Experiences of High-Ability High School Students

Identification of Gifted Students

Much research has been conducted on the methods of identifying gifted students, the most traditional of which include IQ tests and standardized test scores (Baldwin, 2005; Schroth & Helfer, 2008). However, it is believed that these traditional means can overlook gifted students who may score lower on these types of assessments. Therefore, more recent methods have expanded to include teacher recommendations, portfolios, performance assessments, observations, and parent and peer nominations (Schroth & Helfer, 2008). Another common concern is that traditionally underrepresented groups, including minorities and those of low socioeconomic status, will be missed by traditional identification methods such as IQ and other standardized tests (Pendarvis & Wood, 2009).

Perhaps a combination of methods for identification is the best solution to identify gifted students and to avoid mistakenly identifying nongifted students (Pendarvis & Wood, 2009), because each method of identification has weaknesses. For example, Elhoweris (2008) found that teachers tended both to refer students for placement and to place students with a higher socioeconomic status in a gifted program more often than they did students with a lower socioeconomic status. Therefore, by using only one method or piece of data for identification of gifted students, schools could be inadvertently neglecting students who would otherwise qualify for gifted services. Administrator and teacher opinions of giftedness could also hinder the identification process; some even prefer using traditional identification methods such as standardized testing, even though they realize that such measures do not necessarily define giftedness (Schroth & Helfer, 2009). These studies also point out a limitation of this case study. Data were collected from students who were identified as high ability using traditional means and whose opinions could differ from high-ability students who are traditionally underrepresented.

Teacher Attitudes and Misconceptions About Giftedness

When teachers do not receive training about the characteristics and needs of gifted students, they are more likely to hold biases and misconceptions about gifted students (Baudson & Preckel, 2013; Plunkett & Kronborg, 2011). However, when teachers learn about the characteristics of gifted students, they are more likely to meet gifted students’ needs (Geake & Gross, 2008; Plunkett & Kronborg, 2011). Teachers’ attitudes may not cause teachers intentionally to treat gifted students differently, but they may unintentionally affect the accuracy with which teachers identify gifted students and the degree to which teachers will be inclined to differentiate curriculum for gifted students. Although it is not an easy task, teachers should always be cognizant of the prejudices they hold and the reasons for those prejudices (Cross et al., 2010).

Numerous studies have shown that teachers hold implicitly negative attitudes toward giftedness (Baudson & Preckel, 2013; Cross et al., 2010; Geake & Gross, 2008). Even advocates of gifted education can hold inherent biases that affect their opinions of how gifted students should be taught (Cross et al., 2010). Baudson and Preckel (2013) found that educators tended to consider gifted students more open to new experiences, less emotionally stable, less agreeable, and more introverted than their nongifted peers, which contradicts empirical research. Generally, gifted students have been found to be emotionally and socially similar to their nongifted peers. Studies by Geake and Gross (2008) and O’Connor (2012) indicated that many people, including teachers, viewed the concept of giftedness with suspicion and negativity. Whereas athletic and musical talents are celebrated by society, academic giftedness oftentimes is not. O’Connor suggested that society is wary of gifted children because they are seen as deviating from normal child/adult boundaries, but Geake and Gross (2008) argued that this negativity is evolutionary in nature. Because intelligence is often thought to be of no benefit to society but mainly to the individual, humans have developed an evolutionary predisposition to dislike superior intelligence in others (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004).

A relative paucity of research exists about gifted students’ opinions of themselves and their studies. One study conducted by Vidergor and Reiter (2008) indicated that gifted students had similar levels of self-concept as regular students, but those who dropped out of gifted pull-out programs needed additional support to maintain their self-concept. O’Connor (2012) found that people’s negative opinions of giftedness had negative effects on gifted people. Many gifted students who feel the need to hide their achievements due to the negative stigma attached to giftedness eventually develop the idea that their giftedness is a curse rather than a blessing. These studies alone, although helpful, do not comprise a sufficient knowledge base about gifted students’ opinions of their educational experiences, so this study will attempt to further contribute to the education profession’s knowledge about this particular facet of gifted education.

