Using a Design Thinking (DT) approach, the ChallenGE Project in South Australia (SA) was an innovative professional learning (PL) program that was developed, implemented, and researched by three Senior Educational Consultants from the Association of Independent Schools of South Australia (AISSA) and one academic from Flinders University over three…

Promoting high-achieving students plays an important role in the school context. Hence, one promising support measure within the mixed-ability classroom is differentiated instruction (DI). The current systematic review examined (1) the impact of DI on high-achieving students' outcomes, (2) to what extent DI is used, (3) how useful teachers and…

State databases offer researchers the opportunity to conduct research using data collected by states. These databases contain financial, demographic, and accountability data. Accessing and acquiring data from these repositories, though, can offer challenges to scholars interested in conducting research. This brief describes the type of data…

Secondary data analysis can benefit researchers of advanced academics by providing large sample sizes and a variety of data on multiple topics. However, using secondary data comes with unique challenges. This article will outline how gifted education researchers can find, access, and use secondary data. Data are available on children from birth to…

The movement toward open-science is multifaceted with the general goal to promote both better scientific practices and greater access to scientific information. One aspect of the open-science framework is the recommended use of registered reports replacing the legacy model that dictates research manuscripts are submitted for initial review only…

In response to concerns about the credibility of many published research findings, open science reforms such as preregistration, data sharing, and alternative forms of publication are being increasingly adopted across scientific communities. Although journals on giftedness and advanced academic research have already implemented several of these…

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a qualitative analytical approach for critically describing, interpreting, and explaining the ways in which discourses construct, maintain, and legitimize social inequalities. CDA rests on the notion that the way we use language is purposeful, regardless of whether discursive choices are conscious or…

The commentaries in this special issue as well as the articles they address contribute to the knowledge base about advanced learners, how they are identified, and how they are best served. In our Editors' commentary, we have organized our thoughts following the same order in which the commentaries appear in the remainder of this issue. As the…

The article by Davis, Engberg, Epple, Sieg, and Zimmer (2010) represents one of the recent research efforts from economists in evaluating the impact of gifted programs. It can serve as a worked example of the implementation of the regression discontinuity (RD) design method in gifted education research. In this commentary, we first illustrate the…

A research paper by Card and Giuliano took advantage of a natural experiment in a large school district to explore the impact that universal screening policies had on the identification of historically underrepresented minorities in gifted and talented programs. The authors concluded that the universal screening system was more effective than the…

Card and Giuliano's National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper on universal screening is discussed. This commentary provides a brief summary and critique of the article, proposes an explanation of the results in light of the author's research on the role of nominations or screening tests in the gifted identification process, and…

In this commentary of "Evaluating the Gifted Program of an Urban School District Using a Modified Regression Discontinuity Design" by Davis, Engberg, Epple, Sieg, and Zimmer, we examine the background of the study, critique the methods used, and discuss the results and implications. The study used a fuzzy regression discontinuity design…

Card and Giuliano conducted a regression discontinuity study in a large Florida school district to investigate the magnitude of academic benefits of the district's gifted program. They found that for children identified as gifted through an intelligence test, the program provided few or no benefits. But children who were admitted to the gifted…

In their National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, "Does Gifted Education Work? For Which Students?" Card and Giuliano (C & G) made an enormous splash in not just gifted education but also the world (e.g., "The Washington Post," "The Atlantic," Five Thirty Eight). In this commentary, we highlight…

Bui, Craig, and Imberman assessed the impact of gifted and talented programs on student achievement using regression discontinuity and random assignment to gifted magnet schools. In both analyses, they found minimal impact of the gifted and talented programs on student achievement. This commentary addresses two concerns associated with the study.…