Hope E. Wilson

A Sample of Gifted and Talented Educators’ Attitudes About Academic Acceleration

Despite extensive research supporting its use, including the 2004 publication of A Nation Deceived, acceleration is an underutilized strategy for meeting the academic needs of gifted and talented students. Parents’ and educators’ attitudes and beliefs about acceleration influence the extent to which it is implemented in schools. This study investigated gifted and talented educators’ attitudes toward acceleration using a 7-point rating scale measuring concerns about acceleration, beliefs about acceleration, and support for specific acceleration strategies. Data indicated there were no differences in attitudes among teachers from rural, suburban, or urban school districts. Overall, the least popular acceleration strategies were also the easiest to implement, but caused the greatest change in students’ environments (i.e., grade-skipping and early entrance to kindergarten). As expected, the educators were most troubled by social issues and least concerned about academic issues related to acceleration.

A Model of Academic Self-Concept: Perceived Difficulty and Social Comparison among Academically Accelerated Secondary School Students.

Academic self-concept predicts students’ future goals and is affected by a student’s relative success compared with his or her peer group. This exploratory study used structural equation modeling to examine the contributions of the perceived level of difficulty of the curriculum, in addition to the contributions of social comparison and achievement in schoolwork, to academic self-concept among students enrolled in advanced coursework. Along with school achievement, perceived difficulty and social comparison also predicted academic self-concept. The final model indicated that students differentiate between learner self-concept, which is how students perceived their ability to understand new ideas or knowledge, and student self-concept, which is how they perceived their abilities to succeed in school-related tasks. Of these two constructs, student self-concept was a better predictor of future goals; however, the overall effect was small.

College Choices of Academically Talented Secondary Students

The decision-making process of academically talented students when making the transition to college is complex. This study investigates the factors that contribute to the selectivity of the colleges by Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate students for application. A multilevel model was created to find which college-level and student-level variables were associated with college selectivity. This study found that students selected colleges with higher mean SAT scores when prestige of the college was the reason, the students had higher achievement, and the college was farther away. Academic self-concept and perceived challenge of their high school curriculum had no effect on the college selectivity. These findings have implications for high school administrators and college admissions offices.

Patterns of Play Behaviors and Learning Center Choices between High Ability and Typical Children.

There is a dearth of research regarding young children with high intellectual abilities, particularly research involving the direct observation of children in naturalistic settings. The current study examines 2 years of observations of young children (aged 37-71 months; n = 34) at an early childhood facility. The children were observed during the substantial periods of the day in which they were engaged in play at self-selected learning centers. The play was coded on levels of cognitive (non-play, functional, dramatic, constructive, and games with rules) and social (solitary, parallel, associative, and cooperative) play. Overall, the high ability children (n = 19) spent more time in functional, dramatic, and solitary play behaviors than typical children (n = 15). The high ability children also spent more time in literacy-based (library and writing) and arts-based (art and music) centers than the typical children. These findings indicate that the high ability children in this study were more likely to select centers independent of their peers.

Social and Emotional Characteristics and Early Childhood Mathematical and Literacy Giftedness: Observations From Parents and Childcare Providers Using the ECLS-B

Research has demonstrated mixed results regarding differences in social and emotional characteristics between gifted and typical populations. The purpose of this secondary analysis of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) is to investigate the affective characteristics of early mathematics and literacy ability among preschool children using a logistic regression analysis. Specifically, parents and childcare providers were asked a series of questions relating to socially maladaptive behaviors, concentration, empathy, worry, and friendship of a nationally representative sample of children born in 2002. The results of the study demonstrate that childcare providers and parents of preschool children (M age = 53 months) have different patterns of observations of social and emotional characteristics of children, and that concentration and socially maladaptive behaviors were significant predictors of early giftedness in literacy. There were no social or emotional predictors of early giftedness in mathematics found in this study.

Albon, D., & Rosen, R. (2014). Negotiating Adult-Child Relationships in Early Childhood Research

N egotiating Adult–Child Relationships in Early Childhood Research provides a deep and thoughtful response to the “messiness” of qualitative research, particularly when it involves young children and is in connection with social justice concerns. Specifically, the authors posit a theoretical conceptualization of adult– child relationships in research conducted in early childhood settings (i.e., child care facilities, preschools, or nursery schools) based upon the work of Bakhtin (1993), including considerations of space and time configuration and responsibilities of power differentials, particularly in response to social class and context. Thus, this book fills a place in the literature concerning early childhood research and continues the discussion regarding the ethics involved. The book draws upon the experiences of the authors conducting research in early childhood settings, primarily in English nursery schools. The authors are careful to acknowledge the context of these settings, particularly as it represents a “First World/North” perspective. The use of examples and narratives of the lived experiences of the researchers adds concrete structure to the theory and ideas explored in the text. The authors are careful to explain the context of each specific narrative, situating the episode in cultural systems and articulating relational patterns which are explicitly acknowledged to change over time within the same setting. The focus of the book is to develop a strong theoretical framework around the negotiated adult–child relationships in research contexts with young children. This framework is in contrast to models within neoliberal or technicist perspectives. Specifically, the proposed theory in the book relies on the following tenets: