Limitations may exist in the current practices to assess and identify giftedness, particularly among children of poverty (Davis & Rimm, 2004; Slocumb & Payne, 2000). The purpose of this study was to examine educators perceptions about the concept of giftedness, specifically if children of poverty are being adequately identified in the recruitment process for enrichment programs. An adapted version of the survey entitled, Assumptions Underlying the Identification of Gifted and Talented Students (Renzulli, Brown, & Gubbins, 2005) was distributed to approximately 500 administrators, classroom teachers, and resource room/learning assistance teachers of elementary schools in a large urban school division. There were 101 respondents. The survey consisted of twenty-five statements, utilizing a five point Likert scale, exploring teachers perceptions of assessment practices used to identify gifted and/or talented students. Respondents were also invited to convey their personal professional opinions regarding giftedness by answering a series of open-ended questions. <p>Descriptive analyses (e.g., mean, standard deviation) of continuous variables (e.g., years of experience), and frequency distributions of categorical variables (e.g., school setting, current position) were conducted. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted for comparisons among the average responses (i.e., teacher responses, administrator responses) for each factor. In addition, Pearson correlations were also conducted to investigate relationships between dependent variables (e.g., the factors) and independent variables (e.g., age, years of experience). Open-ended questions were categorized with consideration to common themes based upon the responses of the participants and analyzed using descriptive analyses. The culminating examinations and interpretations indicated that educators believe the processes of defining and identifying giftedness among students in poverty are flawed and restrictive. Furthermore, the responses were indicative of educators desires to embrace giftedness in a variety of contexts and domains.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-08152007-114915 |
| Date | 20 August 2007 |
| Creators | Lorenzo, Jody C. |
| Contributors | McIntyre, Laureen |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-08152007-114915/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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