Talented Students, Academic Achievement and Self-esteem

Download or read book Talented Students, Academic Achievement and Self-esteem written by Mark David Frost and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are academic and self-esteem differences between high achieving students when some participate in gifted education and others do not. Procedure. A list of districts approved for state-assisted gifted programs was obtained from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. School districts offering programs for gifted education which are located in North Central, Northeast and Northwest Missouri within 160 miles of Chillicothe and that began their gifted education programs at the second grade were identified. From the 14 school districts which met these criteria, twelve were selected that had maintained records of student referral and placement since the 1991-92 school year. The school districts had to incorporate special day classes with homogeneous grouping of the gifted students as the instructional setting. Two cohort groups of students were selected for the study. The first cohort group consisted of students referred for further screening and not placed in the gifted program or choosing not to participate. The second cohort group consisted of students referred for further screening and placed in the gifted program. To conduct this longitudinal study, academic achievement was monitored in reading and math through scores on the Missouri Mastery and Achievement Test during the two cohort groups of students' second, third, fourth, and fifth grade years. During the fifth grade year the Self-Esteem Index measuring self-esteem in Familial Acceptance, Academic Competence, Peer Popularity, and Personal Security was administered to both cohort groups. Results. The high achieving and talented group of students not participating in a program for gifted students (not-gifted) and students participating in gifted education (gifted) scored significantly above the state average on the reading and math sections of the MMAT. The gifted students had statistically significantly higher reading and math scores than the not-gifted students, as measured at the second, third, fourth and fifth grade levels on the MMAT. However, the achievement trends remained virtually identical for both groups over the four year period of time measured. The not-gifted students consistently had higher measures of self-esteem than the gifted students. The significance was at the p. $