Gifted Children V2N2

8/14/2019 Gifted Children V2N2

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Undernourished, intelligence becomes like the bloated belly of a starving child: swollen, filled

with nothing the body can use. Andrea Dworkin

GIFTED CHILDRENAn Electronic Journal of the AERA SIG Research on Giftedness and Talent.

Volume 2 Number 2 Summer 2008Hello from the EditorWherever you are, I hope this finds you well, and enjoying a welcome change of season.

We have one longer article in this edition of the AERA Research on Giftedness andTalent SIGs e-journal, Gifted Children: an article by David Lohman and Maureen

Marron at the Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration at the Belin-Blank Centerfor Gifted Education and Talent Development, The University of Iowa. Their article,entitled Studying acceleration with national datasets and surveys: Some suggestions,some results, and our experiences, gives us an update of the pioneering investigationsof acceleration that they and their colleagues are doing at the Belin-Blank Center. Inaddition to the research that they are conducting on this vitally important topic, it isworth noting that the experts at the Belin-Blank Center are providing consulting servicesto state departments of education and school districts that are considering writing orrevising their policies on acceleration. If my professional experience is anything to go by,that includesor soon will includepractically every jurisdiction in North America, andmany internationally too.

Expertise is another of the fascinating frontiers of research for those of us interested ingiftedness and talent development. Im delighted that Renate Otterbach (who wrote areview for Roeper Review of the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance)has agreed to write a short article for us about the impact and implications of expertisestudies on our work. This could make an interesting topic for a symposium orroundtable discussion at AERA next year; if you are interested in participating, get intouch with Renate (see contact info with her article).

The original name of this publication Gifted Children was decided on quickly as aplaceholder because we had to settle on a name just to get it going. But based oncomments I have received, I think that it may not be as descriptive as it might be of ourcollective efforts at understanding the processes and practices related to gifteddevelopment and education. It would be great if we could find something more dynamicand less categorical. All suggestions are welcome! I look forward to hearing from youwith your thoughts on a name change, and also with submissions for upcoming issues.

This semi-annual e-journal is a quick and timely forum for sharing short (or longer)articles on whats interesting, engaging, and controversial in your work with high-abilitylearners, and what youre learning or reading or thinking about investigating in yourown research.

(continued on page 12)

AERA Special Interest Groups Web Site: http://www.aeragifted.org/

ContentsIntroduction

Dona Matthews .................... 1

Letter from Chair

Karen Rogers ........................ 2

Article

David F. Lohman andMaureen A. Marron ........ .... 3

Book ReviewThe Cambridge Handbook of

Expertise and ExpertisePerformance

Reviewer:Renate Otterbach ..................... 9

Elegy to Michael Pyryt

Jane Piirto ............................ 11

Request for Articles forSIG Newsletter ....................... 12

AERA Research on Giftednessand Talent

Officers .................................... 13

Working Committees ........... 13


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It is difficult to believe that more than two months havepassed since we all gathered for the AERA meeting in NewYork. What an eventful conference that was for our SIG.Professor Abraham Tannenbaum provided us with such agood send-off at our Monday evening business meeting andthe rest was only up from that very high point. ProfessorTannenbaum spoke to a packed room, many of whom wereformer students or acolytes, but many who were new to ourfield and anxious to hear from one of our history makers. Hisretrospective survey of the past 50 years in gifted educationwas enlightening. I suspect everyone present learnedsomething they hadnt known before that evening. What apleasure and privilege it was to listen to one of the truescholars of our field. It makes one proud to be in it.

Dr. Michael Pyryts loss was greatly felt by all who werepresent. His wonderful sister read the paper he had had theforesight to prepare before he had left for Australia and all theevents that followed. It was of his usual high quality a meta-analysis of research. We will share this paper with you infuture editions of our SIGs publications.

The SIG held a celebration of Michaels life and a tribute tohim on Tuesday of AERA week in the mid-afternoon. Again,the room was packed with friends, colleagues, and family.

We were happy to find several of his Calgary colleaguespresent and only wish they had freely spoken of their ownperspectives on Michaels greatness at his home university.As it was, many thanks are accorded to the great number ofpeople who did speak about their relationship with Michaeland who shared many stories of his very unique andwonderful ways. His sister was particularly eloquent aboutthe Michael she knew best. It helped us all to know Michael

just a little bit better, even when we thought we did know himpretty well. He will be missed. As it was, we had theopportunity to speak our piece (or peace?) about Michael atthis conference while his demise was still fresh in our minds.I believe next years conference will be even more difficult forus when his true presence will have been missed at two of theconferences he (and we) loved best.

In the meantime, our SIG goes on, with potential changes inthe structure of the organization to come. We will keep youinformed in the issues to come. In the meantime, myinvitation still stands. I would love to hear from you aboutinitiatives you think we should undertake, projects we shouldbegin, and new directions we should follow. Please contactme with your ideas via email at [email protected]

Until we see each other again!

From the ChairKaren RogersPresident, AERA ROGAT SIG

Gifted Children Volume 2 Number 2 Summer 2008 Page 2

CONGRATULATIONS MIRACA GROSS!We are proud and delighted to congratulate Miraca Gross on her being awarded the Order of Australia.The Director of the Gifted Education Research, Resource and Information Centre at the University of New South

Wales, Miraca was acknowledged for her service to education as an academic, researcher and author,from the design and delivery of programs and policies for gifted students and their teachers,to professional development and educational practice.


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The Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration (IRPA)was established in 2006 at The Connie Belin & Jacqueline N.Blank International Center for Gifted Education and TalentDevelopment at The University of Iowa through the supportof the John Templeton Foundation. IRPA is unique in that itssole focus is the study of curricular acceleration foracademically talented children. Academic acceleration is aneducational intervention that moves high-ability studentsthrough an educational program at a rate faster or at an ageyounger than typical (Pressey, 1949). Acceleration helpsmatch the level, complexity, and pace of the curriculum withstudents intellectual abilities.

The founding of IRPA is a direct outcome of the success of the2004 two-volume report by Nicholas Colangelo, SusanAssouline, and Miraca Gross. The report, entitledA NationDeceived: How Schools Hold Back Americas Brightest Students(2004), synthesizes the 50 years of robust and consistentresearch on academic acceleration. The recurring refrain fromthis research is that both grade-based (e.g., grade skipping)and content-based (e.g., Advanced Placement classes)acceleration are effective, though underused, interventions inacademic and social-emotional domains for high-abilitystudents. Although grade-accelerated students generally out-perform their chronologically older classmates academically,both groups show approximately equal levels of social and

emotional adjustment (see Assouline et al., 2003; Colangelo,Assouline, & Gross, 2004; Kulik & Kulik, 1992, 2004;Lipscomb, 2003; Sayler & Brookshire, 1993; Southern & Jones,1991). Longer term, accelerants attain advanced degrees,produce scholarly works, and contribute professionally atrates well above societal baselines (Lubinski et al., 2001, 2006).

It is fair to say that extant research has answered many basicquestions about acceleration. At the most fundamental level,we know that acceleration is an effective intervention forhigh-ability students, particularly when the decision iscarefully considered and supported by the school. At thesame time, there are nuances to the research and unansweredquestions about the factors that moderate success with the

different forms of acceleration. Additionally, with the increasein public awareness of acceleration, changes in attitudes andpolicies need to be monitored. We report on two lines ofresearchsecondary analyses of existing national datasetsand nationally distributed surveysthat we hope will add tothe existing knowledge of acceleration.

Secondary Analyses of Existing Datasets

We recently have begun using datasets from the NationalCenter for Education Statistics (NCES) to investigatequestions about the predictors and outcomes of acceleration.These datasets, specifically NELS and ELS, are a valuable

resource because they provide information on representativenational samples of students, some of whom have beenacademically accelerated and many who have not beenaccelerated. Many of the existing studies of acceleration (andgiftedness, generally) fail to include an appropriatecomparison group such as non-accelerated students of similarability or achievement. Consequently, it is difficult to attributethe positive outcomes to acceleration per se rather than toother characteristics of the students (such as general ability).The relatively large number of accelerated and similar-abilityunaccelerated students in the NCES datasets helps resolvethis situation. Furthermore, the cross-sectional design used in

many studies fails to provide information on how acceleratedstudents perform over time. Students in the NCES datasetsare followed for many years, and so the long-termconsequences of accelerative decisions made in grade schoolcan be assessed at high school and beyond. (Regional talentsearches also gather longitudinal data, often with much largersamples which allow greater confidence in the statisticalanalyses that are performed. However, one cannot easilymake inferences about the population of students beyondthose who participated in the talent search.)

Others also have recognized the potential in using largedatasets in studies of high-ability students. Konstantopoulos,Modi, and Hedges (2001) used NELS:88 to describe thecharacteristics of gifted students; Renzulli and Park (2002)studied gifted high school dropouts with NELS:88; Wyner,Bridgeland, and Diiulio (2007) used NELS:88 and ECLS-K toidentify the achievement trap in which high-achieving, lower-income students lose ground to high-achieving, higher-income students; and Robinson, Lanzi, Weinberg, Ramey, andRamey (2002) have looked at longitudinal achievement datafrom high-achieving students enrolled in Head Start. Saylerand Brookshire (1993; Sayler, 1996) have used NELS:88 toexamine the social and emotional outcomes of acceleration for8th graders.

Methodological and Analytical Issues in Conducting

Acceleration Research with National DatasetsNCES used a two-stage sample selection process to obtain anationally representative sample of students. First, a stratifiedrandom sample of schools was drawn, and then a stratifiedrandom sample of students from within each school. Thistwo-stage method requires that analyses account for thecomplex survey design and multilevel nature of the data.

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Studying Acceleration with National Datasets and Surveys: Some Suggestions,Some Results, and Our ExperiencesDavid F. Lohman and Maureen A. MarronInstitute for Research and Policy on AccelerationBelin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent DevelopmentThe University of Iowa



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(Lohman and Marron, cont.)

