COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
Effects of academic acceleration:
Findings with Portuguese students
Ema P. Oliveira, University of Beira Interior | [email protected]
Leandro S. Almeida, University of Minho | [email protected]
COST Strategic Workshop
Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents: Towards a European Roadmap
Brussels | 26 and 27 November 2007
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Introduction
According to the cognitive and learning characteristics of
gifted students, it is important their identification and
support in order to address their educational special needs.
In general, the educational provisions for gifted students
are classified in three main categories:
ƒ Academic acceleration;
ƒ Enrichment activities;
ƒ Ability grouping.
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
Introduction
Reasons for academic acceleration:
ƒ Lack of challenge in the regular classroom and school curriculum;
ƒ Low motivation in learning and task commitment;
ƒ No oportunities to develop more complex and personal study methods;
ƒ For many bright students, acceleration provides a better personal
maturity match with classmates (“peer matching”);
ƒ Administrative and finantial facilities (low cost).
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Introduction
Academic acceleration consists of moving students
through an educational program at a faster than usual
rate or younger than typical age. It means matching
the level, complexity and pace of the curriculum to the
readiness and motivation of the student (Colangelo,
Assouline & Gross, 2004).
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
Introduction
Types of acceleration
(Benbow, 1991; Rogers, 2002; Southern, Jones & Stanley, 1993)
GradeGrade-based acceleration:
SubjectSubject-based acceleration:
Early entrance to school
Compacted curriculum
Grade-skipping
Advanced Placement/
Credit by examination
Telescoping
Subject-matter acceleration
Combined classes/
nongraded classrooms
Early admission to college
Self-paced instruction
Mentoring
Radical acceleration
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5
Gifted Education in 21 European Countries:
Inventory and Perspective
(Mönks & Pflüger, 2005)
Early admission to school/grade-skipping in primary school:
Germain, Austria, Belgium, Slovenia, Spain, Finland, France, The Netherlands,
Ireland, Luxemburg, Poland, Portugal, Romenia, Sweden, Switzerland, United
Kingdom.
According to this report, the concern with the education of gifted
students in Europe is growing, with more positive political
attitudes, educational legislation coming up, research, teacher
training, provisions,…
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
School legislation in Portugal
ƒ Educational measures to be taken for students with special needs
(curriculum adaptations, special evaluation conditions, flexibility, differentiation,
management of classes or groups of students in a class,…).
ƒ The ideal of equality and total integration; flexibility within the school
curriculum.
ƒ Curriculum enrichment as an educational provision for students with
exceptional learning abilities.
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School legislation in Portugal
ƒ Refers explicitly to “developmental precocity” and “exceptional
learning ability” in school and therefore permits early entrance to
school for highly able students.
ƒ Children can attend first grade if they are 5 years old.
ƒ Both a psychological and a pedagogical evaluation are required to
justify the decision that early entrance is an appropriate measure.
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
School legislation in Portugal
ƒ Students can skip one class at first level of basic school (1st -4th
grades) and one more time during the second (5th-6th grades) or the
third levels (7th-9th grades) of basic school.
ƒ Skipping classes more than twice during Basic School Education
must have special permission from the Secretary of Education/Lisbon.
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Effects of academic acceleration:
Review of the literature
Academic and professional domain: achievement, learning,
motivation, career development, productivity (Benbow, 1991;
Colangelo, Assouline & Gross, 2004; Pereira & Seabra-Santos, 2001);
Psychosocial domain: social relationships, cooperative work,
self-esteem and autonomy (Gross, 2006; McCluskey, Massey & Baker,
1997; Proctor, Black & Feldhusen, 1986).
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
Effects of academic acceleration:
Review of the literature
The few problems that have been experienced and
reported with acceleration have stemmed primarily from
incomplete or poor planning.
“…one of the most curious phenomena in the field of
education. I can think of no other issue in which there is
such a gulf between what research has revealed and what
most practitioners believe” (Borland, 1989, p. 185).
