Even though it is well documented that Black, Hispanic, Native American students have been denied access to gifted education for decades, injustice continues. The authors present research showing that traditional IQ tests with their verbal and quantitative questions contribute to under-representation because they yield large differences for students of color. Some (e.g., NNAT), but not all, nonverbal tests help but verbal and quantitative content is omitted. The authors suggest that students of color who are intellectually capable (gifted) but perhaps not talented (knowledgeable) could be more equitably evaluated if the verbal comprehension of instructions and verbal and quantitative knowledge were taken out of the tests used for identification. Research evidence is provided which shows that the Naglieri General Ability Tests: Verbal, Nonverbal, and Quantitative, which have nonverbal directions, do not demand knowledge acquired at school and do not require verbal response yield small differences by gender, race, ethnicity, and parental education.
TopIntroduction
This book chapter provides a critical analysis of the procedures used to identify gifted and talented students. We describe gifted students as those with high general ability (regardless of their academic skills) and talented students as those who have high achievement (advanced academics). This distinction has considerable implications for the types of tests used in the identification process. That is, five out of the six most widely used tests to identify gifted and talented students have characteristics that lead to under-representation of black, Hispanic, Native American and ELL students. We propose that test directions, content, and student verbal responses can serve as an obstacle to identification of gifted students. Our solution is an innovative method for identifying giftedness more equitably using a new trio of general ability tests that have verbal, quantitative and nonverbal content without (a) test questions that require knowledge, (b) the use of a specific language, (c) verbal instructions that demand comprehension of verbal concepts, and (d) the requirement that the student orally articulate their answers. Recent research (Selvamenan, et al., submitted for publication) using a large representative sample of students in grades K-12 (N = 8,105) demonstrates that these measures of general ability are more equitable across race, ethnicity and parental educational levels.
The objectives of this chapter, therefore, are to examine:
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how many gifted students of color could have been identified as gifted but were not;
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the relationship between test content and equity defined as rates of identification and mean score differences;
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how traditional verbal, nonverbal and quantitative approach can be modified so that the tests yield scores that are equitable;
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the role normative and local norming methods have in equitable identification of gifted students.
TopBackground
In this chapter the term gifted is used to describe students who are able to achieve advanced academic skills given the opportunity to learn. This is consistent with definitions of gifted and talented students provided by the U.S. Federal government and the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). The Federal government’s definition is “Students, children, or youth who give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services and activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities.” [Title IX, Part A, Definition 22. (2002)]. NAGC documents describe gifted students as those whose ability is significantly above the norm when compared to others of the same age and provide three points that are especially important. First is a distinction between gifted (i.e., a very smart person) and talented (i.e., a student with considerable knowledge and skills). Second is the view that gifted and talented students can be found in all racial, ethnic, and cultural groups, and across socioeconomic levels. Third, gifted and talented students need access to appropriate educational opportunities to reach their potential. These three points are central to the purpose and aims of this chapter, especially as it relates to the racial and ethnic composition of programs for gifted students.