Identification of accelerated students. Following Sayler andBrookshire (1993), we indicated that students had beenaccelerated if their parents reported (on the parentquestionnaire) that their child had been grade skipped and ifthey were at least two years younger than the normal age forstudents in that grade, or if they were one year younger thannormal but were born on or after January 1st of theappropriate year. We did not include students who were one

year younger than normal at the beginning of the school yearand who had a birthday between September and December ofthat year because the district might have had a late cut-offbirth date for admission. These students would be young fortheir grade but still within the district-recommended ages.

The NELS and ELS data sets used in this study contain 23,341and 11,344 students, respectively, from the public andrestricted-use data who were systematically sampled to berepresentative of the nation. However, even with samples ofthis size, only 336 students (1.4%) were accelerated in theNELS data and 100 students (0.6%) in the ELS data.

So that we could compare accelerated students with similar-ability students who were not accelerated, we used a

composite of students mathematics and reading test scores atthe time of the first data collection (8th grade in NELS and 10thgrade in ELS) as a control for achievement, Note that this isnot a measure of student ability at the time of the skip.Accelerated students in these analyses are compared to theirpost-skip classmates who have achievement scores with asimilar mean and variance in 8th or 10th grade.

Analysis issues. A common procedure in this type of researchis to compare the means of accelerated and non-acceleratedcohorts (e.g., Sayler & Brookshire, 1993). Though informative,these comparisons typically use only a fraction of the data andprovide too little control for confounding variables. Logisticregression is also preferable to a means comparison when the

assumption of normality is violated (Press & Wilson, 1978).Therefore, in addition to a means comparison using a cohortof similar-achievement students, we used logistic regressionso that the entire sample of students was included in theanalyses. The binary dependent variable (whether a studentwas accelerated or not) is then regressed on all of theindependent variables simultaneously. We included avariable for academic achievement as a key control.

A rule of thumb in logistic regression is that the number ofpositive outcomes (i.e., accelerated students) must be largerthan the number of independent variables. Our design metthis criterion. However, results can be biased when thepercentage of the sample that experiences a positive outcome

(in our case, grade-acceleration) is very small. Thus, we usedrecommended procedures in Stata (King & Zeng, 2001) toaccount for rare events data in logistic regression. Our resultsdid not differ substantively from the results using traditionallogistic regression, likely due in part to the large overallsample sizes (N=23,341 for NELS, and N=11,344 for ELS).Although our results from traditional (i.e., non-rare events)logistic regression do not differ from rare-event regression,we caution that the rarity of acceleration needs to be aconsideration for those using national datasets. The issue isparticularly vexed when samples are small and the weightsfor some cases are very large. When this happens, fixing the

upper and lower weights at some less extreme value can behelpful.

We conducted two sets of analyses on these data. The firstexamined which students were most likely to be acceleratedand the second examined some of the outcomes ofacceleration. For the first set of analyses, we compared 275accelerants in the NELS:88 data with 275 students whoshowed similar levels of achievement in reading andmathematics on 55 variables. We divided the variables intoseven categories: descriptive characteristics (e.g., sex and

ethnicity), psychosocial characteristics (e.g., self-confidence,self-reliance), socioeconomic status (e.g., family income abovemedian, father is a professional), home environment (e.g.,parents check homework and limit TV watching), schoolcharacteristics (e.g., public, large, percent minority),community characteristics (e.g., urban, rural, south, west),and academic activities at school (e.g., taking advanced math,warning about a grade).

Table 1 shows selected results. Asian-American and Blackstudents were more likely to be accelerated and Whitestudents less likely to be accelerated than non-acceleratedstudents with similar levels of achievement. Acceleratedstudents reported less self-reliance, were more likely to expect

to finish college and get a graduate education, were much lesslikely to cut class, and less likely to participate in religiousactivities. Mothers of accelerants were more likely to havegraduated from college and fathers more likely to haveprofessional occupations.

In terms of home environment, accelerants were more likelyto have a study room, access to a computer, and to haveparents who limited their TV watching and checked theirhomework. However, the largest effect of the homeenvironment variables was for immigrant status. Children ofimmigrants were more than twice as likely as children of non-immigrant parents to have been accelerated.

Among school characteristics, children in Catholic and other

private religious schools were more likely to have beenaccelerated while those in public schools less likely to havebeen accelerated than similar-achieving peers.

Region of the country and community characteristics alsomattered. Children in the Northeast and those who attendedsuburban schools were more likely to have been accelerated.

Accelerated students were more likely to report being in thehighest math group, to have participated in a gifted andtalented program, and were less likely to have received awarning about grades. All other indices of problem behaviorswere also less frequent among accelerants although notstatistically significant.

