Methods to estimate the causal effects of interventions are increasingly used in clinical medicine, public policy and social science. Using observational data, researchers can obtain causal treatment effect estimates without the ethical risks and time constraints that typically burden randomized experiments. The three studies in this dissertation…

Attitudes lead to actions. Therefore, teachers' attitudes affect the learning opportunities and experiences of all students in their classroom. The misunderstandings surrounding giftedness affects these attitudes of teachers. This cross-sectional, descriptive, non-experimental study described and explored educators' attitudes towards students…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine if implicit bias among Indiana educators might affect the identification of gifted Black students for programming. Educators, within school districts with high minority populations, were asked to provide a demographic survey and then take the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Survey data were…

The disproportionality of Black students identified as gifted has been a hot topic of discussion in the field of education for decades. If the purpose of education is to maximize the potential of all learners, then educators are missing the mark. Although multiple factors may impact the gifted identification of Black students, one of the biggest…

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of active community-building in a classroom with culturally linguistically economically diverse (CLED) gifted learners in a semirural school district who underachieve. The central research question was, How does actively building classroom community interact with CLED gifted learners who…

The purpose of this sequential mixed methods study was to examine the relationship among student achievement factors, gifted and talented status and post-secondary readiness. The study included a review of archived data obtained from a large district in the southeastern region of Texas consisting of a purposeful sample of AP students' who took an…

This study sought to determine if teacher perceptions play a role in the referral of culturally and linguistically diverse students to gifted-and-talented programming. There is a deficit of African American, Hispanic, English-language-learner, and low-income students in the gifted-and-talented program at a fifth- and sixth-grade campus in a…

In social cognitive theory, the development of self-perceptions is a complex process involving personality and environment. While educators may have little influence on students' personality traits, they can attend to environmental components that support the development of positive self-perceptions. Developing positive self-perceptions has been…

With tightened school budgets, school administrators need to know the short term and long range effects of providing gifted programs at the elementary level. Programming opportunities in elementary school have direct impact on middle school and this, in turn impacts high school and college course selection. This study used the Early Childhood…

The purpose of this study was to (a) evaluate and discuss strengths and weaknesses in the current system of identifying gifted students and (b) investigate the effectiveness of using the Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test to identify underrepresented and gifted minority students in grades one through five in Central Mississippi. The study consisted…

This is a quantitative study to identify and compare the beliefs held by elementary school administrators, gifted education specialists, classroom teachers, and parents of high-ability students concerning issues related to gifted education services provided by a rural school district in Southeast Georgia. Participants were administered a…

This case study research was designed to examine the referral process for Washington Gifted Middle School in Peoria Public School District 150 in Peoria, Illinois. The purpose was to determine if perceptions of fourth wade classroom teachers who recommended students to the school were a contributing factor in the disproportionate number of African…

This study investigated characteristics of five IMO winners and influences from their formal and informal educational experiences. In particular, this study provides in-depth understanding of former Korean IMO winners' characteristics and environmental influences. Also, implications including education for parents of the gifted, professional…