Teachers’ Knowledge About Intellectual Giftedness: A First Look at Levels and Correlates

Abstract

Evidence-based knowledge about intellectual giftedness is important for identifying, counseling, and fostering intellectually gifted students. How much teachers actually know about intellectual giftedness is unclear because previous studies have relied solely on self-reports. This study aimed to: (a) develop a test for the assessment of teachers' knowledge about intellectual giftedness defined as an intellectual capacity significantly above average, the identification of giftedness, and characteristics of gifted students; and (b) inspect some correlates of teachers' performance on a knowledge test. The final version of the test comprised 38 items and a true-false-do-not-know response format. Sixty-three German secondary school teachers completed the test. On average, teachers answered 26.8% of the items correctly, 34.7% incorrectly, and 38.1% with ''do not know.'' The higher teachers' rate of misconceptions, the more negative was their attitude toward fostering gifted students. Personal contact with the gifted was correlated with subjective knowledge but not with assessed knowledge. The results stress the importance of intellectual giftedness as a psychological topic to be addressed during teacher education.

Beliefs about Human Intelligence in a Sample of Teachers and Non-Teachers

“…For non-experts, this is unsurprising because it is not realistic for them to be aware of the research in an interdisciplinary scholarly field. The results in the teacher sub-sample, though, are in line with Heyder et al's (2018) results that showed that most teachers had low levels of knowledge regarding the nature, manifestations, and correlates of intellectual giftedness.…”

“…Among the entire sample, 33.9% of teachers' responses and 29.4% of non-teachers' responses were empirically supported (using the information in Table S8 as a standard). This is similar to the Heyder et al's (2018) study showing that teachers' viewpoints about intellectual giftedness were correct for 26.8% of items on their survey.…”

“…Most alarming, though, are the basic research findings about intelligence that most teachers in our convenience sample did not agree with. For example, only 33.0% of teachers disagreed with the statement that high-IQ students perform as well in school as the average student, which is somewhat similar to the 49% of Heyder et al's (2018) teachers who believed that intellectually gifted children had greater academic potential than the average student. In reality, academic performance has a positive linear relationship with IQ (Cucina et al, 2016;Guez, Peyre, Le Cam, Gauvrit, & Ramus, 2018;Zaboski et al, 2018).…”

“…To create the survey items, we drew upon multiple sources of inspiration. The first was pre-existing surveys related to topics on intelligence (Antonelli-Ponti, Versuit, & Da Silva, 2018;Crosswaite & Asbury, 2019;Goslin, 1967;Heyder et al, 2018;Jones, Rakes, & Landon, 2013;Reeve & Charles, 2008;Rindermann et al, 2016Rindermann et al, , 2017Schroth & Helfer, 2009;Snyderman & Rothman, 1987, 1988Walker, & Plomin, 2005). We also wrote original questions based on information included in Gottfredson's (1997a) mainstream statement on intelligence.…”

Motivation theory in the school context: differences in preservice and practicing teachers’ experience, opinion, and knowledge

“…In other contexts, e.g., intellectual giftedness (e.g., Heyder et al 2018), it has been found that some topics are not sufficiently treated in teacher education and need to be addressed more to ensure an adequate level of knowledge. Motivation might be another example of the current debate on a lack of connection between the different phases of teacher training (link between theory and practice, see, e.g., Vogel 2011).…”