and McCoach (2007) did not find gender differences in mathematics self-efficacy for a sample of fifth-grade students.

Attributing AbilityIn the following two sections, ability and effort attributions will be examined in terms of their effects on an individual’s self-efficacy and future motivation. There are many factors that may affect an individual’s attribution for success or failure, such as the specific academic domain, gender, developmental stage, ability level, and research design environment (Meece, Glienke, & Burg, 2006). However, it must be noted that the myriad possible combinations of aforementioned factors explored in various research studies may make it difficult to



94 Gifted Child Quarterly 54(2)

generalize the conclusions generated from such work. This may explain apparently contradictory results obtained from similar studies examining gender attributions (e.g., Cramer & Oshima, 1992; Eccles, 1983; Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998; Gilbert, 1996; Heller & Ziegler, 2001; Meece, Parsons, Kaczala, Goff, & Futterman, 1982; Ryckman & Peckham, 1987; Stipek, 1984; Stipek & Gralinski, 1991). Causal attri-butions within different subject areas may be different. Boekaerts, Otten, and Voeten (2003) observed that failure in several academic areas (history, mathematics, and reading) was attributed to lack of ability, but success was attributed dif-ferently. Success in history was attributed to effort, whereas success in reading and mathematics was attributed to ability.

SuccessWhen students attribute their success to ability or receive feedback that attributes their success to ability, they develop a higher self-efficacy and expectations for future skill devel-opment (Schunk, 1984a, 1984b; Siegle & McCoach, 2007). Gifted and talented students tend to attribute quality work to ability and not effort (Heller & Ziegler, 1996, 2001; McNabb, 2003; Siegle & Reis, 1998). However, Assouline, Colangelo, Ihrig, and Forstadt (2006) found gifted students tended to attribute quality work to effort, but ability was also a major attribution factor for many of these students. Although attrib-uting success to ability has many obvious good outcomes, it is not free from concern. If students have a fixed entity intelligence theory, succeed consistently, and attribute these successes to ability, then they become the ones most con-cerned with failure, because failure would represent a lack of intelligence or ability and perhaps call into question the validity of their previous successes. Praise from teachers and parents for students’ ability may increase the students’ fear of failure (Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998). These students may avoid tasks that would challenge their abilities, because they want to preserve the belief that they have a high ability. Challenging problems threaten their self-identity. These students’ goals may become performance driven rather than mastery oriented.

FailureIf students have a fixed entity theory of intelligence, attribut-ing failure to lack of ability is very dangerous. This outcome attribution removes individuals’ control over the situation (Dweck, 2000). If, however, students have a malleable incre-mental intelligence theory, attributing failure to a lack of ability could inspire them to work harder and look forward to being exposed to new information that could increase their ability to overcome the failure. These students do not inter-pret failure as an inherent judge of their ability but as a stepping-stone to improving their ability.

Attributing EffortSuccessIf students with a fixed entity theory of intelligence are required to put forth a lot of effort for a given task, they perceive that they do not have the ability even if they succeed, resulting in lower self-efficacy (Dweck, 2000). Even on very challeng-ing tasks, many students believe they should not have to exert effort if they possess ability. They question their ability and competence when they must exert more effort (Hong, Dweck, Hi-yue Chiu, Derrick, & Wan, 1999; Schunk, 1981). Inter-estingly, girls in particular may attribute success to effort (Rimm, 1991) or luck (Reis, 1987).

FailureAttributing failure to effort gives students the control to improve the next time. Failure can be especially motivating for those students who hold a malleable incremental intel-ligence theory because they believe they can increase their intelligence by working through a problem. They engage in positive self-monitoring and instruction to work through a challenge. They may not see failure as a reflection of their intel-ligence; rather, they may see it as an opportunity for growth. For students who hold a fixed entity theory of intelligence, self-handicapping or learned helplessness can occur when they attribute their failure to effort (Diener & Dweck, 1978). It allows them to maintain their self-assessment of their own ability. When the tasks become more challenging, they do not try, because this provides an excuse that does not involve altering their perceptions of their ability levels.

InterestInterest has not been explored to the extent that ability and effort have been with respect to its responsibility for attribu-tion of success and failure; however, interest is a determining factor in academic motivation. Task value directly influences achievement choices (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000) and is com-posed of attainment value, intrinsic interest, and utility value (Eccles & Wigfield, 1995). Intrinsic interest can be defined as showing a value orientation toward the subject of task (Allport & Vernon, 1931) and examined as an individual characteristic or a situational-dependent characteristic (Krapp, Hidi, & Renninger, 1992). Dewey (1913) categorized inter-est as either “mental” or “material,” indicating that interest either came from within the individual or was inspired by the material provided to the individual. Within the current study, we examined the relationship between an individual’s mental interest and skill in a variety of talent areas.

Much of the research has used a sample population taken from the general population rather than a gifted population and examines an individual’s level of interest and the effect it has on an evaluated outcome, such as the reading of a text



Siegle et al. 95

(Bray & Barron, 2004; Fransson, 1977; Hidi, 1990; Hidi & Anderson, 1992). This research illustrates that interest posi-tively affects the ability to comprehend a text in-depth and use knowledge from that text. Interest was shown to lead to a deeper processing of the text, to the formation of connections and cross-references, and to the acquisition of better long-term memory (Entwistle & Ramsden, 1983; Nolen, 1988; Tobias, 1994). According to Schiefele, Krapp, and Winteler (1992), interest accounts for 10% of the observed achievement variance across different subjects, types of schools, and age groups. Interest begins to be more pronounced as grade levels increase and as students develop, but it does not significantly account for a change in variance between age groups (Schiefele et al., 1992).

An individual’s interest most closely ties to the mastery orientation (Molden & Dweck, 2000), in which the individ-ual strives for personal understanding and growth. Interest can be an extraordinary motivator in terms of time and effort individuals put into tasks or vocation (Vroom & Deci, 1992). When people work within their interest, concentration and engagement come naturally, and they are more likely to enter into a state of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). When in flow, individuals are likely to produce and have optimal experiences, which inspire further interest, dedication, and curiosity.

Schools may not be adequately designed to foster students’ interests. Nonacademic interests may be explored more freely outside the confinement of school. Interests require time to develop, control over the direction of the project, and internal value to mature fully. Schools seem to propagate performance goal orientation with grades, college entrance pressure, and community recognition, whereas nonacademic pursuits outside of school seem to encourage mastery goal orientation. If a setback occurs in school, instead of pushing onward to learn the material of interest, it becomes more important for students to maintain their intellectual status and therefore, they use a performance goal (Elliott & Dweck, 1988). Often, good stu-dents know how to succeed within this system but are not willing to spend any time on their own academic interests because they risk looking unintelligent and being unable to keep up with the stated and specific goals of a class.

Benware and Deci (1984) asked students to learn mate-rial for one of two goals: to prepare for a test or to teach the material to other students. Both groups showed the same level of rote memorization, but the teaching group demon-strated a deeper conceptualization of the topic and found the information more enjoyable and interesting. Grolnick and Ryan (1987) found similar results when examining controlling (using external pressure such as grades) and noncontrolling (allowing the students to act autonomously) situations. They also examined the directed nature of the task (i.e., whether or not the task had a specific goal). Fifth graders felt more pressure and less interest when placed in the controlling, directed environment rather than in a noncontrolling or non-directed environment. Shirley and Reynolds (1988) found that individuals need less time to learn interesting material.

In fact, individuals may transform an uninteresting, impor-tant task into a more interesting one to keep themselves motivated (Meyer & Turner, 2002; Renninger, Sansone, & Smith, 2004; Sansone & Thoman, 2005).

Interest-enhancing strategies can promote subsequent interest in tasks that might be considered boring. This is particularly important because some level of interest and involvement may be essential to maintain perfor-mance of uninteresting but important activities. This suggests that an important component of self-regulation to reach valued outcomes includes regulating the experience of interest while working toward those out-comes. (Sansone & Smith, 2000, p. 308)

Based on this review of literature, we would expect that the relationship between the perceived importance of ability and the perceived importance of effort would be mediated by the students’ implicit theory of intelligence, although this might vary by gender. We would also expect that students who reported high interest would show high achievement.

