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Introduction
Dona Matthews .................... 1 Wherever 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 and
Letter from Chair Talent SIG’s e-journal, Gifted Children: an article by David Lohman and Maureen
Karen Rogers ........................ 2 Marron at the Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration at the Belin-Blank Center
for Gifted Education and Talent Development, The University of Iowa. Their article,
Article
entitled “Studying acceleration with national datasets and surveys: Some suggestions,
David F. Lohman and
some results, and our experiences,” gives us an update of the pioneering investigations
Maureen A. Marron ............ 3
of acceleration that they and their colleagues are doing at the Belin-Blank Center. In
Book Review addition to the research that they are conducting on this vitally important topic, it is
The Cambridge Handbook of worth noting that the experts at the Belin-Blank Center are providing consulting services
Expertise and Expertise to state departments of education and school districts that are considering writing or
Performance revising their policies on acceleration. If my professional experience is anything to go by,
Reviewer: that includes—or soon will include—practically every jurisdiction in North America, and
Renate Otterbach ..................... 9 many internationally too.
Elegy to Michael Pyryt Expertise is another of the fascinating frontiers of research for those of us interested in
Jane Piirto ............................ 11 giftedness and talent development. I’m delighted that Renate Otterbach (who wrote a
review for Roeper Review of the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance)
Request for Articles for has agreed to write a short article for us about the impact and implications of expertise
SIG Newsletter ....................... 12 studies on our work. This could make an interesting topic for a symposium or
roundtable discussion at AERA next year; if you are interested in participating, get in
AERA Research on Giftedness touch with Renate (see contact info with her article).
and Talent
The original name of this publication – Gifted Children – was decided on quickly as a
Officers .................................... 13 placeholder because we had to settle on a name just to get it going. But based on
comments I have received, I think that it may not be as descriptive as it might be of our
Working Committees ........... 13 collective efforts at understanding the processes and practices related to gifted
development and education. It would be great if we could find something more dynamic
and less categorical. All suggestions are welcome! I look forward to hearing from you
with 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 what’s interesting, engaging, and controversial in your work with high-ability
learners, and what you’re learning or reading or thinking about investigating in your
own research.
(continued on page 12)
Undernourished, intelligence becomes like the bloated belly of a starving child: swollen, filled
with nothing the body can use.
Andrea Dworkin
Karen Rogers
President, AERA ROGAT SIG
It is difficult to believe that more than two months have We were happy to find several of his Calgary colleagues
passed since we all gathered for the AERA meeting in New present and only wish they had freely spoken of their own
York. What an eventful conference that was for our SIG. perspectives on Michael’s greatness at his home university.
Professor Abraham Tannenbaum provided us with such a As it was, many thanks are accorded to the great number of
good send-off at our Monday evening business meeting and people who did speak about their relationship with Michael
the rest was only up from that very high point. Professor and who shared many stories of his very unique and
Tannenbaum spoke to a packed room, many of whom were wonderful ways. His sister was particularly eloquent about
former students or acolytes, but many who were new to our the Michael she knew best. It helped us all to know Michael
field and anxious to hear from one of our history makers. His just a little bit better, even when we thought we did know him
retrospective survey of the past 50 years in gifted education pretty well. He will be missed. As it was, we had the
was enlightening. I suspect everyone present learned opportunity to speak our piece (or peace?) about Michael at
something they hadn’t known before that evening. What a this conference while his demise was still fresh in our minds.
pleasure and privilege it was to listen to one of the true I believe next year’s conference will be even more difficult for
scholars of our field. It makes one proud to be in it. us when his true presence will have been missed at two of the
conferences he (and we) loved best.
Dr. Michael Pyryt’s loss was greatly felt by all who were
present. His wonderful sister read the paper he had had the In the meantime, our SIG goes on, with potential changes in
foresight to prepare before he had left for Australia and all the the structure of the organization to come. We will keep you
events that followed. It was of his usual high quality – a meta- informed in the issues to come. In the meantime, my
analysis of research. We will share this paper with you in invitation still stands. I would love to hear from you about
future editions of our SIG’s publications. initiatives you think we should undertake, projects we should
begin, and new directions we should follow. Please contact
The SIG held a celebration of Michael’s life and a tribute to me with your ideas via email at kbrogers@stthomas.edu
him on Tuesday of AERA week in the mid-afternoon. Again,
the room was packed with friends, colleagues, and family. Until we see each other again!
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.
The Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration (IRPA) resource because they provide information on representative
was established in 2006 at The Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. national samples of students, some of whom have been
Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent academically accelerated and many who have not been
Development at The University of Iowa through the support accelerated. Many of the existing studies of acceleration (and
of the John Templeton Foundation. IRPA is unique in that its giftedness, generally) fail to include an appropriate
sole focus is the study of curricular acceleration for comparison group such as non-accelerated students of similar
academically talented children. Academic acceleration is an ability or achievement. Consequently, it is difficult to attribute
educational intervention that moves high-ability students the positive outcomes to acceleration per se rather than to
through an educational program at a rate faster or at an age other characteristics of the students (such as general ability).
younger than typical (Pressey, 1949). Acceleration helps The relatively large number of accelerated and similar-ability
match the level, complexity, and pace of the curriculum with unaccelerated students in the NCES datasets helps resolve
students’ intellectual abilities. this situation. Furthermore, the cross-sectional design used in
many studies fails to provide information on how accelerated
The founding of IRPA is a direct outcome of the success of the
students perform over time. Students in the NCES datasets
2004 two-volume report by Nicholas Colangelo, Susan
are followed for many years, and so the long-term
Assouline, and Miraca Gross. The report, entitled A Nation
consequences of accelerative decisions made in grade school
Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students
can be assessed at high school and beyond. (Regional talent
(2004), synthesizes the 50 years of robust and consistent
searches also gather longitudinal data, often with much larger
research on academic acceleration. The recurring refrain from
samples which allow greater confidence in the statistical
this research is that both grade-based (e.g., grade skipping)
analyses that are performed. However, one cannot easily
and content-based (e.g., Advanced Placement classes)
make inferences about the population of students beyond
acceleration are effective, though underused, interventions in
those who participated in the talent search.)
academic and social-emotional domains for high-ability
students. Although grade-accelerated students generally out-
perform their chronologically older classmates academically, Others also have recognized the potential in using large
both groups show approximately equal levels of social and datasets in studies of high-ability students. Konstantopoulos,
emotional adjustment (see Assouline et al., 2003; Colangelo, Modi, and Hedges (2001) used NELS:88 to describe the
Assouline, & Gross, 2004; Kulik & Kulik, 1992, 2004; characteristics of gifted students; Renzulli and Park (2002)
Lipscomb, 2003; Sayler & Brookshire, 1993; Southern & Jones, studied gifted high school dropouts with NELS:88; Wyner,
1991). Longer term, accelerants attain advanced degrees, Bridgeland, and Diiulio (2007) used NELS:88 and ECLS-K to
produce scholarly works, and contribute professionally at identify the achievement trap in which high-achieving, lower-
rates well above societal baselines (Lubinski et al., 2001, 2006). income students lose ground to high-achieving, higher-
income students; and Robinson, Lanzi, Weinberg, Ramey, and
It is fair to say that extant research has answered many basic Ramey (2002) have looked at longitudinal achievement data
questions about acceleration. At the most fundamental level, from high-achieving students enrolled in Head Start. Sayler
we know that acceleration is an effective intervention for and Brookshire (1993; Sayler, 1996) have used NELS:88 to
high-ability students, particularly when the decision is examine the social and emotional outcomes of acceleration for
carefully considered and supported by the school. At the 8th graders.
same time, there are nuances to the research and unanswered
questions about the factors that moderate success with the
Methodological and Analytical Issues in Conducting
different forms of acceleration. Additionally, with the increase
Acceleration Research with National Datasets
in public awareness of acceleration, changes in attitudes and
policies need to be monitored. We report on two lines of NCES used a two-stage sample selection process to obtain a
research—secondary analyses of existing national datasets nationally representative sample of students. First, a stratified
and nationally distributed surveys—that we hope will add to random sample of schools was drawn, and then a stratified
the existing knowledge of acceleration. random sample of students from within each school. This
two-stage method requires that analyses account for the
Secondary Analyses of Existing Datasets complex survey design and multilevel nature of the data.
We recently have begun using datasets from the National
Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to investigate
questions about the predictors and outcomes of acceleration.
These datasets, specifically NELS and ELS, are a valuable (continued on next page)
References
Assouline, S.G., Colangelo, N., Ihrig, D., Forstadt, L., Lipscomb, J., & Lupkowski-Shoplik, A.E. (2003, November). The Iowa
Acceleration Scale: Two validation studies. Paper presented 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 America’s brightest students, Volume I
(The Templeton National Report on Acceleration). Iowa City, IA: The Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center
for 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 America’s 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 nation
deceived: How schools hold back America’s 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: The
National 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 academic
competence 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 Meeting
of the American Educational Research Association. New York.
Sayler, M. F., & Brookshire, W. K. (1993). Social, emotional, and behavioral adjustment of accelerated students, students in gifted
classes, 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 from
lower-income families. Report by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and Civic Enterprises. Lansdowne, Virginia.
