Gifted underachievers perform worse in school than would be expected based on their high intelligence. Possible causes for underachievement are low motivational dispositions (need for cognition) and metacognitive competences. This study tested the interplay of these variables longitudinally with gifted and non-gifted students from Germany…

The relation between prior knowledge and learning has been investigated in many studies. However, a recent meta-analysis showed that most of these studies suffered from serious methodological shortcomings, as they failed to account for knowledge growth over time, possible ceiling effects for learners with high prior knowledge, moderating effects…

Mathematical arguments are central components of mathematics and play a role in certain types of modelling of potential mathematical giftedness. However, particular characteristics of arguments are interpreted differently in the context of mathematical giftedness. Some models of giftedness see no connection, whereas other models consider the…

Intelligence is a well-supported predictor of school achievement, however, it refers only to the cognitive facet of learning determinants. The aim of this article is to contrast the predictive properties of two comprehensive concepts developed within the actiotope model of giftedness (AMG) with that of intelligence. These concepts are educational…

Enrichment programs provide learning opportunities for a broader or deeper examination of curricular or extracurricular topics and are popular in gifted education. Herein, we investigated the effectiveness of a statewide extracurricular enrichment program for gifted elementary school children in Germany. The program implemented a "grass…

Competitions are discussed as a measure to foster students' interest, especially for highly gifted and talented students. In the current study, participants of a cognitive school competition in science were compared to non-participants of the same age group (14-15) who either did not participate in any competition or who participated in a…

This study investigated teacher and parent ratings of teacher-nominated gifted elementary school students' verbal abilities, mathematical abilities, deductive reasoning, creative thinking, and engagement, and connected these ratings to school grades. Teacher and parent ratings were compared with regard to accuracy levels and halo effects.…

Stereotyping of gifted students may not only hinder identification and actualization of potential but also personality development ("stigma of giftedness"). This is obvious in the case of negative stereotyping (e.g., the disharmony hypothesis, which sees gifted students as intellectually strong, but emotionally and socially inferior),…

This paper addresses an important task teachers face in class: the identification and support of creative and high-achieving students. In particular, we examine whether primary teachers (1) have acquired professional knowledge during teacher education that is necessary to foster creativity and to teach high-achieving students, and whether they (2)…

During student development, enriching academic and psychosocial activities in accordance with different educational needs of students is important. This study aims to identify primary school teachers' opinions in Turkey, Czech Republic, Italy, and Germany. The opinions of teachers were investigated and compared on the individual skills, interests,…

Teachers are often asked to nominate students for enrichment programs for gifted children, and studies have repeatedly indicated that students' intelligence is related to their likelihood of being nominated as gifted. However, it is unknown whether class-average levels of intelligence influence teachers' nominations as suggested by theory--and…

Positive socioemotional outcomes and developments represent important educational goals. Full-time ability grouping of gifted students has been criticized for potentially detrimental socioemotional effects. Therefore, in the present longitudinal study, we investigated whether or not social self-concepts and school-related attitudes and beliefs are…

This contribution is based on the assumption that implicit theories influence the subjective action space and hence the learning behavior of students. The implicit theory that an individual holds of an intelligent person is of particular importance in this context. For this cross-cultural study, we asked 200 students from Kenya and Germany to draw…

Recent handbooks of giftedness or expertise propose a plethora of conceptions on the development of excellent performance but, to our knowledge, there are no comparative studies that provide empirical evidence of their validity to guide researchers and practitioners in their adoption of a particular conception. This study sought to close that gap…

Which are the characteristics leading teachers to judge a child as "gifted"? To answer this question 384 German primary school teachers were asked to describe a gifted child in their own words as well as on a 90 item rating scale. A total of 192 teachers, who declared they had never instructed a gifted child, described a fictitious…