Current Perspectives on the Identification and Assessment of Gifted Students

For more than 100 years, gifted students have been identified by scores obtained on IQ tests (Nisbett, 2009; Pfeiffer, 2002). In a recently completed national survey (McClain & Pfeiffer, 2012), investigators found that the majority of states still rely primarily, in some instances almost exclusively, on an IQ test score to define and determine whether a student is gifted. Many states still set a specific cut-score, such as an IQ at the 90th or 95th percentile.

Contemporary thinking challenges this provincial and, many would argue, outmoded approach to gifted identification. In the opinion of many gifted authorities it is too simplistic and based on the myth that “being gifted” is actually something real and permanent, that a student is either gifted or not gifted. The reality is that giftedness is a socially constructed concept. The concepts of normal, subnormal, and supernormal (or gifted) are human inventions, not a fact of nature. Although we may view giftedness as something real, something that certain students either have or do not have, it is nothing more than a social construction. It is an invented way of categorizing children (Borland, 2005, 2009; Pfeiffer, 2002; 2011). It is analogous to the flawed premise that some youth are gifted athletes or gifted musicians and all others are not, and that the distinction between the two, between gifted and not-gifted athletes or musicians, reflects something real and permanent.

Historically, societies have used the concept of giftedness as a label to explain and recognize those individuals who perform exceptionally well in one or more domains valued within their respective culture. What constitutes giftedness, of course, varies by society. A person viewed as gifted in one society, for example a highly successful Wall Street banker, consummate telemarketer, or creative computer software designer, might not be considered gifted in other cultures (Pfeiffer, 2012).

There is no scientific basis or justification for dichotomizing individuals into two distinct, mutually exclusive groups, gifted and the nongifted.

We glibly talk about identifying the gifted; about so-and-so being truly gifted; about the mildly, moderately, and even severely (gifted) . . . we treat giftedness as a thing, a reality, something (students) either have or do not have . . . giftedness in the schools is something we confer, not something we discover. (Borland, 2005, pp. 7-8)

A related fiction is that giftedness is the same as high IQ. This fiction contends that “being gifted” means that you have a high IQ. Very few experts in the gifted field presently embrace this view of giftedness as high IQ (Borland, 2009; Sternberg, Jarvin, & Grigorenko, 2011), but the lay public and many educators and psychologists still hold to this belief that high IQ equals giftedness.

Some argue that the fiction that giftedness equals high IQ is one of the reasons for the severe underrepresentation of lower socioeconomic status children and children from racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities in gifted programs (Borland, 2009). Although this author doesn’t agree with the position that the IQ is without value in conceptualizing giftedness—especially when we consider the young gifted child, critics of IQ testing raise a valid cautionary note on the dangers and potential misuse of the IQ in identifying gifted students.

The quantitative nature of IQs seems to beguile certain people into taking them far too seriously. It is not uncommon for educators to establish inflexible IQ cutoff scores for admission to gifted programs. This can result in absurdities such as admitting (and thus labeling as “gifted”) a student with a score of, say, 130 on an IQ test and not admitting (and thus labeling as “not gifted”) a student with a score of 129. (Borland, 2009, p. 237)

“Once gifted, always gifted,” is related to the fiction that giftedness is something real and the same as high IQ. Many still believe that giftedness is something essential and a permanent aspect of the person throughout his or her life. This belief is why students identified with a high IQ score and classified as gifted in the early grades, as young as preschool or kindergarten, are typically not required to demonstrate subsequent evidence in the later grades that they are still gifted. There is no other educational classification (e.g., LD; ADHD; SED) or special privilege (selection to a school athletic team; debate club; orchestra; the student newspaper) bestowed on a student, which carries such advantage and benefits. There are federal and state statutes that require students classified with a special education exceptionality to be reevaluated (Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act [IDEA], 2004); however, this is not the case with the gifted classification (Stephens, 2008). Many educators still believe that there is little need to reevaluate the student who is deemed gifted when young if a person is always gifted. And there is little reason to screen for “missed” students who are not identified in the earlier grades as gifted since you are either gifted or not gifted at birth (Lohman & Korb, 2006).

The great preponderance of scientific evidence, however, indicates that giftedness is not a state of being; it is not fixed or undeviating (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994; Ceci & Williams, 1997; Neisser, 1996). IQ accounts for a substantial but not nearly a majority of the reliable variance in a student’s academic performance or real-world success (Nisbett, 2009; Worrell, 2009). Giftedness is at best a potentially useful descriptor for categorizing a group of students who display exceptional ability or uncommon promise in the classroom at one point in time (Keating, 2009).

