The Evaluation of a Pullout Program for Gifted Children in Israel

Abstract

Ina study that wa,sc;onducted in one of thepl,l~loutcenters in Israel, questionnaires were given to the partujpants, theitteache-rsin the progtam~.qnd in tlzeircltt$Ses, the principals, their parents, andtheir friends .. The questionnaires tuere focused 011 a few topics: Jhe identification of the gifted; the level of involvenie.nJ of heparents; the teaching styles !ntheprQgtc"tlm; the problems related to the separation from the schools, the relatiol'lShips betwe:enthe schoqls and the program, and the attitudes towards the

Gender-fair assessment of young gifted students’ scientific thinking skills

“…Subsequent reviews and reports confirmed this traditional definition (Gallagher, 2004; US Office of Education, Marland, 1972). Even today, in many states in the USA, as well as in other countries, such as the UK, gifted students have been identified almost solely by their 90th or 95th percentile in IQ test scores (Kornilov, Tan, Elliott, Sternberg, & Grigorenko, 2012;McClain & Pfeiffer, 2012;Nisbett, 2009;Rosemarin, 2001). In Israel, gifted students are identified as being in the 98.5th percentile.…”

“…Therefore, many experts do not recommend the use of intelligence tests as the sole predictor of giftedness. Yet, identification of gifted students in Israel followed the traditional definition, basing it on national tests similar to IQ tests (Dori et al, 2009;Fischer-Shachor et al, 2010;Rosemarin, 2001;Silverman, 1986).…”

“…Committed to equity-based education and striving to improve this situation, the Israeli Ministry of Education (IMoE) has carried out a policy of affirmative action (AA) in the acceptance process for gifted girls in some of the dedicated classes and pullout programmes (Dori, Zohar, Fischer-Shachor, Kohan-Mass, & Carmi, 2009;Rosemarin, 2001;Tal & Medijensky, 2005). This paper describes a national-level research aimed at examining the extent to which admissions of elementary school students to the gifted programmes are gender-fair from two perspectives, namely (a) standardised tests and (b) overall scientific thinking skills and specific scientific thinking skills.…”