The Project

    The Nurturing Talent: Positively Pinpointing Potential (3P) project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education through PL 107-110 V – No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Grant Program. This project, Underrepresented Students in Gifted & Talented Education: Positive Psychology Identification & Service, is designed to address the representation gap in gifted and talented education by using a combination of static and dynamic assessment procedures centered around positive psychology modules with students in middle grades (4th – 8th).

    More About the Project

    The Nurturing Talent (3P) project will assist schools in both the identification of and provision of services for gifted and talented students – particularly those from traditionally underrepresented groups. These are students who are often not identified and served through traditional assessment methods. Educators will receive engaging professional development to fulfill project goals.

    “This is a dream I have held for several decades, and finally we are at the advent of achieving equity through well-documented positive psychological interventions.” 
    -F. Richard Olenchak

    What is this based on?

    “Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living… [it] is a scientific approach to studying human thoughts, feelings, and behavior, with a focus on strengths instead of weaknesses, building the good in life instead of repairing the bad, and taking the lives of average people up to ‘great’ instead of focusing solely on moving those who are struggling up to ‘normal’”
    –Peterson, 2008

    Why are we doing this?

    Our hypothesis: More students from underrepresented populations will be identified for gifted programming when the assessment of psychosocial strengths and skills that accompany intellectual talent development is included in the existing identification procedures.

    Our Goals

    The Nurturing Talent (3P) project addresses the following goals:

    • Increase identification of underrepresented student populations for gifted and talented education services thereby reducing a persistent identification problem.
    • Participating educators will acquire knowledge and skills foundational to identifying students from underrepresented populations and provide gifted education services that optimize individual student identity, interests, and talents.
    • Leave a legacy of evidence for schools everywhere to apply the project components to increase representation of traditionally underrepresented populations in gifted education.

    What Are We Exploring?

    Research Questions:

    • What is the effectiveness of positive psychology instruction and assessments on equitable identification and provision of services to gifted and talented students who may not be identified through traditional identification?
    • To what extent does teacher training in implementing positive psychology lessons and identifying potential using psychosocial traits that result in more equitable identification of students from underrepresented populations for gifted services?
    • What is the effectiveness of dynamic assessment (the test-teach-retest model) for measuring student growth in psychosocial strengths and skills, especially for students typically overlooked in traditional identification procedures?

    Affective and Positive Psychology traits include:

    • Engagement, Perseverance, Optimism, Connectedness, and Happiness (EPOCH Model; Kern et al., 2016)
    • Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment (PERMA Model; Seligman et al., 2009; 2011)
    • Hope (Snyder, 1997, 2003)
    • Metacognition (Hartman, 1998)

    The Bull’s Eye Model for Affective Development (BEM) is a mechanism for addressing talent development for individuals who present with a variety of disabilities yet also possess gifted and talented abilities (Olenchak et al., 2016).

    We will use the expanded BEM (BEM-e) to identify gifted and talented students using positive psychology traits (as defined above) – specifically engagement, perseverance, optimism, connectedness, happiness, and hope through dynamic assessment (Chaffey & Bailey, 2003; Vogelaar, 2017).

    References:

    Chaffey, G.W., Bailey, S.B., Vine, K.W.: Identifying High Academic Potential in Australian Aboriginal Children Using Dynamic Testing. Australas. J. Gift. Educ. 2003, 12, 42–55. https://doi.org/10.3316/aeipt.128863.

    Hartman, H.J. Metacognition in Teaching and Learning: An Introduction. Instr. Sci. 1998, 26, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1003023628307.

    Kern, M.L., Benson, L.,  Steinberg, E.A., Steinberg, L.: The EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Well-Being. Psychol. Assess. 2016, 28, 586–597. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000201.

    Olenchak, F.R., Jacobs, L.T., Hussain, M.,  Lee, K., Gaa, J.: Giftedness plus Talent plus Disabilities: Twice-Exceptional Persons, the 21st Century, and Lifespan Development as Viewed through an Affective Lens. In Giftedness and Talent in the 21st Century; Ambrose, D., Sternberg, R.J., Eds.; Brill: Leiden, The Netherlands, 2016; pp. 255–279.

    Peterson, C. (2008) What is positive psychology, and what is it not? Psychology Today.

    Seligman, M.E.P., Ernst, R.M., Gillham, J., Reivich, K., Linkins, M.: Positive Education: Positive Psychology and Classroom Interventions. Oxf. Rev. Educ. 2009, 35, 293–311. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054980902934563.

    Seligman, M.E.P. Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being; Free Press: Glencoe, IL, USA, 2011.

    Snyder, C.R. The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here; Free Press: Glencoe, IL, USA, 1994.

    Snyder, C.R., Hoza, B., Pelham, W.E., Rapoff, M., Ware, L., Danovsky, M., Highberger, L., Ribinstein, H., Stahl, K.J.: The Development and Validation of the Children’s Hope Scale. J. Pediatr. Psychol. 1997, 22, 399–421. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/22.3.399.

    Vogelaar, B. Dynamic Testing and Excellence: Unfolding Potential. Ph.D. Thesis, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2017.