We next controlled for other variables that might be expectedto moderate some of these effects. For example, might theeffects due to ethnicity be explained by SES? Might effects forregion of the country be explained by urbanicity? We did thisfirst by introducing a second control variable using the dataset with 275 accelerants and 275 students of similarachievement. We then used the entire NELS data set andcontrolled for multiple variables simultaneously. Introducingthe second control variable (recall that achievement wasalready controlled) produced only modest changes in theobserved odds ratios. Controlling for several variablessimultaneously using the full data set sometimes resulted in



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larger changes. For example, using the full data set andmultiple logistic regression, we found that girls were morelikely than boys to be accelerated. This effect, though in thesame direction, was not significant in the analyses of thesmaller data set.

The second set of analyses examined the outcomes ofacceleration. When comparing students who had been grade-accelerated to older, similar-achievement, non-acceleratedstudents in 1992 (the NELS:88 sample), grade-acceleratedstudents were more likely to have been in a gifted and

talented program during high school and have improvedtheir achievement test scores more between 8 th and 12 thgrade. Grade-accelerated students were also more likely toscore higher on 12 th grade exams than non-accelerated peers,even without controlling for 8 th grade achievement. Thesmaller ELS data set gave only marginally significant results.

We have also investigated the effects of the timing ofacceleration in elementary school, both the characteristics ofstudents most likely to be accelerated earlier or later inelementary school, and the academic performance of earlyversus late accelerants in high school. However, sample sizesin these analyses become perilously small and sogeneralization is difficult. Small samples can also exacerbate

the effects of applying the customary case weights. Up-weighting particular cases by a factor of 10 or more has littleeffect when the full data set is used but can distort resultswhen cell sizes are small.

Survey Research from IRPA

In addition to secondary analyses of the NCES datasets, IRPAhas been engaged in survey research over the past year. Theimportance of survey research is that it is an efficient way toassess changes in attitudes, practices, and policies. Our NationDeceived survey, conducted in fall 2007, examined the impactof the report three years after its publication. We found that99 percent of the 3,868 U.S. respondents who completed thesurvey believed the report will have a positive influence on

gifted education in the long-run, 85 percent indicated thereport has had a positive impact on their attitudes towardacceleration, and 77 percent said that the report has had apositive impact on the field of gifted education. Fifty-onepercent of those responding believe that the report has had apositive impact on the field of education in general, and 25percent believe that the report has had a positive impact ontraining provided in colleges of education. Fourteen percentof respondents said they believe that acceleration policieshave been written or revised as a result ofA Nation Deceived(cf., recent policies from Ohio, Minnesota, and Georgia)Acceleration policies and personal attitudes are perennialroadblocks in the implementation of acceleration practices.

Whittling away at some of the resistance is a large stepforward in bringing acceleration into the general educationcommunity.

The purpose of a second IRPA survey, our AccelerationSurvey, also conducted in fall 2007, was to provide recentdescriptive information on attitudes and practices ofacceleration from various constituencies (i.e., administrators,classroom teachers, and gifted and talentedteachers/coordinators, parents, gifted education researchers).We were interested in the attitudes these groups hold and thebeliefs they ascribe to others with whom they interact whenmaking decisions about acceleration (e.g., other teachers,

school counselors, parents). We also collected information onthe acceleration decision-making process. These results areused to write policy templates and to develop materials (e.g.,how-to guides for acceleration) for use by parents, teachers,and administrators.

Our Acceleration Survey reveals several key findingsregarding attitudes and practices of acceleration. First,although survey respondents self-reported a positive attitudeabout acceleration, the respondents felt that others attitudeswere not as favorable. This belief could affect the respondents

willingness to discuss or propose acceleration with others (forexample, a parent may be unwilling to propose acceleration ifshe feels that the teacher will not welcome the discussion).Second, approximately one-third of schools did not have awritten acceleration policy, a complementary result to theNation Deceived survey result indicating that some stateshave recently developed policies. Unfortunately, absence of aformal policy might invite practices that discourageacceleration. Third, most schools did not include a schoolcounselor as part of the acceleration decision-making process.A school counselor can have an instrumental role in helpingan accelerated student learn, if necessary, study skills,strategies for organizing school work, approaches forhandling academically challenging work, and methods for

adjusting into a new social climate with older students.

The primary limitation of this survey research is thatrespondents voluntarily chose to complete the surveys. Mostof the respondents had a vested interest in acceleration:parents of gifted children, teachers of the gifted, and giftededucation researchers and advocates. Therefore, it is notsurprising that their attitudes toward acceleration weregenerally positive. A randomly selected set of respondentswould support more dependable generalizations aboutattitudes toward academic acceleration. Nonetheless, oursurvey research indicates that much work remains to be donein assessing and changing attitudes, policies, and proceduresabout acceleration.