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Study in Portugal
Purpose:
ƒ Analyse the impact of academic acceleration in terms of
the psychosocial and academic adjustment of the students.
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
Method
Sample
Groups
Accelerated
(n=107)
Non-accelerated
(n=120)
Grades
Sex
N
Age (M)
5th
(n=46)
M
F
25
21
9,9
6th
(n=61)
M
F
21
40
10,8
5th
(n=51)
M
F
30
21
10,3
6th
(n=69)
M
F
27
42
11,3
1313
Method
Instruments
• Self-Perception Profile for Children |
Academic
Competence, Social Acceptance, Athletic Competence, Physical Appearance,
Behavior, Global Self-Esteem
• BISAST-HC/A | Scale for the Identification of Gifted and Talented
Students (Cognitive and learning abilities)
• Interviews with parents
• Academic results
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
Results
General characterization of accelerated students
• 65% of the students (39) were accelerated by early
entrance, 35% by grade skipping (25).
• More girls (57%) than boys (43%), specially by early
entrance to school.
• In general, families belong to a middle social class (47%)
and present a higher educational level (45%).
• Specially in the group of early entrants, children were born
in January (43%).
• According to the parents opinion, only 15 of the early
entrants were accelerated because of exceptional precocity.
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Results
General characterization of accelerated students
Reasons for acceleration, by group
15
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
…Comparative analyses
| accelerated vs. non-accelerated
• The results suggest significant differences in favour of the
accelerated students in the psychological tests applied, as
well as in school achievement and in teachers’ perceptions
about students’ abilities and motivation;
• this superiority occurs, also, in the majority of the
curricular matters, excepting “Visual and Technological
Education”, and “Physical Education”,
• as well as in some dimensions of the self-concept,
specially in the dimensions “Academic Competence”,
“Social Acceptance” and “Global Self-Esteem”.
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Interviews with parents (N=61)
Adaptation to school
Satisfaction with acceleration |
ƒ Satisfied (n=50)
ƒ Satisfied, but skeptical (n=7):
Lack of challenge in school curriculum
Low motivation (easy tasks/lack of challenge)
Immaturity
Problems in peer/teacher relashionships
ƒ Unsatisfied (n=4):
Immaturity;
Learning difficulties.
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
Conclusions
ƒ Accelerated students show exceptional abilities in
several performance domains (cognitive, academic,
creativity, motivation), in accord to teachers’
perceptions;
ƒ Accelerated students present better results in selfconcept, namely in “Academic Competence”, “Social
Acceptance” and “Global Self-Esteem”.
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Conclusions
ƒ
In the majority of cases (49/61), parents are satisfied
with acceleration practices.
ƒ
Parents unsatisfaction (4/61) is related with early
entrance justified only by age factors.
ƒ
Skeptic attitudes to acceleration are associated with
students´ learning difficulties and behavioral or
emotional problems.
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
Conclusions
ƒ
The mismatch between students’ readiness for highergrade curriculum and the curriculum actually offered
may be so extreme, that even an advanced grade
placement represent no great academic difficulty for
some students.
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Implications for future
ƒ At research level:
– To clarify the concept of “excepcional precocious development”;
– New findings for the psychological tests validity to garantee more
accuracy on gifted identification process;
– To assess the differential impact of the various educational
provisions for gifted students;
– To analyse the relationship between precocity and giftedness.
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COST Strategic Workshop: Meeting the Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents - Towards a European Roadmap
Day 1 - Monday 26 November, 2007, Session 2
Implications for future
ƒ At practice level:
– The need to complement acceleration with other educational
provisions;
– The importance to respect legal dispositions in the decision taking
process;
– The urgency in training teachers, parents and other professionals on
gifted education;
– The development of new pedagogical differenciation approaches by
the schools.
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Ema P. Oliveira, University of Beira Interior | [email protected]
Leandro S. Almeida, University of Minho | [email protected]
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