Date of Award

5-1980

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Education

Department

Education

First Advisor

Daniel J. Rouchie

Abstract

This researcher has been interested in the gifted student for some time and has always felt a little uneasy about the fact that so many times these students become bored with school. The work is too easy and there is no challenge for them. So the purpose in doing this study was to find answers to some questions such as : 1 ) Who are the gifted? 2) How do you identify these students? 3) In what kind of program should a gifted student be placed? and 4) Will the student benefit from an individualized program? These questions are answered to some degree in the "Review of Literature."

The problem statement in this study is: Do students who have been properly identified as gifted or talented benefit more from an individualized program set up to meet their needs than from the regular curriculum for their age group?

The method used to carry out the experiment is the nonequivalent- control- group design. In this design there is a control group and an experimental group and there is both a pretest and a posttest given to both groups. The pretests used are the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Test and the Stanford Achievement Test (Primary I Form A) . These tests will be administered near the beginning of the school year to two heterogeneously grouped second- grade classes.

After the tests have been carefully analyzed and the possible gifted students screened, then further individualized testing will have to be done to correctly identify the gifted student. Teacher and parental observations will also be taken into consideration in identifying the gifted students.

After the identification process has taken place then the individualized programs will be set up for those students in the experimental group who are considered gifted, while the students in the control group will continue to do just what the curriculum for that grade level requires. So the individualized program for each student, is the experimental treatment.

Since Model I students at Lindenwood College are not required to carry out the experiment, there will be no results or conclusions in this study.

If the study were carried through there would be a posttest (Stanford Achievement Test -Primary I Form B) given to the two groups near the end of the school year. Comparisons would then be made between the gifted students of both groups to see if the special programs had any significant effect upon the achievement scores of the subjects involved in the program.

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