Elizabeth Shaunessy

School Functioning and Psychological Well-Being of International Baccalaureate and General Education Students A Preliminary Examination

The current study compared the school and psychological functioning of 122 gifted and high-achieving students to that of 176 general education students educated in the same school. Relative to their peers in general education, gifted and high-achieving students served in the schools International Baccalaureate (IB) program reported more positive perceptions of school climate, had higher grade point averages and academic self-efficacy, and reported less externalizing psychopathology and affiliation with negative peers. IB and general education students reported comparable levels of global life satisfaction and internalizing symptoms of psychopathology. The psychosocial adjustment of intellectually gifted students within the IB program was similar to that of their high-achieving IB peers on all indicators except satisfaction with friends. Recommendations for future research and implications for educational policy are presented.

Code Switching among Bilingual and Limited English Proficient Students: Possible Indicators of Giftedness

Code switching includes the use of complete sentences, phrases, and borrowed words from another language (Brice & Brice, 2000). It is a common linguistic phenomenon noted among bilingual populations. In order to code switch effectively, students must possess a high level of understanding of the 2 cultures, as well as a deep understanding of the underlying structures and purposes of 2 language systems. Code switching, rather than reflecting the traditional view of a disadvantaged and semiliterate background, actually reflects an intellectual advantage. However, code switching has not commonly been perceived as a positive trait by schools, teachers, or the majority culture. Assessments for nomination and identification of giftedness have traditionally been either single-language oriented or use concepts and behaviors that are reflective of the majority culture. This article explores some of the aspects of code switching and possible resultant behaviors of bilingual children who are gifted.

Strategies Used by Intellectually Gifted Students to Cope With Stress During Their Participation in a High School International Baccalaureate Program

Individuals respond to threats to affiliation and achievement needs through drawing on a repertoire of coping strategies specific to a given situation. Gifted adolescents in college-preparatory high school programs may be faced with novel stressors, and may have unique coping strategies to manage these challenges. The current study considers responses to surveys of stress and coping as well as focus group interviews of gifted and high-achieving students enrolled in an academically intense curriculum, the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program. Findings of this secondary analysis of archival data sets indicate gifted students experience levels of stress similar to their IB classmates not identified as gifted. Additionally, gifted students were similar to IB peers not identified as gifted with respect to how they cope with school; likenesses included positive reframing, time and task management, avoiding tasks, and seeking social support. However, gifted IB students differed from IB classmates with respect to anger coping, humor, and problem-solving approaches. Putting the Research to Use With the growing interest of International Baccalaureate Programs throughout the United States, educational personnel, researchers, and administrators are considering the social-emotional needs of gifted and high-ability students served in these challenging academic programs. Understanding the needs of this unique population of students is critical to supporting the cognitive and affective growth of IB students, and this study provides a glimpse into the thoughts of IB learners with respect to their stress and coping.The findings of this study suggests that gifted students in IB and their IB peers experience similar stressors and coping responses, though some differences in anger coping, humor, and problem solving were unique among gifted IB students in this sample.

Understanding the Experiences of Bilingual, Latino/a Adolescents: "Voices from Gifted and General Education"

Eight gifted and eight general‐education students engaged in discussions regarding their observations of, experiences in, and recommendations for education. Six categories emerged through qualitative analysis of their conversations. These categories include: problem solving, task commitment, self‐perceptions, education, communication, and discrimination. Content within each category provides a glimpse into the students’ perceptions of their schooling experiences. The roles of ethnic identity development, identification with majority culture, adolescence, and gifted‐ness are examined and recommendations for future research are provided.

Assessing Potentially Gifted Students from Lower Socioeconomic Status with Nonverbal Measures of Intelligence

The screening and identification of gifted students has historically been conducted using verbal measures of intelligence. However, the underrepresentation in gifted programs of culturally diverse children, who may have limited English proficiency or cultural values different from those measured in traditional intelligence tests, has prompted researchers to consider other measures. Nonverbal measures of intelligence have been utilized to increase the number of gifted children from diverse backgrounds. Researchers in the current study sought to increase the number of culturally diverse gifted students at a rural public school enrolling predominantly African-American students from low socioeconomic homes. 169 students in Grades 2 through 6 were assessed using three nonverbal measures of intelligence: the Culture-Fair Intelligence Test, the Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test, and the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices. The scores on these nonverbal measures indicated that the Culture-Fair Intelligence Test and the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices identified more students than the Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test. A discussion of the results and implications for research are presented.