Grant Support for Acceleration Research

A Nation Deceived was successful in making acceleration atopic of national conversation. IRPA is working to make surethat acceleration remains part of these discussions byencouraging new research and assisting in the disseminationof existing research on acceleration. In 2007, IRPA awardednine research grants on acceleration. The topics of the fundedwork (and the lead researchers) include selection of highschool students for Advanced Placement (AP) classes (PhilAckerman), recruitment and retention of minority studentsinto AP classes (Holly Hertberg-Davis), acceleration ofminority students (Seon-Young Lee), reasons for attrition

(Elizabeth Connell) and success (Michael Sayler) in earlyentrance programs, acceleration practices in Canada (LannieKanevsky), teacher and administrator attitudes towardacceleration and the creation of professional developmentmodule on acceleration (Del Siegle), reflections of profoundlygifted students 20 years later from participants in the Studyfor Mathematically Precocious Youth (Rose Mary Webb), anda meta-analytic update on the research published sinceANation Deceived (Karen Rogers). Abstracts from the 2007




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(Lohman and Marron, cont.)

recipients are available at www.accelerationinstitute.org.Recipients of the 2008 IRPA grants will be announced inApril.

Conclusions

Through its research, policy, and advocacy efforts, IRPAhopes to maintain interest in academic acceleration, tosupport research on acceleration, and to become a resource foranyone (parents, teachers, administrators, researchers, etc.)who has questions about acceleration. Also, IRPA will act as aconsultant to state departments of education and schooldistricts that are considering writing (or revising) policy onacceleration.

ReferencesAssouline, S.G., Colangelo, N., Ihrig, D., Forstadt, L., Lipscomb, J., & Lupkowski-Shoplik, A.E. (2003, November). The Iowa

Acceleration Scale: Two validation studies. Paperpresented at the National Association for Gifted Children Convention,Indianapolis, IN.

Colangelo, N., Assouline, S., & Gross, M. U. M. (2004).A nation deceived: How schools hold back Americas brightest students, Volume I(The Templeton National Report on Acceleration). Iowa City, IA: The Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Centerfor Gifted Education and Talent Development.

King, G., & Zeng, L. (2001). Logistic regression in rare events data. Political Analysis, 9(2), 137-163.

Konstantopoulous, S., Modi, M., & Hedges, L. V. (2001). Who are Americas gifted?American Journal of Education, 109(3), 344-382.

Kulik, J.A., & Kulik, C.C. (1992). Meta-analytic findings on grouping programs. Gifted Child Quarterly, 36, 73-77.

Kulik, J.A., & Kulik, C.C. (2004). Meta-analytic studies of acceleration. In N. Colangelo, S. Assouline, & M. U. M. Gross (Eds.),A nationdeceived: How schools hold back Americas brightest students, Volume II (pp. 13-22). Iowa City, IA: The Connie Belin & Jacqueline N.Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development.

Lipscomb, J. M. (2003). A validity study of the Iowa Acceleration Scale. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa.

Lubinski, D., Benbow, C. P., Webb, R. M., & Bleske-Rechek, A. (2006). Tracking exceptional human capital over two decades.Psychological Science, 17(3), 194-199.

Lubinski, D., Webb, R. M., Morelock, M. J., & Benbow, C. P. (2001). Top 1 in 10,000: A 10-year follow-up of the profoundly gifted. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(4), 718-729.

Press, J., & Wilson, S. (1978). Choosing between logistic regression and discriminant analysis.Journal of the American Statistical

Association, 73, 669-705.Pressey, S. L. (1949). Educational acceleration: Appraisals and basic problems. Bureau of Educational Research Monographs, No. 31.

Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Renzulli, J. S., & Park, S. (2002). Giftedness and high school dropouts: Personal, family, and school-related factors (RM02168). Storrs, CT: TheNational Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, University of Connecticut.

Robinson, N., Lanzi, R. G., Weinberg, R. A., Ramey, S. L., & Ramey, C. T. (2002). Family factors associated with high academiccompetence in former Head Start children at third grade. Gifted Child Quarterly, 46(4), 278-290.

Sayler, M. F. (1996). Differences in the psychological adjustment of accelerated eighth grade students. Paper presented at the Annual Meetingof the American Educational Research Association. New York.

Sayler, M. F., & Brookshire, W. K. (1993). Social, emotional, and behavioral adjustment of accelerated students, students in giftedclasses, and regular students in eighth grade. Gifted Child Quarterly, 37(4), 150-154.

Southern, W. T., & Jones, E. D. (Eds.) (1991). The academic acceleration of gifted children. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Wyner, J. S., Bridgeland, J. M., & Diiulio, J. J. (2007).Achievement trap: How America is failing millions of high-achieving students fromlower-income families. Report by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and Civic Enterprises. Lansdowne, Virginia.