MethodParticipants

For the purpose of this study, we selected freshmen enrolled in the honors program at a top-ranked, public university in the Northeast. Participation in this honors program is by invita-tion only. Students are invited to participate in the program based on their SAT scores and their high school academic performance. The average combined SAT score for students in the program was 1400, and all the students were in the top 4% of their senior class. Of the 262 honors freshmen at this university, 149 (57%) completed our survey. These students were enrolled in the university’s first-year experience for honors students. A similar number of males (n = 74) and females (n = 75) completed the survey. The males (M = 673.61, SD = 82.52) and females (M = 696.43, SD = 58.29) in our sample reported similar SAT Verbal scores, t(140) = 1.90, p > .05, d = 0.32, whereas the males (M = 719.32, SD = 81.96) reported slightly higher SAT Math scores, t(112.22) = 2.78,p < .01, d = 0.50 than the females (M = 685.50, SD = 52.87). The males (M = 5.69, SD = 1.27) in our sample reported earn-ing lower grades in high school, t(125.86) = 2.22, p < .05,d = 0.37 than the females (M = 6.08, SD = .83; 8 = All As,7 = Mostly As, 6 = More As than Bs, 5 = More Bs than As,4 = Mostly Bs and some As and Cs, 3 = More Bs than Cs,2 = More Cs than Bs, and 1 = Mostly Cs and below). Table 1 shows the students’ major areas of study.

Instrumentation and ProceduresThe participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their implicit theory of intelligence (Dweck, 2000), perceived




talent (self-efficacy) in 15 areas, their interest in those 15 talent areas, and the extent to which they believed natural ability and personal effort contributed to high levels of performance in the 15 talent areas. The questionnaire was completed during the last week of their fall freshman semester. The participants completed the questionnaire during one of their freshman experience seminars, and all responses were anonymous. Participation in the study was voluntary.

Prior to administering the questionnaire, we field-tested it with 8 university junior honors students who were enrolled in a graduate-level educational research course. Originally the questionnaire addressed six of Gardner’s (1985) origi-nal seven proposed intelligences (intrapersonal was not included). The field-test students suggested additional talent areas, renaming some of the talents for clarity and rewording the instructions. We followed their suggestions. The final questionnaire listed the following talent areas: music, art, mathematics, athletic, dance, interpersonal, log-ical/reasoning, visual/spatial, language acquisition, verbal, leadership, science, and overall academic. Students indi-cated on a 5-point Likert-type scale how talented they thought they were in each of the areas (1 = Very Poor, 2 = Below Average, 3 = Average, 4 = Above Average, and 5 = Very Talented). They also indicated how much they thought natural ability and personal effort contributed to high levels of performance in each of the talent areas (1 = Unimport-ant, 2 = Of Little Importance, 3 = Moderately Important, 4 = Important, and 5 = Very Important). Finally, they indi-cated how interested they were in each of the talent areas (1 = Never Interested, 2 = Seldom Interested, 3 = Interested About Half the Time, 4 = Usually Interested, and 5 = Always Interested).

Results and Discussion

First, we report simple correlations between the participants’ perceived talent and their implicit theory of intelligence (fixed entity belief), the role they perceived ability played in high performance, the role they believed effort played in high per-formance, and their interest in each of the 15 talent areas. Next we provide t test results for gender differences on these scales. We also include means, standard deviations, and Cohen’s d effect size for the statistically significant gender differences we found. Because of the large number of variables we were investigating, we have combined the results and discussion sections to simplify reporting for each variable.

InterestOne cannot overestimate the importance of interest in high levels of performance. In all cases, there was a significant, positive statistical relationship between students’ interest in a talent area and their assessment of their skill in that area (see Table 2). The strongest relationships tended to be in nonaca-demic areas (dance, music, athletic, art, and leadership). All those relationships exceeded r = .60, with the strongest relationship existing between athletic skills and interest in ath-letics, r = .72. Science was the only academic-related talent that showed a relationship with interest above .60, r = .69.