The reality is that giftedness is not something real. There is no difference between an IQ score of 128 and 130. Of course, if we were to compare two students whose IQ differences are substantial, say between 105 and 130 or between 115 and 146, we appreciate real differences in their cognitive abilities and capacity to learn—as we would expect. But this doesn’t imply that there exists a group of children who are gifted at birth, demarcated from nongifted children by some specific IQ score.

This then leads to the thorny issue of what exactly is “gifted”? Is giftedness an immutable attribute of the person? Or is giftedness a label for the relative standing of a person in some culturally valued domain? Can a young child be identified as gifted in kindergarten but not be gifted in the later years? There is considerable evidence that IQ scores can change, and in some instances change dramatically (Lohman & Korb, 2006; Nesbitt, 2009). And there is considerable evidence that high IQ is only one predictor of academic success and success in life (Sternberg, 2004). A high IQ in the early years is a good predictor of later accomplishments in the classroom. But there are other reliable predictors of later accomplishments among eminent adults (Subotnik, 2009).

Most would agree that the child who is reading at age 3, playing competitive chess at age 6, or performing violin with a college orchestra at age 11 is gifted. These examples reflect children who are developmentally advanced, a hallmark of giftedness (Pfeiffer, 2009). Most gifted authorities agree that academically gifted students are those in the upper 3% to 5% compared with their same-age peers in general intellectual ability, distinguished academic competence in one or more domains, and creativity (Pfeiffer, 2003, 2009). Not surprisingly, there is evidence for a genetic influence in the expression of giftedness (Plomin & Spinath, 2004). For example, the fields of music and mathematics are particularly rich with examples of child prodigies. Evidence also comes from the emergence of eminence among children from impoverished environments (Nisbett, 2009). However, most behavioral geneticists also agree that the unfolding of giftedness requires a nurturing and supportive environment. This view is consistent with recent pleas to reconceptualize giftedness and gifted education within a talent development model (Keating, 2009; Subotnik, 2003, 2009). A number of gifted authorities now advocate for a developmental model which views giftedness as transforming high intellectual ability and potential talent in specific culturally valued domains into outstanding performance and innovation in adulthood (Feldhusen, 2005; Foley Nicpon & Pfeiffer, 2011; Pfeiffer, 2012; Subotnik & Jarvin, 2005).

Characteristics commonly associated with giftedness include advanced language and reasoning skills, conversation, and interests more aligned with older children and adults, impressive long-term memory, intuitive understanding of concepts, insatiable curiosity, advanced ability to connect disparate ideas and appreciate relationships, rapid learning, and heightened sensitivity (Robinson, 2008; Pfeiffer, 2009). By middle or high school, the gifted student demonstrates uncanny high potential and a thirst to excel in one or more specific academic domains. And the gifted student is likely to benefit from special academic resources and programs, especially if they align with their unique profile of abilities and interests.

The ideal situation is for our schools to have the resources to include as many students of uncanny high potential and thirst to excel as possible. So that ultimately, from those whom we select and from those who participate in gifted programs, a large percentage go on to accomplish extraordinary things (McClain & Pfeiffer, 2012; Pfeiffer, 2011, 2012). Of course, this is not the typical situation in America’s schools, where funds are limited and resources scarce, and many high-ability students go unidentified and unattended.

The development of talent among high-ability students requires more than general intellectual ability (Bembenutty & Karabenick, 2004; Bloom, 1982; Lubinski, 2010; Nisbett, 2009). Even the most precise psychological assessment tools can at best only predict the likelihood of later outstanding accomplishment. Many students identified as intellectually gifted when young grow up and, as adults, demonstrate no special or extraordinary talent. And many students not recognized as having any special gifts when young are, what we call “late bloomers,” and astound us with extraordinary accomplishments as adults. Many factors, in addition to intelligence, contribute to extraordinary accomplishments in later life. The notion of giftedness as developing expertise, proposed by Sternberg, fits well with this view (Keating, 2004; Sternberg, 1996, 1998, 2000).

In addition to general intellectual ability, specific abilities and a number of nonintellectual factors contribute to the success trajectory of high-ability students. For example, deliberate practice has been found to predict expert performance in many different domains (Ericsson, 1996, 2005; Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer, 1993; Ericsson, Nandagopal, & Roring, 2005; Plant, Ericsson, Hill, & Asberg, 2005). The author’s own experience and the findings of others (e.g., Dweck, 2006) confirm that hard work, delay of gratification (Côté, Baker, & Abernethy, 2003; Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989), and self-discipline (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005; Romer, Duckworth, Sznitman, & Park, 2010) are also critically important, even among high-ability students. The Chinese have a wonderful term for this, “chi ku,” translated as “eating bitterness.”