Curriculum and Differentiation Methods

Several programming options exist for gifted students, including acceleration, cluster ability grouping, pull-out enrichment, self-contained classes, and residential academies (Cross et al., 2010). Accompanying these options are attitudes and opinions about their potential benefits or perhaps disadvantages. Unfortunately, administrators and teachers sometimes harbor misconceptions about gifted programming options and may shy away from using proven effective methods (Plunkett & Kronborg, 2011; Preckel et al., 2010; Rambo & McCoach, 2012; Siegle, Wilson, & Little, 2013).

Because this study took place in Indiana, a look at acceleration options for high-ability high school students in Indiana may prove helpful. Peters and Mann (2009) wished to find out how prevalent these types of programs were in Indiana and to what extent Indiana high schools offer services for high-ability students. Some interesting findings included the fact that although by law Indiana school corporations were required to appoint a high-ability coordinator, only 75% of schools had such a position. In addition, and against Indiana law requirements, 20 schools reported having no high-ability program. The most widely implemented program was AP, with 70% of high schools providing AP courses. Other programs included honors, accelerated, or advanced classes (49% of schools); dual-credit courses (38%); clubs, competitions, or other enrichment (11%); and other options. Interestingly, only 3% of schools reported using classroom differentiation, and only 3% of schools offered International Baccalaureate (IB) courses (Peters & Mann, 2009).

One popular acceleration method is the gifted cluster grouping model. This method is appealing to schools because of its cost-effectiveness and ease of implementation compared with other programming options. With cluster grouping, students are carefully placed in classrooms based on ability levels. Gifted students are placed in classrooms with nongifted students, but a narrower range of abilities is present in the classrooms, avoiding extremes of ability levels within the same classroom. Studies have revealed that gifted students under this model have achieved significant academic growth (Brulles et al., 2010; Preckel et al., 2010). In addition, Brulles, Peters, and Saunders (2012) refuted the notion that cluster grouping hurts nongifted students and found that nongifted students in mathematics who participated in cluster grouping experienced the same levels of growth as those who did not participate in cluster grouping. Studies are inconclusive, however, regarding the psychosocial effects of ability grouping on gifted students (Preckel et al., 2010).

Some teachers and administrators also harbor assumptions that acceleration is a damaging practice for gifted students. Acceleration is a strategy by which teachers (usually) recommend that a student be allowed to move forward in his or her studies—either in a specific subject or in all subjects, such as grade skipping. Several studies have shown its effectiveness as a programming option for gifted students. However, many teachers and administrators are still reluctant to use this option, oftentimes because of concerns for students’ social and emotional well-being in addition to academic achievement, despite evidence showing no negative impact on students’ social and emotional well-being (Rambo & McCoach, 2012; Siegle et al., 2013). Teachers may also avoid acceleration if they feel unsupported by their administration or if they are more likely to think of the negative consequences of acceleration, unfounded as these opinions may be (Rambo & McCoach, 2012). In a study by Plunkett and Kronborg (2011), preservice teachers admitted to having no factual basis for their previous opinions that acceleration was damaging.

Raising the bar for high-ability students by presenting a higher level of challenge through increased rigor might appear to be a solution for keeping gifted students engaged. Several studies (Kanevsky, 2011; Siegle, Rubenstein, Polland, & Romey, 2010), however, have found that interest is a far more important factor in student engagement than is perceived academic challenge. Siegle et al. (2010) have asserted that student interest is the single most important factor in student skills assessment in a particular domain.

Many of these studies suggest that more teacher and preservice teacher training is needed to dispel misconceptions about the perceived damaging effects of acceleration. Often cited as the Templeton Report, the work of Colangelo et al. (2004) provided a synthesis of more than 50 years of research about acceleration for gifted students. These researchers called acceleration “the most effective intervention for highly capable students” (Colangelo et al., 2004, p. 2).

