Heidrun Stoeger

Evaluation of an Attributional Retraining (Modeling Technique) to Reduce Gender Differences in Chemistry Instruction.

This report is an evaluation of an attributional retraining intervention conceptualized to promote girls gifted in the natural sciences. The attributional retraining was based on a modeling technique, and conceptualized for ninth‐grade chemistry students attending a college preparatory high school (German Gymnasium). The aim of the training was to level off the gender differences, which are repeatedly reported for this subject, especially for gifted students. The treatment consisted of the presentation of a 10.35 minute video whereby two students, who had already completed their chemistry courses, discuss the experiences they had encountered with the subject. Their exchange communicates, among other things, that success and failure in chemistry can be controlled and that anyone can be successful in this subject if he/she applies an adequate amount of effort to learning. The treatment showed positive effects on attributions, control convictions, self‐concepts, academic achievement and cooperation among achieving girls, but no effect whatsoever on achieving boys.

Addressees of Performance Goals.

As performance goals aim to both procure acknowledgment of one’s abilities and to avoid revealing a lack of one’s abilities, the authors hypothesized that students hold specific performance goals for different addressees and that there are specific correlational patterns with other motivational constructs. They analyzed a data set of 2,675 pupils (1,248 boys and 1,426 girls) attending Grades 8 and 9 (mean age 15.0, SD 0.97). The students completed a questionnaire consisting of 12 items measuring performance approach goals and 12 items measuring performance avoidance goals. In each subset, 4 groups of addressees were differentiated: parents, teachers, peers, and the acting individual him/herself. Additionally, several external criteria were measured. The authors concurrently tested theory-driven, structural equation models. Incorporating all 24 items, the best-fitting model was a multitrait– multimethod model, which posited 2 factors for approach and avoidance goals and 4 addressee factors. While performance goals addressing parents showed relationships to maladaptive motivational and learning patterns, performance goals addressing classmates and self showed relationships to adaptive motivational and learning patterns. The relationships between performance goals addressing teachers and external criteria were rather weak and unsystematic.

Giftedness and Gifted Education: The Need for a Paradigm Change

This commentary addresses Subotnik et al.’s target article from the perspective of researchers active in the field of giftedness. First, we self-critically examine the current standing of giftedness research within the scientific community. Second, the authors’ critique of gifted education is sharpened in three respects: (a) gifted identification, (b) effectiveness of gifted education, and (c) credentials of gifted education. Finally, four necessary and productive lines for future research are proposed.

Cross-Cultural Research: Basic Issues, Dilemmas and Strategies

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The History of Giftedness Research

Perceptions of giftedness have, over the course of history, developed from a theological through a metaphysical to an empirical approach. This chapter will offer an overview of the latter approach, which has guided giftedness research since the end of the 19th century. First, the historical development of the concept of intelligence and its significance for giftedness research will be delineated. This will be followed by a historical review of studies based on multi-dimensional models of giftedness and the expertise approach. Following a rendering of investigations on gene/environment interactions, a historical outline will focus on educational studies and studies on individual differences and subgroups of gifted students. As a conclusion, factors that had an influence on giftedness research over the course of history will be submitted for discussion, also addressing the significance of cultural differences and relevant research in this area.

Identification of Underachievement: An Empirical Study on the Agreement among Various Diagnostic Sources

Abstract Parents, teachers and students are close to irreplaceable as diagnostic sources in the identification of gifted students. The relevant research literature has, however, expressed skepticism concerning the accuracy of such assessments, in particular with regard to the recognition of underachievers. In an empirical investigation, a comparison was made between assessments made by parents, teachers and the students themselves and the results of an intelligence test with reference to their efficiency in identifying underachieving and achieving students. The success rates demonstrated by parents and teachers in assessing the motivation and ability self-confidence levels of their children were also evaluated. The results demonstrate that these person groups are not reliable as sources of information.

Differential Effects of Motivational Orientation on Self-Confidence and Helplessness among High Achievers and Underachievers

Abstract In the literature a learning goal orientation is considered to be adaptive in achievement contexts, an avoidance goal orientation as maladaptive and an approach orientation has led to mixed results. In this article, arguments will be presented as to why these general findings cannot be transferred to gifted students. In an empirical study it could be demonstrated that among gifted underachieving male students an avoidance and an approach orientation could be linked, as expected, to unfavorable expressions of confidence in one’s own ability for mathematics as well as to helplessness in mathematics - however, the same was true for a learning goal orientation. Among achieving boys and girls as well as among underachieving girls, a learning goal orientation was coupled with favorable values regarding confidence in one’s own ability for mathematics and helplessness - the same was found, however, for an approach orientation and an avoidance orientation.

The role of emotions, motivation, and learning behavior in underachievement and results of an intervention

Research has shown that various individual factors play an important role in the underachievement of gifted students. Most often discussed as predictors of underachievement are motivation, learning behavior, and emotions. To examine which specific constructs from these fields simultaneously predict underachievement among gifted fourth graders, logistic regression was performed on data from eighty-five highly intelligent students out of thirty-four classrooms. Students reported on their self-efficacy, learning goal orientation, use of text-reduction strategies, anxiety, boredom, anger, and enjoyment. Emerging predictors of underachievement were self-efficacy, use of text-reduction strategies, and anxiety. As these constructs are all connected to self-regulated learning in different ways, an intervention was implemented which successfully encourages self-regulated learning among students of differing cognitive abilities. Assessing the intervention’s effectiveness for different ability levels was important as the intervention was not a pull-out program, but was integrated into regular classroom instruction in which all students in these classes participated. Results from multilevel longitudinal models showed positive intervention effects for learning behavior among gifted underachievers, but no intervention effects on self-efficacy and anxiety could be detected.

What is more important for fourth-grade primary school students for transforming their potential into achievement: the individual or the environmental box in multidimensional conceptions of giftedness?

Multidimensional models of giftedness specify individual and environmental moderators or catalysts that help transform potential into achievement. However, these models do not state whether the importance of the ‘individual boxes’ and the ‘environmental boxes’ changes during this process. The present study examines whether, during the early stages of talent development, the ‘environmental boxes’ play a more important role than the ‘individual boxes.’ To answer this question, we analyzed individual moderators and environmental moderators of achievement for fourth-grade primary-school students (N = 976). A cluster analysis that included intelligence, achievement, and two individual moderators (motivation and learning behavior) revealed three groups of students, two of which are of particular interest, as they both displayed high intelligence and achievement but differed in their motivation and learning behavior. Questionnaire data on family environment (filled out by parents, N = 682) and school environment (filled out by teachers, N = 47) supported the assumption that among young students an inauspicious set of individual moderators, in this case maladaptive motivation and learning behavior, can be compensated by a sufficiently propitious set of environmental moderators, in this case parents’ and teachers’ learning support, cultural capital within the family, and teachers’ commitment to support their students’ learning.

Shortcomings of the IQ-Based Construct of Underachievement

Despite being plagued by serious conceptual problems, underachievement ranks among the most popular constructs in research on the gifted. Many of its problems have their roots in the use of the IQ as the supposedly best method of measuring ability levels. Only a few decades ago the opinion was still widespread that the IQ-based construct of underachievement, having withstood neither its empirical nor its theoretical test, ought to be abandoned. Since then, some points of criticism have simply been forgotten. In this article we therefore take up and follow a few of the broken threads within the discussion. To this end, we present a thorough analysis of the implications of the IQ-based underachievement concept. First we present a definition of underachievement and provide a brief overview of the history of the construct. We then enumerate the theoretical, methodological, and empirical problems of the IQ-based construct.