We believe there are three possible explanations for the stronger relationships between nonacademic talents and interest in those talents. First, the range of student responses

Table 1. Participants’ College Majors

Intended Major Males Females Total

Sciences 44 35 79Undeclared 9 13 22Did not answer 1 2 3Economics/finance/ 12 3 15

accountingEnglish literature 2 6 8Foreign language 0 3 3Liberal arts 1 2 3Business 2 1 3Education 0 3 3Music 2 0 2Athletics 1 1 2Political science 0 2 2History 0 2 2Art 0 1 1Psychology 0 1 1Journalism 0 1 1

Table 2. Relationship Between Perceived Level of Talent and Belief in an Entity Theory of Intelligence, the Importance of Natural Ability in High Performance Levels, the Important of Personal Effort in High Performance Levels, and Interest in Each of 15 Talent Areas

Fixed Role Role Entity of of Personal Talent Area Belief Ability Effort Interest

Musical skills -.116 .019 .36** .601**Art skills -.248** -.053 .160 .629**Mathematical skills -.077 .263** .059 .550**Athletic skills -.145 .124 .116 .726*Writing skills -.115 .259** .064 .598**Spelling skills -.096 .162 .089 .350**Dance skills -.039 .109 .18* .691**Interpersonal skills -.269* .150 .11 .453**Logical/reasoning skills -.122 .26** -.069 .514**Visual/spatial skills -.128 .137 .086 .513**Language acquisition -.080 .063 .095 .496**

skillsVerbal skills -.158 .237** .066 .485**Leadership skills -.260** .186* .213* .613**Science skills -.227** .064 .050 .688**Overall academic skills -.198* .093 .038 .222**

Boldface indicates statistically significant relationships. *p < .05. **p < .01.



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varied more within the nonacademic items. Mathematically, more variance can contribute to higher reliability coefficients. Second, our participants were selected for the honors pro-gram based on their previous academic performance. Much of these students’ identities may be tied to academic perfor-mance. Eccles and Wigfield (1995) proposed that students value tasks and find them meaningful for several reasons—one of which is that task involvement is tied to an individual’s identity. If other members of a student’s family, or the student’s friends, identify with an activity, the student tends to develop an identity related to it as well. Perhaps identifying with aca-demic tasks sometimes compensates for interest in the task, and students still do well at these tasks. These students may perform well in academic tasks because their families expect this of them, and they may also expect it of themselves as well, rather than because they are strongly interested in the aca-demic tasks. Third, traditional school subjects may not allow students to foster their interest due to limited autonomy, choice, and relatedness.

Some research (McCoach & Siegle, 2003) has indicated that gifted students’ underachievement may be linked to the meaningfulness they attach to school more than their belief in their ability to do well. Making school more meaningful is one of the best strategies for reversing underachievement among gifted students (Siegle, Reis, & McCoach, 2006). Because interest is related to how well one performs a task, educators can use student interests to make school more meaningful. Sansone and Smith (2000) found that individu-als persisted on difficult tasks when they were provided with a good reason to perform the task, and this effect was mediated by their use of an interest-enhancing strategy. We do not know whether these gifted honors students use interest-enhancing strategies. Once again, one cannot overestimate the importance of interest in high levels of performance, and researchers need to continue investigating how to capitalize on gifted and talented students’ interest due to make learn-ing meaningful for them.

Importance of Effort and AbilityOnly perceived talent at dance, music, and leadership was significantly related to a belief that personal effort contributes to high levels of performance. In other words, students who excelled in these areas tended to believe effort was important, whereas students who did not excel in these areas did not believe effort was as important. Additionally, students’ per-ceptions of their talent were positively related to their belief that natural ability contributes to high levels of performance for mathematics, writing, logical/reasoning, verbal, and lead-ership skills. With the exception of leadership, which also showed the lowest correlation of the five, all these talent areas involved tasks associated with doing well in school. These results suggest that talented students with high levels of per-formance in academic areas view natural ability as important,

whereas those with lower levels of performance see natural ability as less important. From a self-efficacy perspective, this is a positive finding for reversing academic underachieve-ment because these lower achieving students possibly do not see a natural ability as a block to their achievement. Although these honors students relate high natural ability to high per-formance, they do not relate high effort to high performance in academic areas. These findings are similar to what Siegle and Reis (1998) found with upper elementary gifted students who reported a stronger relationship between their self-reported ability and the quality of their work than between their reported effort and the quality of their school work.