Percent non-
Percent accelerated
accelerated comparison
group groupa
Explanatory Variables (N=275) (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 1.14
Participates 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*
Mother’s 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†
The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expertise Performance These findings echo the mantra of mastery learning: all
provides a synthesis of expertise research from multiple students can learn provided they are given sufficient time to
theoretical perspectives and across multiple domains. One of learn. This may cause grave concern for parents, teachers, and
the recurring themes in this handbook is that deliberate researchers in the area of gifted and talented education,
practice is an essential component of the development of whose gifted children often have to endure endless repetitions
expertise. Whereas competence may be achieved through of familiar content in mastery learning classrooms, until
instruction, training, and experience, expertise can only be everyone learns the concept. While there is a potential danger
developed through deliberate practice, which differs that a misinterpretation of the findings of expertise studies
significantly from general practice both in its purpose and may lead to a similar situation, the essence of the findings can
design. The goal of general practice is to solidify a skill, but also be viewed as beneficial to gifted students. Expertise
the goal of deliberate practice is to systematically push studies can be used to enhance gifted and talented education,
beyond one’s current level of reliable performance. Deliberate or be detrimental to it, depending on how it is synthesized,
practice is comprised of a set of exercises designed by an presented, and integrated into the educational system. Based
expert that help the learner to move beyond current on the research, it appears that high aptitude is most
proficiency levels, thereby continuously decreasing the gap beneficial in the initial stages of learning, until the level of
between what a learner has already mastered and what he or competence is reached and its benefits level out. At the point
she still has to master in order to achieve expertise. where a plateau is reached, deliberate practice becomes
essential to break through to the next level, and continue on
Vygotsky demonstrated that the Zone of Proximal the path of expertise development.
Development – that area of knowledge just beyond what is
already mastered – is where maximum learning can take Expertise research acknowledges that talented students may
place. Thus, deliberate practice might be conceptualized as a reach the plateaus earlier than their peers. This implies that
systematic method for moving though the Zone of Proximal these students may need earlier opportunities to engage in
Development in incremental steps until one develops deliberate practice. These opportunities are essential to keep
sufficient expertise to design one’s own learning experience, gifted students from disengaging from the content. Continual
and thereby continuing one’s growth independently. engagement in deliberate practice can contribute to the mental
growth of gifted students, especially to the development of
Zimmerman summarizes the steps of deliberate practice as a specific areas of interest where expertise is desired.
process of “task analysis, goal setting, strategy choice, self-
monitoring, self-evaluation, and adaptation” (Zimmerman, There are however, some caveats to consider. First, deliberate
2006, p.705). Generally, deliberate practice opportunities are practice requires a high level of concentration, and generally
designed by a coach or expert until the student has developed can only be pursued for short periods of time even by experts,
sufficient skills to develop his or her own deliberate practice. generally no longer than 30 minutes per session. Thus, while
From the viewpoint of developing expertise, deliberate the discipline and the habit of deliberate practice may be
practice is a lifespan endeavor. essential to high performance in an area, it would be neither
realistic nor wise to encourage students along this path in
Deliberate practice has been shown to be such a crucial factor multiple areas. The time needed for deliberate practice
in expertise studies across multiple domains that some severely limits the time and energy available for other
expertise researchers minimize the role of aptitude. The activities, and an attempt to develop expertise in multiple
consensus in the expertise literature seems to be that long- disciplines simultaneously can lead to burnout, even for
term, sustained engagement in deliberate practice is the key to gifted students. Students should be encouraged to choose
the development of expertise. Thus, anyone who wants to their fields wisely, and parents should be discouraged from
develop expertise in a given area can do so, provided they are
willing to invest sufficient time in deliberate practice. (continued on next page)
Reference
Sternberg, R. J. (2003). Wisdom, intelligence, and creativity synthesized. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Jane Piirto
Director of Talent Development Education
Ashland University
Jill Adelson
Editor, SIGnificance
Would you like to share a short abstract or article about recent newsletter, SIGnificance. We would like to start a tradition of a
research you have conducted on giftedness and talent? Do bi-annual newsletter, so please submit an article for
you have some insights and thoughts into methodological consideration by August 1 for inclusion in the first fall issue of
issues in researching giftedness and talent? The Research on SIGnificance. Submissions should not exceed 1,000 words. For
Giftedness and Talent SIG wants to hear from you! We now more information or submission, please contact Jill Adelson,
are accepting articles for our SIGnificant Research, SIGnificant newsletter editor, at jill.adelson@uconn.edu. You can access
Research Methodology, and SIGnificant Researcher sections, current and past issues at http://www.aeragifted.org.
and we are open to considering other pieces for the SIG
Finally, none of us is unaffected when a colleague dies, and this year in losing Michael Pyryt we lost someone who has made
important 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 March
25. 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 continues
to be a wonderful partner in the efforts to bring this publication to life. I couldn’t ask for anyone more cooperative, creative, and
generous with her expertise. We all benefit from her attention to this project.
Dona
Dona Matthews, Ph.D.
Visiting Professor,
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
dmatthews@oise.utoronto.ca
Newsletter Editor
Jill Adelson (Term ends June 2009)
jill.adelson@uconn.edu
Webmaster
KathleenO’Craven
kathyo@quinda.com
Past Chairs
Carolyn Callahan
Michael Pyryt
GIFTED CHILDREN
An Electronic Journal of the AERA SIG Research on Giftedness and Talent.