A Sample of Gifted and Talented Educators’ Attitudes About Academic Acceleration

Abstract

Despite extensive research supporting its use, including the 2004 publication of A Nation Deceived, acceleration is an underutilized strategy for meeting the academic needs of gifted and talented students. Parents’ and educators’ attitudes and beliefs about acceleration influence the extent to which it is implemented in schools. This study investigated gifted and talented educators’ attitudes toward acceleration using a 7-point rating scale measuring concerns about acceleration, beliefs about acceleration, and support for specific acceleration strategies. Data indicated there were no differences in attitudes among teachers from rural, suburban, or urban school districts. Overall, the least popular acceleration strategies were also the easiest to implement, but caused the greatest change in students’ environments (i.e., grade-skipping and early entrance to kindergarten). As expected, the educators were most troubled by social issues and least concerned about academic issues related to acceleration.

Grade Skipping From the Perspective of Teachers in Germany

“…The factor structure of teachers' beliefs found in our study is in accordance with previous results on teachers' concerns (Hoogeveen et al, 2005;Southern et al, 1989) as the content was similar, and the number of factors we found was limited as well. Our factors also reflect the main dimensions reported by Siegle et al (2013) with the exception that in our study, concerns about students being younger than their peers did not load on a separate factor but were associated with beliefs about students' social integration; concerns about students missing out on extracurricular activities were associated with beliefs about academic development and the additional time needed to catch up in our study. Furthermore, teachers' beliefs about students' social integration seemed to be particularly relevant for teachers' acceptance of grade skipping.…”

“…Croft and Wood's (2015) model of the professional development of educators around accelerative strategies highlights how important it is for teachers to challenge existing attitudes and to inform themselves about research-based findings on acceleration. Whereas educators' attitudes toward accelerative strategies seem to be falling more in line with empirical findings about the effectiveness of these techniques, educators appear to remain somewhat reluctant to grade skipping (McCoach & Siegle, 2007;Siegle et al, 2013). The purpose of the present study was to describe the current perspectives on grade skipping in a sample of German secondary teachers.…”

“…Apparently, teachers view grade skipping as riskier than other forms of acceleration. Similarly, in a sample of gifted educators who were generally in favor of accelerative measures, Siegle et al (2013) found that, although grade skipping was viewed quite positively overall, it was still the least favored fast-tracking option besides early entrance to kindergarten. Consequently, U.S. guidance counselors recommended grade skipping less frequently than other fast-tracking options such as dual enrollment or advanced placement (Wood, Portman, Cigrand, & Colangelo, 2010).…”

“…However, in the literature, there has been some concern about whether a better acceptance of accelerative strategies actually translates into more frequent use of these strategies for students who may benefit from it (Siegle et al, 2013). In addition, it has been argued that providing teachers with relevant knowledge and information about acceleration may be crucial for its implementation (Croft & Wood, 2015).…”

“…Moreover, in a more recent study, Siegle et al (2013) developed a 67-item survey by asking teachers and researchers to list beliefs that had prevented the educators from implementing various forms of acceleration. The authors administered this survey in a sample of gifted educators and examined which of these beliefs about various accelerative strategies contributed the most to teachers' acceptance of grade skipping.…”