Dweck (2000) has warned that students must appreciate the importance of effort in developing their skills. Our effort and ability results suggest that these high-achieving students see ability as important for academic tasks and effort as less important, but they see effort as important for nonaca-demic tasks. We caution readers that athough these correlation results are statistically significant, they are not as strong (ranging from .18 to .36) as the relationships we found with interest (often >.50).

Fixed Entity BeliefHaving a fixed entity belief (“You can learn new things, but you can’t really change your basic ability”) was always negatively related to high performance. This negative rela-tionship was statistically significant for art, interpersonal, leadership, and science skills and overall academics. Once again, these relationships were weak (none stronger than r = -.27). With the exception of leadership skills, there was no overlap in talent areas that showed a relationship between perceived talent and importance of ability and perceived talent and fixed entity belief. This is puzzling, because one might expect students who held a fixed entity belief to believe that ability was related to performance. It appears that one can believe that ability is an important factor in high achievement without holding a fixed entity view. Although this needs to be further researched, it is a significant finding. It may be that high-achieving students can recognize their ability and appreciate the importance it holds in doing well, without being paralyzed by the pitfalls Dweck and her colleagues reported are associated with a fixed entity belief.

Gender DifferencesWe found that males rated their skills in 5 of the 15 talent areas higher than females (mathematics, athletics, logical/reasoning, leadership, and science skills; see Table 3). Females only rated themselves higher than males in language acquisition. These ratings follow patterns that have held for the past half century for mathematics (Benbow, Lubinski, Shea, & Eftekhari-Sanjani, 2000; Lubinski & Benbow, 1992; Preckel, Goetz, Pekrun, & Kleine, 2008; Siegle & Reis, 1998). Despite the




progress that has been made with females in mathematics and science, more work is still needed to encourage females in these areas and help them to appreciate their skills in these areas. This is particularly important in light of the current emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills and the national concern over a shortage of workers in STEM careers (National Academy of Sciences, 2005).

Males and females indicated the importance of ability in outstanding performance similarly except for verbal talent. Males attributed the role natural ability contributed to high levels of verbal talent performance higher than females. This is also an area of concern. The national emphasis on mathe-matics and science programs for females may need to be replicated with males in language arts.

Females were more interested than males in music, art, dance, and language acquisition. Males were more interested than females in athletic and science skills. Males never rated the importance of personal effort higher than females for any of the talent areas. Females felt more strongly than males that personal effort contributed to high level of performance in logical/reasoning skills, leadership skills, and overall aca-demic skills. These findings tend to support Nicholl’s (1975) early work that males are likely to attribute their successes to ability, and females are more likely to attribute their suc-cesses to effort. This also follows previous research by Reis

(1987) and Rimm (1991) that females were more likely to attribute their successes to effort than to ability.

Limitations and ConclusionsAlthough these results are interesting, they must be inter-preted with caution. This was a convenience sample of honors students at one university. These results cannot be generalized beyond this sample. These honors students rep-resented the academic elite of this university, and most observers would consider them gifted. We do not have data indicating whether any of them had been formally identified as gifted. The high SAT scores and GPAs they reported sug-gest that most of them would have qualified for academically gifted programs.

Self-reported data are always suspect to reporter bias. However, the SAT information provided by these partici-pants aligns closely with the SAT information provided by the honors program, which supports the validity of the self-reported data. The participants’ identities were also anonymous, which might encourage honest responses.

Because we were measuring a variety of different con-structs, we needed to perform individual t tests, rather than a multivariate test. This increases Type 1 error. Readers need to take this into consideration when examining the gender dif-ferences we reported.

