There is an evident under-representation of Hispanic students in Gifted and Talented (GT) programs. This is due to several reasons including lack of valid instruments, biased standardized tools, biased teacher perceptions, and misinterpretation of tests scores among others. The need to develop and/or validate instruments that reflect students?? cultural backgrounds has become a priority in the U.S. today. The purpose of this study was to analyze the reliability and validity facets of the Hispanic Bilingual Gifted Screening Instrument (HBGSI) developed by Irby and Lara-Alecio (1996), more specifically, the split-half reliability and the concurrent validity when correlated to the Bilingual Verbal Abilities Test (BVAT). Participants were 527 students from two elementary schools in Texas. Students were administered the HBGSI in May 2003 and a reduced sample was administered the BVAT in the latter part of 2003 and the beginning of 2004. Results were analyzed, interpreted and discussed. The researcher found that the HBGSI has evidence of high reliability coefficients using Guttman, Spearman-Brown and Cronbach??s alpha ranging from .93 to .97. Concurrent validity was computed using Pearson correlation coefficient r =.39. Additionally, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted and revealed the existence of 5 factors. Among the primary limitations is the generalizability of the findings. Readers should use caution in applying the findings of this study to other settings and populations. Further research is recommended to establish the concurrent validity of the HBGSI with other achievement measures. In conclusion, there has been a contemporary move to the incorporation of inclusive screening instruments for use with language minority students. This movement suggests the inclusion of portfolio and performance assessment, checklists, and teacher observations in addition to standardized measures. The HBGSI has shown promising results in the arena of Hispanic gifted identification. This instrument is recommended to be used at the first stage of the screening process of potential Hispanic GT students. This study provided insight into the improvement of practices and identification of Hispanic bilingual students.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/2429 |
| Date | 29 August 2005 |
| Creators | Fultz, Monica V. |
| Contributors | Lara-Alecio, Rafael |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 525115 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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