Identification as Gifted and Implicit Beliefs About Intelligence

Abstract

The current study investigated whether the developmental timing of a student’s identification as gifted (i.e., when a student is first identified) was associated with later implicit beliefs about intelligence, and whether this relation is moderated by academic ability. A sample of 1,743 high-ability college students reported on whether and when they had been identified as gifted, academic ability (SAT scores), and implicit beliefs of intelligence. Timing of identification was unrelated to implicit beliefs; academic ability was the only significant predictor. Higher ability students who had been previously identified as gifted at any point in time reported implicit beliefs more toward entity beliefs than relatively lower ability students who had also been identified; however, this effect was quite small. Implicit beliefs did not vary by ability level for nonidentified students. These findings suggest that identification as gifted at any age modestly (but not necessarily meaningfully) relates to implicit beliefs for high-ability students.

Navigating the First Semester: An Exploration of Short‐Term Changes in Motivational Beliefs Among Engineering Undergraduates

“…However, this approach has declined in widespread usage given the statistical problems associated with dichotomization (Osborne, 2013a) and the need to eliminate a portion of the sample from the analysis. For the current study, we elected to retain the continuous nature of the implicit beliefs measure, a method consistent with modern approaches for analyzing implicit beliefs (e.g., Blackwell et al, 2007;Snyder, Barger, Wormington, Schwartz-Bloom, & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2013).…”

Exploring Engineering Students’ Beliefs on Effort and Intelligence

“…However, we elected to maintain continuous scores for this measure, as has been done in prior research. 30,31 Implicit beliefs about intelligence differed significantly by gender, t(490) = 2.05, p = .04, with female students endorsing stronger incremental beliefs than male students (see Table 2). Using the traditional classification scheme, 15% of male students but only 6% of female students would be classified as entity theorists, and 43% of female students but only 37% of male students would be classified as incremental theorists.…”

Student perceptions and persistence : taking a person-centered approach to understand undergraduate engineering retention.

“…Students' interpretations of what it means to have been previously identified as gifted also can shape their perceptions of their abilities and, as a result, how they respond to academic challenges in their engineering programs. While some researchers believe giftedness is associated with a fixed mindset regarding intelligence (i.e., gifted students possess an innate ability for academic success; Dweck, 2000;Lohman & Korb, 2006;Simonton, 2005), others have shown that the term "giftedness" is not necessarily associated with beliefs about innate ability (Makel, Snyder, Thomas, Malone, & Putallaz, 2015;Snyder, Barger, Wormington, Schwartz-Bloom, Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2013). Thus, there is not only disagreement among students regarding the relationship between giftedness and ability, but there is also variability among how researchers perceive this relationship.…”