Table 3. Gender Differences

Males Females

Talent Area t Test Results M SD M SD

Personal talent Math t(144) = 2.964, p < .01, d = .48 4.27 0.821 3.88 0.798 Athletics t(143) = 4.080, p < .001, d = .67 3.57 1.098 2.84 1.067 Logic t(143) = 2.966, p < .01, d = .49 4.29 0.795 3.92 0.722 Language acquisition t(143) = 2.370, p < .05, d = .39 3.47 0.883 3.79 0.768 Leadership t(140.849) = 2.152, p < .05, d = .36 3.92 0.846 3.60 0.944 Science t(142) = 3.608, p < .001, d = .61 4.18 0.887 3.66 0.827Natural abilities’ contribution to high levels of performance Verbal skills t(142) = 2.143, p < .05, d = .37 3.58 0.942 3.25 0.857Personal effort’s contribution to high levels of performance Logic t(144) = 2.153, p < .05, d = .35 3.30 1.19 3.69 1.03 Leadership t(144) = 2.001, p < .05, d = .33 3.50 1.126 3.86 1.052 Overall academic skills t(145) = 3.05, p < .01, d = .51 4.01 0.986 4.47 0.801Interest in the talent area Music t(146) = 2.859, p < .01, d = .48 3.34 1.378 3.91 1.009 Art t(145) = 4.195, p < .001, d = .69 2.61 1.248 3.48 1.270 Athletics t(146) = 4.287, p < .001, d = .70 4.01 1.164 3.16 1.250 Dance t(145) = 3.975, p < .001, d = .66 2.42 1.363 3.28 1.255 Science t(146) = 2.073, p < .05, d = .35 3.93 1.113 3.54 1.137 Overall academic skills t(146) = 2.328, p < .05, d = .38 3.14 1.186 3.55 0.995

Boldface indicates statistically significant differences between groups.



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Students achieve for a variety of reasons, and personal interest is paramount. These results indicate that educators cannot overlook the importance of student interests when trying to improve achievement. In all talent areas, interest was related to perceived performance. Parents and educators who are concerned about their students’ academic perfor-mance cannot overlook the important role interest plays in performance. They need to make every effort to learn stu-dents’ interests and tie those interests to academic tasks.

These results also indicate that gifted students may be able to appreciate the role ability plays in achievement without necessarily developing a fixed entity view of talent develop-ment. These gifted achievers did not appear to be susceptible to the reported pitfalls associated with recognizing the role of ability in achievement (Dweck, 2000). More research is needed in this area, as well as in determining whether gifted underachievers react similarly. Perhaps gifted underachiev-ers develop a fixed entity view of talent development when they acknowledge the role ability might play in achievement, and gifted achievers do not.

Although teachers believe that the effort students put into a task has a direct effect on the quality of the completed task, these honors students often did not see that relationship with regard to academic work. Because they were reflecting on their high school experiences and had just begun college, perhaps this belief stems from not having had to work hard to do well in high school. Future researchers may wish to explore whether this relationship exists as gifted students leave college.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

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Bios

Del Siegle is an associate professor of educational psychology in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut where he was honored as a teaching fellow. Prior to earning his PhD, he worked as a gifted and talented coordinator in Montana. He is past president of the National Association of Gifted Children and serves on the board of directors of The Association for the Gifted. He is coeditor of the Journal of Advanced Academics and authors a technology column for Gifted Child Today.

Lisa DaVia Rubenstein is a doctoral candidate in educational psy-chology at the University of Connecticut. Her area of specialty is gifted and talented education. Her research interests include cre-ativity and motivation.

Elizabeth Pollard was enrolled in the gifted and talented program in East Hartford, Connecticut, as a child. As part of the program, she was enrolled in an advanced chemistry course in high school where she developed a passion for science and teaching. After high school, she was accepted into the integrated bachelor’s/master’s program at the University of Connecticut, where she conducted research on the causes of underachievement in gifted students. She graduated from the pro-gram in 2007 and began teaching science at Windsor High School.

Elizabeth Romey is an assistant professor of gifted education at the University of South Alabama. She completed her PhD from the University of Connecticut in 2006. She serves on the boards of Future Problem Solving Program International and Alabama His-tory Day and is currently working with the University of Costa Rica to develop a gifted program in that country. Her research interests focus on cultural depictions of giftedness.



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Ability, Effort Attribution, Interest and Implicit Theory of Intelligence With Perceived Ability