Several studies have also focused on subject-specific curriculum options for gifted students, in subjects including social studies and science (Jones & Hébert, 2012; Newman & Hubner, 2012). Many studies, including one by Maker et al. (2006), have studied the DISCOVER curriculum model for creativity. These subject- and skill-specific studies revealed some trends in terms of what makes these approaches successful for gifted students. Differentiation, authentic experiences that require higher order thinking skills, and teacher preparation in gifted learning strategies are all crucial considerations if schools wish to accomplish increased achievement for gifted students. Higher order thinking skills, however, may be neglected at the expense of some current educational mandates. Scot, Callahan, and Urquhart (2009) studied the effects of high-stakes testing and the No Child Left Behind Act on gifted students and found that knowledge about how best to serve gifted learners is sometimes at odds with current educational mandates. Teachers in this study reported that they had little time to enrich activities for gifted students. They felt constrained by curriculum pacing guides, worried about having to neglect certain skills, devalued and disempowered by the curricular mandates, and frustrated that they could not teach in a way that fostered students’ creativity and higher order thinking skills (Scot et al., 2009).

Participants

The students participating in the case study were three senior AP Language and Composition students previously identified as high ability by the school district. All three students were categorized as general intellectual high ability. Prior to the 2013–2014 school year, Carrie had already worked with all these students as their academic team coach; she felt she had established a good rapport with each of them. The participants (all names are pseudonyms) were two girls, Andrea and Dana, and one boy, Alex. During the time the data for this study were collected, two students were 18 years old and one was 17. All three students were White, reflecting a lack of ethnic diversity in the school district.

Alex, although classified as general intellectual high ability, was particularly gifted in mathematics and was confident after having taken the AP Calculus exam that he got “at least a 3, probably a 4.” He was very involved in school and participated in marching and concert bands, as well as academic bowl. His academic bowl participation was in mathematics all years but one, during which he participated in fine arts bowl and won the statewide competition. Alex was also involved in theater and was a gifted actor. He wanted to go into teaching, despite the fact that several students told him he was “too smart just to be a teacher.” Carrie believes they said this in front of her “just to push my buttons,” but we are relatively sure that there was some truth behind their teasing.

Andrea was also very involved in school and participated in English bowl all 4 years. She became captain of the team during her sophomore year, despite the fact that there were many older members on the team. Although she was very strong in English, her passion actually lay in science, and she was very active in Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) and advanced to the national competition her senior year. She also ran cross country and was perhaps one of the most organized, conscientious, and mature students Carrie has ever taught. Her aspirations were to be a microbiologist or geneticist.

Dana was also a member of Carrie’s English bowl team and participated all 4 years. She was involved in marching and concert bands, and she also had a passion for science and was involved in HOSA. She wanted to be an obstetrician or neonatal nurse. Although the least gifted of the three by district identification standards, she was outgoing and a great leader.

Data Collection

Data were collected through interviews and a focus group because we believed that these data collection methods would garner more thorough and complete answers from students than would a survey or questionnaire. Students were assured that when they discussed courses and teachers, their names would remain anonymous and they would receive no negative repercussions for being honest about their experiences. Because the goal of this study was to ascertain how students felt about their educational experiences in high school, a case study was the ideal method of data collection. Students were asked the following types of questions: Have classes been appropriately challenging? Have teachers modified curriculum for the students to meet their needs? What types of activities keep the students’ attention, and which activities do the students find worthwhile? What frustrations or times of boredom have the students experienced? Have other students or teachers made them feel “different” for being identified with high ability?

Data for this project were collected during February 2014. Carrie interviewed each of the three participants separately, asking them questions about their previous educational experiences. She also conducted a focus group during which students discussed their opinions about the rigor of previous courses, their level of engagement in various activities, what they felt were the least and most worthwhile educational experiences, and other similar topics. Follow-up interview and focus group questions were asked as needed. Appendices A and B contain a full list of all interview and focus group questions.

