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Abstract

The identification of children from low-income populations for participation in talented and gifted programs has been problematic for the field of gifted education. An action research approach was used to evaluate the effectiveness of a nontraditional identification technique for economically disadvantaged students known as the “whole classroom tryout technique.” Fourth-grade students from three socioeconomically diverse schools were selected for participation in Future Problem Solving (FPS), one component of this teacher's talented and gifted curriculum. The students selected by the tryout technique competed in Future Problem Solving against students selected by traditional means. Data were collected: (a) to chart the progress of individual teams, (b) to compare the performance of teams within each school based on the mode of selection, and (c) to compare the teams as a competitive sample. The analysis showed that the whole classroom tryout can be an effective means to identify economically disadvantaged students for a talented and gifted program and could be used in combination with traditional techniques.

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Action Research and Practical Inquiry

Abstract

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