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Table 1. Percentages of background factors between accelerators andnon-accelerators with similar achievement test scores in Grade 8 (N=550)

Explanatory Variables

Percentaccelerated

group(N=275)

Percent non-acceleratedcomparison

groupa

(N=275) Odds ratio

Descriptive characteristics:Female 55.64 51.27 1.19

Asian 17.45 6.18 3.21**

Hispanic 13.09 13.45 0.97

Black 15.27 5.82 2.92**

White 54.18 74.55 0.40**

Psychosocial characteristics:

Self-esteem 92.00 91.27 1.10

Self-reliance 72.73 80.00 0.67*

Plan to finish college 81.82 72.73 1.69*

Plan to continue education past college 45.09 32.36 1.72**

Expecting a professional job at age 30 53.09 45.45 1.36

Cuts class less than once a week 3.27 8.36 0.37*

Participates in sports outside school 34.55 31.64 1.14Participates in religious activities 28.73 38.91 0.63*

Socioeconomic status:

Family income above median 49.82 47.27 1.12

Mother graduated from college 38.55 28.00 1.61**

Father graduated from college 43.27 38.18 1.24

Father is a professional 23.64 15.64 1.67*

Mother employed outside of home 92.00 90.91 1.15

Home environment:

Study room 47.27 38.91 1.41*

Owning computer 59.64 47.27 1.65**

Limiting TV watching 53.82 40.36 1.72**

Checking homework 76.00 68.36 1.47*Mothers expectation on going to college 77.45 72.73 1.29

Immigrant (From a main home language) 38.18 22.18 2.17**

Student is only child 12.36 8.36 1.55

School characteristics:

Public school 58.91 73.09 0.53**

Private school 10.18 12.36 0.80

Catholic school 17.45 9.45 2.03**

Private, other religious school 13.45 5.09 2.90**

Large school (1,000 and above students) 17.09 12.36 1.46

Percent minority (20% and below) 53.09 59.64 0.77

Percent free lunch (10% and below) 49.45 44.36 1.23

Community characteristics:

Urban 34.55 32.73 1.08

Suburban 54.55 37.82 1.97**

Rural 10.91 29.45 0.29**

Northeast 35.64 22.91 1.86**

Central 16.73 22.91 0.68

South 24.73 37.09 0.56**

West 22.91 17.09 1.44

(Table continued on next page)



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(Table 1 cont.)

Explanatory Variables

Percentaccelerated

group(N=275)

Percent non-acceleratedcomparison

groupa

(N=275) Odds ratio

Academic activities at school:

The highest ability group for math 50.55 40.00 1.53*

The highest ability group for science 30.18 24.00 1.37

The highest ability group for English 34.18 30.91 1.16Taking advanced/accelerated math 54.18 46.91 1.34

Taking advanced/accelerated science 34.55 28.73 1.31

Taking advanced/accelerated English 41.45 37.09 1.20

Taking regular math 45.82 53.09 0.75

Taking algebra 57.09 48.73 1.40*

Enrolling talented/gifted program 32.36 24.73 1.46*

Sent to the office by misbehaving 21.45 26.91 0.74

Sent to the office by bad school work 6.18 9.45 0.63

Warning about attendance 7.64 8.36 0.91

Warning about a grade 19.64 33.82 0.48**

Warning about behavior 15.64 19.27 0.78

Warning about a physical fight 16.36 22.18 0.69

Felt bored at school 40.00 46.18 0.78

p


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The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expertise Performanceprovides a synthesis of expertise research from multipletheoretical perspectives and across multiple domains. One ofthe recurring themes in this handbook is that deliberatepractice is an essential component of the development ofexpertise. Whereas competence may be achieved throughinstruction, training, and experience, expertise can only bedeveloped through deliberate practice, which differs

significantly from general practice both in its purpose anddesign. The goal of general practice is to solidify a skill, butthe goal of deliberate practice is to systematically pushbeyond ones current level of reliable performance. Deliberatepractice is comprised of a set of exercises designed by anexpert that help the learner to move beyond currentproficiency levels, thereby continuously decreasing the gapbetween what a learner has already mastered and what he orshe still has to master in order to achieve expertise.

Vygotsky demonstrated that the Zone of ProximalDevelopment that area of knowledge just beyond what isalready mastered is where maximum learning can take

place. Thus, deliberate practice might be conceptualized as asystematic method for moving though the Zone of ProximalDevelopment in incremental steps until one developssufficient expertise to design ones own learning experience,and thereby continuing ones growth independently.

Zimmerman summarizes the steps of deliberate practice as aprocess of task analysis, goal setting, strategy choice, self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and adaptation (Zimmerman,2006, p.705). Generally, deliberate practice opportunities aredesigned by a coach or expert until the student has developedsufficient skills to develop his or her own deliberate practice.From the viewpoint of developing expertise, deliberatepractice is a lifespan endeavor.

Deliberate practice has been shown to be such a crucial factorin expertise studies across multiple domains that someexpertise researchers minimize the role of aptitude. Theconsensus in the expertise literature seems to be that long-term, sustained engagement in deliberate practice is the key tothe development of expertise. Thus, anyone who wants todevelop expertise in a given area can do so, provided they arewilling to invest sufficient time in deliberate practice.

These findings echo the mantra of mastery learning: allstudents can learn provided they are given sufficient time tolearn. This may cause grave concern for parents, teachers, andresearchers in the area of gifted and talented education,whose gifted children often have to endure endless repetitionsof familiar content in mastery learning classrooms, untileveryone learns the concept. While there is a potential dangerthat a misinterpretation of the findings of expertise studies

may lead to a similar situation, the essence of the findings canalso be viewed as beneficial to gifted students. Expertisestudies can be used to enhance gifted and talented education,or be detrimental to it, depending on how it is synthesized,presented, and integrated into the educational system. Basedon the research, it appears that high aptitude is mostbeneficial in the initial stages of learning, until the level ofcompetence is reached and its benefits level out. At the pointwhere a plateau is reached, deliberate practice becomesessential to break through to the next level, and continue onthe path of expertise development.

