This Methodological Brief introduces the reader to the regression discontinuity design (RDD), which is a method that when used correctly can yield estimates of research treatment effects that are equivalent to those obtained through randomized control trials and can therefore be used to infer causality. However, RDD does not require the random…

In this monograph, the authors advanced a set of interrelated arguments: The abilities of individuals do matter, particularly their abilities in specific talent domains; different talent domains have different developmental trajectories that vary as to when they start, peak, and end; and opportunities provided by society are crucial at every point…

The talent development approach to the conceptualization of giftedness has historical precedent in the field. Examples of large-scale and longitudinal research studies from previous decades guided by the talent development approach are provided as illustrations. The implications of focusing on domain-specific talents in academics, the arts and…

This methodological brief introduces the readers to the propensity score matching method, which can be used for enhancing the validity of causal inferences in research situations involving nonexperimental design or observational research, or in situations where the benefits of an experimental design are not fully realized because of reasons beyond…

As someone who has dabbled in biography and autobiography, the author knows how difficult it is to determine what really happened and why. Even people who agree on the sequence of events, and describe them similarly, may end up creating quite different narratives of a given life. Intellectual autobiography may be somewhat less problematic, because…

It is difficult to say exactly when or how ideas originate and if and why they earn acceptance, but this author believes his theories evolved because of his background as an educator and a pragmatist who believes "validating" an idea through practical implementation is as important as the idea itself. For the author, there are considerable…

"Everyone else was turning the page but I had not yet finished the first item." That is how the author remembers the beginning of his interest in intelligence. For whatever reason, he decided while in elementary school that intelligence is modifiable, and every year he authored a work book with exercises children could complete to increase their…

Multiple regression is one of the most common statistical methods used in quantitative educational research. Despite the versatility and easy interpretability of multiple regression, it has some shortcomings in the detection of suppressor variables and for somewhat arbitrarily assigning values to the structure coefficients of correlated…

Most organizations (e.g., institutions of higher education, K-12 school systems) that engage in research with human subjects have institutional review boards (IRBs; also known as research committees) responsible for the oversight of research activities to ensure the ethical treatment of participants. Professional societies such as American…

Single-subject research (SSR) is an experimental research tradition that is well established in other fields (e.g., special education, behavior analysis) but has rarely been applied to topics in gifted education. In this Methodological Brief, Brandi Simonsen and Catherine A. Little from the University of Connecticut highlight the key features of…

In gifted education research, it is common for outcome variables to exhibit strong floor or ceiling effects due to insufficient range of measurement of many instruments when used with gifted populations. Common statistical methods (e.g., analysis of variance, linear regression) produce biased estimates when such effects are present. In practice,…

In education, most naturally occurring data are clustered within contexts. Students are clustered within classrooms, classrooms are clustered within schools, and schools are clustered within districts. When people are clustered within naturally occurring organizational units such as schools, classrooms, or districts, the responses of people from…

This article provides a conceptual introduction to the issues surrounding the analysis of clustered (nested) data. We define the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and the design effect, and we explain their effect on the standard error. When the ICC is greater than 0, then the design effect is greater than 1. In such a scenario, the…

This myth that the gifted constitute a single, homogeneous group is addressed by the authors in this article. They respond by saying that there is no single homogeneous group of gifted children and adults, and giftedness is developmental, not fixed at birth. Research in the past few decades has pointed to the ways in which gifts and talents vary,…

More than 25 years ago, the myth that a small gifted program compensated for a "sick" regular education program took its place in the "Gifted Child Quarterly" special issue pantheon. The myth was framed from the perspective of school districts who implemented limited, part-time programs for gifted students to "comfort themselves" that the needs of…