Peer Relationships

First, students answered questions pertaining to their peers in class—how they interacted with their peers, any differences they felt from their peers, and other similar questions. Many answers pertained to students’ feelings of being different. Alex stated, “Other people have always pointed me out as being the smart kid in class,” but he did not like this recognition. Dana mentioned feeling different from her peers “all the time, almost every day,” and Andrea felt that she was more mature than her peers, “especially as a senior, I get fed up with all these kids! And I catch on to most things more quickly than others.” These feelings of being different led both Alex and Dana to agree with their peers at times, even when they knew answers were wrong, for fear of “be[ing] labeled a know-it-all,” according to Alex.

Alex and Dana also mentioned the word nerd when referring to themselves. Alex stated, “I don’t want to point out to the world that I’m smart; I feel nerdy.” Andrea, likewise, mentioned that she feels like a nerd, “but that doesn’t really bother me.” Indeed, students expressed a variety of feelings about their self-identity and others’ perceptions of them, from Andrea’s relative confidence in her identity as a high-ability student, to Alex’s dislike of being recognized for his intelligence, to Dana’s comment that her classmates at times “made me feel like it was bad to be smart. There have been times when I’ve let it get to me.” She mentioned a time in an English class when a student said, “Students like Dana take the fun out of school,” which both irritated and upset her.

Students’ attitudes toward their peers influenced the types of activities they preferred in class, as well as the types of peers they liked having in class. Dana stated that she preferred taking classes with people of the same intellectual ability as she, but that for group work,

it depends on the project. If I’m working on a difficult assignment and I know I’ll need help, I would rather be in a group of people who will be the same level as me. But I know me, and if I’m in a group with people who aren’t as smart, I will end up doing everything.

She also stated that she spent too much time being serious and that sometimes being in groups with people who are less smart “make things fun.” Andrea, however, preferred to do group assignments with her intellectual peers because “the other ones are usually more immature, and I will end up doing their stuff.” She was also irritated when others “hold her back.” For classes, she preferred being with her intellectual peers for core subjects. However, she said that she enjoyed the “melting pot” of people she had in her elective subjects.

Alex agreed with Andrea’s preference for having intellectual peers in core subject classes and commented that “you get a good atmosphere with a variety” of students in elective classes. Alex also stated that he did not like group work in general because he knew he would end up doing a majority of the work. He felt uncomfortable telling peers who were less intellectually strong that they were wrong. It seemed, in general, that students’ peers determined the atmosphere in a classroom. Dana commented,

I feel like it depends on who [sic] you’re with more than what it is you’re studying because a lot of times it doesn’t matter because if you’re in a room with a bunch of other students who understand the subject as well as you, it’s going to be enjoyable. But if students don’t care or understand, it makes it worse for you.

These comments concur with a study done by Preckel et al. (2010), citing the positive effects of ability grouping on lessening students’ feelings of boredom.

Student Satisfaction With Teachers

Participants expressed varying levels of satisfaction with their teachers, and there seemed to be several correlations between students’ enjoyment in their classes and the teachers who taught them. Dana explained it this way: “If a teacher wanted to teach us about why grass is green and they [sic] were interesting when they taught it, then it would be worthwhile.” The other two students agreed with her belief that the teacher plays a more important role than the material he or she teaches. In fact, in response to the question, “What have been your least favorite classes and why?” two of the three students stated that the reason they disliked certain classes was because of the teacher. The teacher’s personality seemed to be a determining factor well. Dana said about her teachers:

Some will try really hard, but you can tell it’s not working. There have been teachers who don’t have to do anything to engage the students but talk to them. But in other classes, teachers want us to answer questions, but no one wants to talk to them.

