Educators have sought to understand and address the disproportional representation of students from certain student subgroups in gifted education. Most gifted identification decisions are made with national comparisons where students must score above a certain percentage of test takers. However, this approach is not always consistent with the overall goal of gifted education. Scholars have long argued for the use of local normative criteria to increase the diversity of students identified for gifted services, and although some districts across the country have applied such recommendations, little research has been carried out. In this study, we use a large data set to assess the extent to which identifying gifted students with either school-level norms or a combination of national and school-level norms would improve gifted education representation rates for students who are from African American and Latinx families. A preprint of this registered report and this project’s preregistration documentation are available at https://osf.io/z2egy/ .

Few topics have garnered more attention in preservice teacher training and educational reform than student diversity and its influence on learning. However, the actual degree of cognitive diversity has yet to be considered regarding instructional implications for advanced learners. We used four data sets (three state-level and one national) from diverse contexts to evaluate how many students perform above grade level in English Language Arts and mathematics. Results revealed that among American elementary and middle school students, 20% to 49% in English Language Arts and 14% to 37% in mathematics scored 1 year or more above grade level. We address what these findings imply for K-12 schools, grouping decisions, and educational policies that strive to foster advanced abilities.

Policy research in gifted education has occurred at much lower rates than other areas of research within the field, such as identification and talent development. However, without changes and implementation of these policies, systematic change is unlikely to occur. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to argue that policy research should be a top priority. To begin, we define and contrast three terms common in crafting policy—policy, advocacy, and intervention. Next, we provide a context of previous policy research in gifted education. We then detail areas in which policy research is the most critical. Finally, we conclude with action steps to engage more researchers and practitioners in policy development, implementation, and monitoring.

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Schools exist to educate, yet the emphasis on age-based, grade-level standards fails to account for the wide range of academic readiness that exists in every classroom. Special education programs exist to meet student needs; gifted education should be no different. The authors, all gifted education researchers, present a vision for a model of gifted education that is aligned with Response to Intervention and personalized learning. At its heart, it is concerned with addressing the real-time academic needs of every student, with the ultimate goal of maximizing the learning of every student.

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Background Engineering programs strive to retain students and prepare them for engineering careers. Introducing group design projects into courses may help keep students interested while also improving their learning outcomes. Purpose/Hypothesis This study measures differences in student content knowledge and intention to persist in engineering between an intervention section with group design projects and a comparison section without. We hypothesized that students in the intervention section would show an increase in both outcomes that could be demonstrated with structural equation models based on social cognitive career theory (SCCT). Design/Method Intervention and comparison sections of a statics course were taught by the same instructor with predominately lectures. Students in the intervention section participated in three group design projects that supplemented the course content. All students took pre‐tests and post‐tests that assessed statics content knowledge and variables in SCCT. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results The use of projects did not result in higher self‐efficacy, outcome expectations, content knowledge, or intention to persist for students in the intervention. However, for students in the intervention section, there were strong positive relationships between self‐efficacy and outcome expectations and between intention to persist and content knowledge that were not demonstrated in the comparison section. Conclusions By using SCCT to model how students develop into engineers, we could detect the effect of introducing projects into a statics course. Connections formed by students in the intervention section between their own abilities, goals, and success in engineering demonstrate that group design projects do benefit students.