Expertise research acknowledges that talented students may

reach the plateaus earlier than their peers. This implies thatthese students may need earlier opportunities to engage indeliberate practice. These opportunities are essential to keepgifted students from disengaging from the content. Continualengagement in deliberate practice can contribute to the mentalgrowth of gifted students, especially to the development ofspecific areas of interest where expertise is desired.

There are however, some caveats to consider. First, deliberatepractice requires a high level of concentration, and generallycan only be pursued for short periods of time even by experts,generally no longer than 30 minutes per session. Thus, whilethe discipline and the habit of deliberate practice may beessential to high performance in an area, it would be neither

realistic nor wise to encourage students along this path inmultiple areas. The time needed for deliberate practiceseverely limits the time and energy available for otheractivities, and an attempt to develop expertise in multipledisciplines simultaneously can lead to burnout, even forgifted students. Students should be encouraged to choosetheir fields wisely, and parents should be discouraged from


The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expertise Performance.By Ericsson, K. A., Charness, N., Feltovich, P. J., & Hoffman, R. R.(2006). New York: Cambridge Press (899 pp., pb. $65 ISNB 0-521-60081-2)Review by: Renate OtterbachSenior Research Analyst, University of San Francisco

Book Review



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(Otterbach, continued)

thinking that more fields of concentration are better thanfewer. Furthermore, for some gifted students, expertise is nottheir goal. Whether or not such students should beencouraged to engage in deliberate practice to developdisciplined habits of learning is a question for furtherresearch.

A second caveat that is especially salient for gifted students is

that during deliberate practice, an acquired skill often getsworse before it improves, resulting in a temporary loss ofcompetence. For students who have previously found thatlearning comes easy, this can be especially disconcerting. Therelationship between giftedness and perceived loss ofcompetence, even if only temporary, is a promising focus forresearch. Another area of further research is suggested byRobert Sternberg (2003), who argues that high aptitude maybe in itself a form of expertise. If that is the case, what wouldbe the components of deliberate practice that facilitate the

development of high aptitude? Rephrasing the question thisway may further research agendas that provide us with adeeper understanding of the interaction between innateabilities and environmental factors.

Finally, from a programmatic point of view, does anunderstanding of the nature and importance of deliberatepractice provide a rationale for the necessary enrichmentactivities for gifted students in regular classrooms? Can theconcept of deliberate practice be integrated into gifted and

talented teaching models that focus on expertise developmentsuch as Renzullis Triad Enrichment model?

Editors Note: If you are planning to attend AERA in San Diegonext year, and want to participate in a symposium on the role andimpact of expertise studies in gifted education, get in touch withRenate at [email protected]. (The proposal deadline is August 1,2008, so get in touch with her as soon as possible.)

ReferenceSternberg, R. J. (2003). Wisdom, intelligence, and creativity synthesized. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.



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We were conference friends.We would see each other atNAGC, Wallace, ECHA, the World,at least two times a year.He also went to CEC-TAG but I dont.

We met in 1979.my husband and I had just split.NAGC was at that crummyHoliday Inn in Baltimore.I met Michael at the motel bar.I told him my sad story.It was the beginning of our longConference friends friendship.

We never saw each others homes;we seldom communicated between times,though I did do a profile on him,and we exchanged Christmas cards.We had dinner, attended meetings,sat on committees, and had fun in the waythat conference friends do. In fact,many professional people count theirconference friends among their most dear;these are the people who understand,who know what the work is about.

I would ask him about research strategies over thatdelicious breakfast at the University of Iowa.I would tease him about being too quantitativeover dinners in San Francisco, Louisville, Minneapolis,Denver, Indianapolis, and the like,and he would say he doesnt get qualitative.How can that be research, Jane?And your postmodern buddies. Who gets them?

When we didnt volunteer to run for officesIn the SIG in San Diego,the three of us--Rose, Michael, and I--asked ourselvesWhat have we done?

over dinner at a seafood house nearby.

He and Rose appeared at the Cathedral of Seattlewhile I was scrawling lines into my notebook;Oh, Jane. We thought youd be here writing poems.The three of us shared a spiritual seeking.I particularly remember our talks in Rhodes, Greece,sharing the vodka hed found in Poland,talking conference talk, with a little bitabout our kids, their spouses, and work.

Conference FriendsAn Elegy to Michael PyrytJane PiirtoDirector of Talent Development EducationAshland University

At Barcelona we sat in the back, Janneke,her husband, Michael, and I,had a banquet at the banquet,a long, delicious, talkative, funnydinner that lasted for hours, through all thespeeches and entertainment. We wenton a train to Figueres, to the Dali homeand museum, a long day trip,sharing love of surrealism.