In addition to teachers’ personalities, participants often gave responses about teachers’ professionalism and efficacy in teaching subject matter. The question “What is the most frustrating thing a teacher can do in class?” elicited the most passionate response of any question the students answered. Dana noted, “Shop online!” Alex suggested, “Talk about things in their lives instead of teaching you.” They all mentioned one teacher who frequently talked about events in her life, but sometimes if students began to discuss their own lives, the teacher would become angry and demand that the class get back to work. This sort of double standard was very frustrating to the students. Dana also mentioned a teacher at the technical center who, at the beginning of the year, called on her when she raised her hand. However, “after a while, she ignored me and focused on other students. She didn’t want me to answer because I always had the right answer. She almost put me down because I knew what I was doing.”

Finally, several comments referred to teachers who did not convey the material well or prepared students inadequately. One math teacher that the students shared had a practice of distributing 2-day tests. On the first day, students completed his test, and then on the second day, students took a sample AP test. The students commented that “the teacher’s test doesn’t prepare you for the actual AP test.” Alex commented, “The teacher tries to challenge you with these tests, but you realize it doesn’t matter because he’ll curve the scores anyway.” Andrea stated, almost guiltily, that she even got a tutor for the class because she felt the teacher did not adequately explain the material. All three participants mentioned that although some of their math teachers conveyed the material effectively, many did not. Dana and Alex commented that out of an entire yearlong science course, they only remembered one concept that was taught—the rest they had already forgotten.

Subject Matter

In addition to peers and teachers, the participants stated that the subject matter did play a role in their enjoyment of and engagement in their courses. Alex mentioned that if he enjoyed a subject, he liked to be challenged more, and the other two participants agreed that a class’s level of rigor did not determine whether they enjoyed a subject. Andrea stated about courses she disliked, “I feel like it depends on the classes; even if they are challenging I more often just find them boring.” The participants also listed a number of classes they enjoyed or disliked, but not necessarily because of the level of rigor. They disliked certain subjects because they were boring, and liked certain subjects because, as Andrea stated, they “break up the monotony of my other classes” or contained different and interesting content. Naturally, some classes they enjoyed just because they were the subjects that pertained to their future careers. Interestingly, all three students agreed that they had a “love/hate relationship with English.” Some of their English classes in high school they described as “boring and not worthwhile,” but others they enjoyed because they felt they were learning new and practical material, not a repetition of the same material learned in previous years. The participants’ preference for classes that were “interesting” regardless of the level of rigor parallels the findings of others (Heacox, 2002; Kanevsky, 2011; Siegle et al., 2010).

Preferred Class Activities

Perhaps students’ responses varied the most when they were asked questions about the types of activities they enjoyed doing in class. One question asked students to describe a time when they felt particularly excited, challenged, and engaged in a class activity. Andrea said that her favorite was trying to extract DNA from plant leaves. She said,

We ran into problems, and it was really cool because we got firsthand lab experience . . . it didn’t even end up working, but it was still one of the coolest things I did in high school. Plus, we got to handle dangerous chemicals, which was really cool.

Dana particularly enjoyed dissecting sheep hearts during the previous year. Alex said that he enjoyed “the research papers we do in English because after we finish it and everything, I think it’s pretty cool what I’ve accomplished.”

Students were then asked questions about the types of activities they perform in classes. Andrea said she enjoyed independent work and “actively doing things.” She preferred having teachers teach the theory and then asking students to apply it, which explains why she listed projects and labs as her favorite types of activities. Both Dana and Andrea attended a Health Science Institute sponsored by a local hospital, an intensive and elite program for high-ability students that mimics medical school. Students received access to different parts of the hospital, observed surgeries, shadowed nurses, listened to guest speakers, and recorded their observations for 2 weeks. Both girls appreciated this opportunity to be challenged and have some of the same responsibilities as professionals in the heath field.

