- Giftedness is a condition that is present from birth.
- Around 2 to 3% of the population are gifted.
- Giftedness cannot be determined on the basis of a single test score.
These claims are based on articles from a special issue of *Gifted Child Quarterly*, the leading academic journal dedicated specifically to giftedness. That special issue examined a number of myths that were prevalent in gifted education at the time. At the time, because we are now talking about 2009. That may seem a long time ago compared to now, but it actually goes back even further. That edition was published precisely because, since a previous attempt to debunk similar myths in 1982, very few seemed to have been debunked. In fact, it seemed as though more had actually emerged! Below, we discuss the propositions we put forward this week, viewed through the lens of the researchers who responded to them in 2009. This seems relevant and important: if myths do indeed persist so stubbornly, what does that mean for our professional practice with this target group?
Giftedness is a state of being that is present from birth.
Sally Reis and Joseph Renzulli began their response to this statement with a quote from Donald Campbell: “It is better to have imprecise answers to the right questions than precise answers to the wrong questions.” Furthermore, the authors did not mince their words: there are no homogeneous groups of gifted children and adults, and giftedness is developmentally oriented, not fixed at birth. They substantiated their position with numerous references to studies discussing a wide variety of characteristics, all of which were subject to development and context. Consider characteristics such as ability, motivation and interests, which may manifest in one situation but not in another. Based on all the literature discussed, they concluded that giftedness is not a state of being, is not fixed, and is not an unchangeable entity inherent in certain individuals. It would be better viewed as something development-oriented in some people with high abilities, at certain times, under certain circumstances, with appropriate support, time and effort. They therefore asked themselves: if the diversity of this group is so clear, why does this myth still persist?
Around 2 to 3% of the population are gifted
The Giftedness Week website states: “Giftedness is a personal characteristic found in 2 to 3% of the population, depending on the definition used.” Anyone browsing the Dutch-language internet will soon find that various percentages are cited, with figures between 2 and 3% appearing to be the most commonly mentioned. The statement we put forward is an adaptation of the statement from Gifted Child Quarterly. James Borland was actually responding to the claim that 3 to 5% of the population is gifted, a claim to which Joseph Renzulli himself had responded 27 years earlier. That percentage was based on the definition from Sidney Marland’s 1972 report, which stated that at least (!) 3 to 5% of the school population was gifted. According to Borland, the intention was probably to draw attention to giftedness, given that more than half of the headteachers who took part in Marland’s study said they had no gifted pupils in their schools. The 3 to 5% figure was the result of a compromise, the aim of which was to make it clear that giftedness is more than simply scoring two standard deviations above the mean on an intelligence test. Although Borland understood this, he believes it has been misinterpreted as a precise percentage that can be classified as gifted. Furthermore, it is quite interesting in itself that the percentage cited to define giftedness
Giftedness cannot be determined on the basis of a single test score.
This statement, which we marked as ‘Disagree’ on LinkedIn (in *Gifted Child Quarterly* it was phrased as: ‘Giftedness can indeed be determined on the basis of a single test score’), is somewhat related to the previous one. If the view of giftedness is that it is solely about a high IQ, then giftedness could indeed be determined on the basis of a single test score, namely the IQ. However, the majority do not seem to agree with this, as some regard an IQ score as a snapshot and do not always consider it representative of actual potential. And although it can be convincingly demonstrated that underperformance is also possible on an intelligence test, this immediately raises the question of how this relates to the previous statement, in which that percentage refers to the people who did score ‘high enough’. Back to the statement about determining giftedness on the basis of a single test score. Frank Worrell’s response to the statement shows that tests are often designed to measure a single aspect, but that the things we want to know are often determined by multiple factors. He cited a study as an example which found that in order to predict verbal and mathematical creativity in people, you need to know how they score on verbal skills, mathematical skills and where they are relatively strong in verbal and mathematical areas. In other words: to predict someone’s verbal and mathematical creativity, you already need three factors. Worrell therefore said: although scores matter, no single test score provides a complete picture. He added that there is a discrepancy between the literature and practice: the literature is full of publications that explain in qualitative terms (in words) what characteristics and behaviours are associated with giftedness, whereas in practice, when selecting gifted individuals, quantitative methods (using figures and scores) are often used instead.
So… what now?
‘What now?’ depends very much on what we, as professionals in and for the field, wish to do. This article is just a small selection from the no fewer than nineteen myths discussed in the special edition of Gifted Child Quarterly. According to the Van Dale dictionary, a ‘myth’ is a “common, widely accepted but unfounded belief”. However, what is and is not considered ‘well-founded’ and what can be regarded as a legitimate source of knowledge depends very much on the perspective one adopts. Viewed from a scientific perspective – which is also the perspective of the researchers mentioned above – the claims can indeed be described as unfounded. And since scientific research seeks to uncover rules and laws, it may be worthwhile to look, in a general sense, at what research reveals as rules and laws. That is not to say that science has a monopoly on the whole truth. Researcher Matthew McBee described it very aptly: science is far from perfect, but because of the way research is conducted and described, the errors become clear, they can be evaluated for future research, and in this way science is a self-correcting field. Research is bound by certain rules, which means that a scientific perspective is not always appropriate or offers a solution. To illustrate: if scientific research shows how things should be done ‘by the book’, then that works well as long as things go by the book. But
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