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…

Students living in poverty are noted to experience a variety of barriers, which include literacy gaps (Buckingham et al., 2013), lower reading achievement entering high school (Reardon et al., 2013), lower graduation rates (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016), higher incidences of learning disabilities and behavior problems (Morgan et…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and investigate teachers' perceptions of giftedness in culturally and linguistically diverse students (CLD) as a factor that causes the lack of access for these students to gifted pedagogy. The theory guiding this study was Culturally Responsive Teaching. The central research question was…

This Dissertation in Practice (DIP) utilizes Action Research methods to answer the question of: What is the impact of utilizing an authentic study of an author's life and literary works to increase students' motivation to read in a third grade gifted and talented classroom? Through intentional questioning and inquiry, the following Chapters…

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…

With the expansion of computer science (CS) education, CS teachers in K-12 schools should be cognizant of student misconceptions and be prepared to help students establish accurate understanding of computer science and programming. This exploratory design-based research (DBR) study implemented a data-driven approach to identify secondary school…

Gifted and talented individuals (GT) are those who exhibit high levels of competency or potentiality in one or more domains. Academically gifted students make up roughly six to ten percent of the current total student body population in the United States and can be dated back as far as William Torrey Harris's efforts in 1868. The current state…

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…

This study examined the teachers' and administrators' perceptions on talented and gifted (TAG) alternative education high school students. Administrators and teachers from alternative high schools (AHS) in the state of Iowa received an email of a validated survey instrument for data collection. The survey was used to analyze the perceptions of…

The federal government has been making strides to make the term "appropriate" an inclusive term that recognizes and addresses the special learning needs of all students. In an effort to appropriately educate students who have been identified as "gifted," the New Jersey State Board of Education readopted Standards and Assessment…

The present study sought to uncover relationships between the personal characteristics of teachers and their preferences for models of teaching. A purposeful sample included 12 elementary instructors of heterogeneous classes with a cluster of gifted students in urban school districts within Southern California, all of who were participants in a…

Leadership has been designated a talent area in federal and state definitions of gifted students who require differentiated programs since the Marland Report came out in 1972, yet it remains the least discussed of the curricular areas for gifted students. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and attitudes of administrators of…

The purpose of this study was to describe the development of the Hungarian mathematics education system from the first half of the 20th century to the present day. The study focused on educational programs for mathematically talented students in Hungary, since it is the success of these talented students that has earned Hungary such an impressive…

Intelligence and creativity are concepts used to describe the efforts of human beings to achieve the highest aspirations of the human brain-mind-spirit system. Howard Gardner, intelligence and creativity researcher, applied his Multiple Intelligence theory to case studies of creative masters from seven intelligence domains developing a template…