Identification of gifted minority students: Past research, future directions

Evaluating Gifted Identification Practice: Aptitude Testing and Linguistically Diverse Learners

“…These authors noted that high-ability learners ("the top quartile," in their definition) are proportionally represented by ethnic group at first grade, but that differential attrition rates from this quartile cause substantial differences in gifted program representation to emerge over subsequent years. This is not a new issue; since at least the 1970s, scholars have endeavored to find or develop alternative measures that might identify populations of gifted learners who would be more closely representative of the larger school populations from which they are drawn (e.g., Bruch, 1971;Johnsen & Ryser, 1997;LeRose, 1986;Masten, 1985;Peters & Gentry, 2010). A consistent theme of many of these studies has been that traditional intelligence tests are biased against learners from specific racial, ethnic, and/or economic backgrounds.…”

Early Experiences of Young Men of Latin Descent

“…However, in the identification process, evaluation of giftedness typically compares standardized skills as they are measured in reading comprehension scores and in scores on tests of logical thinking. This use of a very narrow definition of giftedness can limit the threshold of what constitutes giftedness, particularly for Hispanic students (Masten, 1985) and for students who do not come from the mainstream culture. Researchers have long cited the oversimplification and conversion of giftedness into a single test score (Richert, 1987) and the rigid policies and narrow testing practices (Hunsaker, 1994) as practices that have limited access to gifted programs for many Hispanic students.…”

Research projects in a summer mathematics program for gifted junior high students

“…In the TTU/GTE-PREP program we have tried to accommodate previous suggestions in employing multiple standards for student selection and identification which involve objective and subjective perspectives and equally weigh predicted potential and actual achievement. We have been curious about how our selection criteria might predict program performance, particularly for gifted minority students (Masten, 1985).…”