We advocate a more contextual perspective in giftedness research. In our view, doing so opens up three particularly interesting research areas, which we refer to as the participation issue, the effectiveness issue, and the interaction issue. To illustrate their utility, we examined characteristics of females participating in German high achiever-track secondary education who had applied for participation in a 1-year extracurricular e-mentoring program in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) (n = 1237). Their characteristics were compared with male and female random-sample control groups. We assessed the effectiveness of the mentoring program by comparing the developmental trajectories of program participants with those of three control groups: applicants who were randomly chosen for later participation (waiting-list control group) and a female and a male control group. Finally, we examined whether differences in program effectiveness could be partially explained by characteristics of the interaction with the domain. Program applicants possessed more advantageous individual characteristics but, unexpectedly, less advantageous home and school environments than female and male members of the control groups. Program participation affected positive changes in certainty about career goals (independent of STEM) and in the number of STEM activities. The amount of STEM communication partially explained differences in program effectiveness.
Research has shown that various individual factors play an important role in the underachievement of gifted students. Most often discussed as predictors of underachievement are motivation, learning behavior, and emotions. To examine which specific constructs from these fields simultaneously predict underachievement among gifted fourth graders, logistic regression was performed on data from eighty-five highly intelligent students out of thirty-four classrooms. Students reported on their self-efficacy, learning goal orientation, use of textreduction strategies, anxiety, boredom, anger, and enjoyment. Emerging predictors of underachievement were self-efficacy, use of text-reduction strategies, and anxiety. As these constructs are all connected to self-regulated learning in different ways, an intervention was implemented which successfully encourages self-regulated learning among students of differing cognitive abilities. Assessing the intervention's effectiveness for different ability levels was important as the intervention was not a pull-out program, but was integrated into regular classroom instruction in which all students in these classes participated. Results from multilevel longitudinal models showed positive intervention effects for learning behavior among gifted underachievers, but no intervention effects on selfefficacy and anxiety could be detected.
After defining self-regulated learning (SRL), explaining its importance for all ability groups, and summarizing findings on gifted learners' scarcer use of and lower preference for SRL, we describe two instructional modules designed for teaching SRL during regular classroom instruction and homework. We then explain how the modules are theoretically grounded in Zimmerman's (Contemp Educ Psychol 16:307-313, 1986; Handbook of self-regulation. Academic Press, San Diego, 2000) socialcognitive-theory-based SRL framework and designed according to a seven-step normative model of SRL (Ziegler and Stoeger in Accompanying manual for a training of selfregulated learning I: resource strategies for fourth-grade elementary school students to improve math skills. Pabst, Lengerich, 2005) and report empirical findings from seven studies-together involving 2019 participants-on the modules' general and differential effectiveness for in-class primary school SRL interventions. We conclude with remarks on the implications of the modules for primary school gifted education.
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