Unfortunately, this was the only opportunity students mentioned that they participated in geared specifically for high-ability students. There also seemed to be a lack of differentiation and variety in general for these students. When asked whether teachers had ever made attempts to modify the curriculum for them, Alex said, “I’ve tried to get teachers to allow me to do an independent study outside class, but they never let me.” The two girls also responded “no” to this question. Their responses echoed some studies (Rambo & McCoach, 2012; Siegle et al., 2013) that revealed teachers’ hesitation to use acceleration strategies. They also lamented the fact that there was not a wider variety of courses available that meet their interests. Andrea would have liked to take a genetics class, for example, and said that “the range of classes is disappointing.” Alex attributed this lack of variety to the size of the school and said that for the school’s size, the class selection was “pretty good.”

Dana said that her least favorite type of activity is the “drill and test” method, an example of which was vocabulary instruction in English class. She said that despite the many vocabulary words given throughout the school year, she remembered only a few words per list. The other two students agreed with Dana and suggested repeating vocabulary words on multiple lists or studying fewer words, but more deeply. The students also noted the pointlessness of writing down words and copying the definitions. Dana mentioned that her favorite type of activity was discussion and that, sadly, “I’ve never been in a classroom where teachers want to hear what the kids think.” She thought that students could learn a lot from each other through discussion and suggested that in an English class, for example, “If everyone stood up in class and told what their [research] papers were about, you learn so much more than what the teacher alone could tell you.”

Alex, however, stated his opposition to this suggestion and explained that he felt subjects should be compartmentalized. For example, if a student wrote a research paper about physical therapy, Alex felt that the English classroom was not the place to learn about physical therapy. He admitted that his opinions probably differed from most students’ preferences, but that he liked the “straight information lecture.” In response to Dana’s suggestion about learning from other students, he said, “Getting opinions from other people is okay, but the teacher is the one who gives the information we need to pass the test.” Alex also said, “My biggest pet peeve is when class gets off topic. I value my time. I suppose if it’s relevant, conversation is OK.”

Level of Challenge

Finally, students answered questions about the level of challenge present in their courses. All three students said that they preferred having a combination of challenging and easier classes; balance, they said, was the key so that they could avoid too much stress. Alex replied, “focus on the challenging classes and make them fun.” In response to questions about the general rigor of her high school courses, Andrea said that “a few classes are challenging but not all . . . and even in the challenging classes I still have all A’s.” She also mentioned that her friends who attended neighboring schools had much more homework than she did. She then specified, however, that level of interest and engagement was more important to her than the level of rigor. Dana appeared less satisfied with the level of rigor in her classes. She stated, “Before I went to the tech center, I was constantly thinking I wasn’t being pushed enough at [my home school]. Now at the tech center they push us more.” She repeated again during the focus group that the school “does not challenge students as much as it should because I go to a different school and think that the level of intensity [at the tech center] is higher than any other class at the high school.” She also thought that the peers who comprise a class determine its rigor. She mentioned some non-advanced classes that she considered “hard” and “fast-paced” because of the types of students in the classes with her.

One question asked was, “What percentage of your school day do you find yourself genuinely interested and engaged in classroom activities?” Andrea’s answer was 30%. Dana said that if she were at the high school all day it would be about 30%, but because she attended the tech center for half the day, she responded with 60%. Alex responded with the lowest number, saying that he was interested and engaged in classroom activities only 15% to 25% of his school day. He explained, “There seems to be a lot of down time, and it’s not instructional lessons.”

Limitations of the Study

Although the results of this study revealed the general practices of only one school district and therefore cannot be generalized, they do raise questions about the practices of other districts. In how many schools do the staff and counselors realize the pressure placed on high-achieving students? How many teachers value their students’ time by maximizing instructional time, and how many teachers prefer instead to “shop online”? Are AP courses truly taught at a level advanced enough to reflect the rigor of college courses? In how many other schools do students feel engaged and interested less than one third of the day? These questions can only be answered if all stakeholders in education—teachers, counselors, administrators, parents, and students—take an active interest in promoting quality high-ability education and hold themselves and others accountable for their role in the educational process. Only then can we ensure that high-ability students receive the quality of education they deserve.