In Adelaide, Australia, we took another day tripto a vineyard owned by growers Id metat the Kakadu National Park.Since I had driven so many kilometerson the left hand side of the roadin a rented Camryall across the country, hemade me drive to the vineyard,where we sampled the Shiraz.Which I only tasted, since, after all,I had to drive.

A few years later,he asked me to come to Calgaryto be the external reviewer for Jannekes Ph.D.which used qualitative research and Dabrowskiwho better than you? He said

He took me to lunch at Lake Louise near Banff.And to dinner in a small townWhere I bought this scarf I alwaysseem to choose to wear. See?It reminds me of him.Green blending into orange.

Rather than statistics, research design, or God, our lastprivate conversation was about Shakespeare.The Stratford version of Richard II last summer.We spent a whole breakfast debating it at Warwickshire.I had been bored, and thought it was one ofthe worst plays Shakespeare ever wrote.

He had been enthralled; thought it was one of the best playsShakespeare ever wrote.

Little did we know it would be the last time we would meet.That our conferences friendship was over.

This poem was read at the memorial session for Michael Pyryt onMarch 22, 2008, at the American Educational ResearchAssociation meeting in New York City



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Would you like to share a short abstract or article about recent

research you have conducted on giftedness and talent? Doyou have some insights and thoughts into methodologicalissues in researching giftedness and talent? The Research onGiftedness and Talent SIG wants to hear from you! We noware accepting articles for our SIGnificant Research, SIGnificantResearch Methodology, and SIGnificant Researcher sections,and we are open to considering other pieces for the SIG

newsletter, SIGnificance. We would like to start a tradition of a

bi-annual newsletter, so please submit an article forconsideration by August 1 for inclusion in the first fall issue ofSIGnificance. Submissions should not exceed 1,000 words. Formore information or submission, please contact Jill Adelson,newsletter editor, at [email protected]. You can accesscurrent and past issues at http://www.aeragifted.org.

(Hello from the Editor continued from page 1)

Finally, none of us is unaffected when a colleague dies, and this year in losing Michael Pyryt we lost someone who has madeimportant contributions to our field and touched many of our lives. Several people have written and delivered tributes to him,and in this issue we include the poem that Jane Piirto wrote and read in New York at the memorial service at AERA on March25. Michael is sadly missed, and I thank Jane for allowing us to include this poem.

Before closing, I also want to say thank you to our layout editor, Leigh Kupersmith at the University of Indiana. She continuesto be a wonderful partner in the efforts to bring this publication to life. I couldnt ask for anyone more cooperative, creative, andgenerous with her expertise. We all benefit from her attention to this project.

Looking forward to the ongoing dialogue with you all,

Dona

Dona Matthews, Ph.D.Visiting Professor,Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of [email protected]

Request for Articles for SIG Newletter, SIGnificanceJill AdelsonEditor, SIGnificance



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GIFTED CHILDRENAn Electronic Journal of the AERA SIG Research on Giftedness and Talent.

AERA Special Interest Groups Web Site: http://www.aeragifted.org/

AERA SIGResearch on Giftedness and TalentOfficersChair

Karen Rogers

[email protected] (June 2008 -June 2010)

Chair ElectMarcia Gentry

[email protected]

SecretaryCheryll Adams

[email protected]

TreasurerCatherine Brighton

[email protected]

Program ChairBetsy McCoach

[email protected]

Assistant Program ChairDona Matthews (becomes program chair 2008-09)

[email protected]

Members-at-LargeCatherine Little (Term ends June 2010)

[email protected] Lohman (Term ends June 2009)

[email protected] Piirto (Term ends June 2009)

[email protected] Dai (Term ends June 2010)

[email protected]

StudentRepresentativeKristina Ayres Paul (Term ends June 2010)

[email protected]

Newsletter EditorJill Adelson (Term ends June 2009)

[email protected]

WebmasterKathleenOCraven

[email protected]

Past ChairsCarolyn CallahanMichael Pyryt

AERA SIGResearch on Giftedness and TalentWorking CommitteesConstitutional Review Committee

Tarek Grantham ([email protected])Tonya Moon ([email protected])Mary Rizza ([email protected])

Membership CommitteeCarol Tieso ([email protected])Betsy McCoach ([email protected])Bonnie Cramond ([email protected])Susannah Richards ([email protected])

William Bart ([email protected])Jean Gubbins ([email protected])

Program Planning CommitteeCarol Tieso ([email protected])Cheryll Adams ([email protected])Dona Matthews ([email protected])

Awards CommitteeCatherine Brighton ([email protected])Cheryll Adams ([email protected])Frank Worrell ([email protected])Michael Matthews ([email protected])

Business Meeting CommitteeBetsy McCoach ([email protected])Marcia Gentry ([email protected])

Publication CommitteeDel Siegle ([email protected])

Jonathan Plucker ([email protected])

Dona Matthews ([email protected])

Documents

Gifted Children V2N2