Empirical testing of talent development models or contextual developmental models of giftedness is enhanced by longitudinal research that considers contextual factors as well as individual/psychological factors. Relying on findings from the longitudinal TALENT project in Flanders, we aimed to shed light on the role of social-contextual factors…

Teachers are key guidance figures in the lives of high-ability students. By building and maintaining close relationships with their students, teachers may heavily affect the socioemotional development of high-ability students. This study investigated how the teacher-student relationship quality affected the development of high-ability students'…

This study examined the diversity in feelings of loneliness among high-ability students. Individual differences (intelligence level, giftedness label, and personality) and differences in the social context (peer acceptance, peer rejection, victimization, and friendship quantity) of adolescents were considered as predictors of loneliness.…

We propose using Stochastic Frontier Analysis to estimate pupils' academic underachievement. We model underachievement as the gap between expected achievement and actual achievement, not due to a learning disability. Our data are a panel for 2,228 Belgian pupils observed over 6 years of primary education. We found that the average underachievement…

Although it has been hypothesized that gifted students are at risk for adopting a fixed mind-set, research revealed inconsistent results. We aimed to clarify this by differentiating between two operationalizations of giftedness (high cognitive ability and formal identification as gifted) and how these relate to students' beliefs about intelligence…

Lack of knowledge of effective educational interventions for gifted children is a pressing problem in Belgian schools. Most preschool and primary school teachers enter the profession without any training in the best practices for gifted children. This results in many misconceptions about giftedness and gifted education and a diversity of…

Learning goal orientation is a prominent motivational construct that has been linked to positive student outcomes. For high-ability students, a lack of mastery learning goals has been theoretically and empirically associated with underachievement. However, longitudinal research examining the development and outcomes of their learning goal…