Mean levels and correlates of perfectionism in International Baccalaureate and general education students

This exploratory study examined the mean levels of perfectionism among 178 general education students and 141 students enrolled in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, a rigorous academic curriculum. The study also explored perfectionism in relation to grade level and student outcomes (psychological functioning, academic achievement). Results of independent t-tests and one-way ANOVAs indicated higher levels of adaptive perfectionism and lower levels of maladaptive perfectionism among IB students, as well as a significant decrease in mean levels of adaptive perfectionism and increases in maladaptive perfectionism by grade level among IB students. Among both groups of high school students, maladaptive perfectionism was linked to greater anxiety and lower GPAs; IB students evidenced a particularly strong inverse relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and global life satisfaction. Adaptive perfectionism was moderately correlated with academic achievement, as well as associated with greater life satisfaction especially for general education students. Maladaptive perfectionism did not moderate any relationships between adaptive perfectionism and student outcomes.

Policy Matters An Analysis of District-Level Efforts to Increase the Identification of Underrepresented Learners

Policies delegating control of educational policy to the local level are widespread, yet there has been little examination of the effects of such distributed decision making in the area of advanced education programming. We used propensity score matching to examine the effectiveness of locally developed policies for identifying intellectually gifted children identifying themselves as Black or from low-socioeconomic backgrounds across one large U.S. state (Florida) that has a state-level gifted education mandate. Ongoing underrepresentation of traditionally marginalized groups in gifted education was evident, even among districts with policies specifically designed to ameliorate disproportional representation. However, the presence of such a policy reduced the degree of underrepresentation.

Putting Standards Into Practice: Evaluating the Utility of the NAGC Pre-K–Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards

Despite their importance, there has been surprisingly little scholarly examination of the NAGC Pre-K --Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards (NAGC, 2008/2000; Landrum, Callahan, & Shaklee, 2001) since their publication a decade ago. As part of a larger study investigating the effectiveness of local policies developed within the framework of state law, we used a qualitative approach to examine the ‘minimum’ and ‘exemplary’ criteria from the Student Identification portion of these NAGC Standards. Through this process we developed a 27-item checklist, which we then used to evaluate 43 locally developed plans for identifying diverse gifted learners from one large state in the southeastern United States. Based on this experience, we identify the strengths and weaknesses that we encountered in using the Standards for this purpose. We provide the checklist items we developed, and we offer specific suggestions for how the Gifted Program Standards in their currently ongoing revision process might be made more user-friendly for practitioners to apply toward effective evaluation of gifted program documents. Putting the Research to Use Our experience in using the Student Identification portion of the NAGC Pre-K --Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards highlights some difficulties in using a national standards document directly to evaluate district-level program descriptions and policies. Specifically, we found three aspects that hindered the application of the Student Identification framework to the evaluation of local policies: 1) A standard identified as Exemplary could be met in some cases without first satisfying the Minimum requirement of the same numbered standard; 2) Some standards included more than one criterion within a single numbered standard, and district documents satisfied one but not all of these criteria; and 3) The lack of consensus on terminology led to the use of some words such as “screening” to mean different things in the NAGC Standards than in the district documents, while other terms were too broad (such as “culturally fair”) or too narrow to prove useful in evaluating plan quality. The responsibility for developing and implementing policies and procedures often rests at the local level. Consequently, we believe that practitioners will find a checklist such as the one we have developed and presented here to be a useful bridge between the language and aims of standards documents and the tangible goals of those who develop and implement policies within the framework of state rules. We suggest that the currently ongoing revisions to these NAGC Standards should consider our findings in the three areas described above, and we recommend continued support for the development of ancillary materials as has been provided for these and other national standards documents.

What language discourse tells us about bilingual adolescents : a study of students in gifted programs and students in general education programs

The Latino/a population of the United States continues to increase dramatically; consequently, educators face the challenge of how best to provide educational services for those whose primary language is Spanish. The purpose of this study was to examine student discourse between bilingual students in gifted programs and bilingual students in the general education programs in an urban middle school. This study suggests a minor language advantage for the bilingual students in the gifted program. The overall conclusion seems to indicate that bilingualism, language abilities, and giftedness involve many variables and that the relationships are not necessarily direct.

A plan for child find in gifted education

Educators of children with special needs are required by law to employ “child find” to identify children with disabilities in their communities. Similar efforts to locate gifted children are required in a few states, but the practice is not mandated at the federal level. A rationale for child find is provided, as well as the guidelines of child find regarding locating gifted children among the states requiring this practice. Examples of current child find resources are provided, as well as implications for future research. Agencies that may participate in locating potentially gifted children are provided, along with suggested strategies for initiating a child find plan.