Equitably Identifying Gifted Students

Equitably Identifying Gifted Students
By Justin Hill, Johns Hopkins University
In a recent meta-analysis of studies focused on the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT), Lee and colleagues sought to identify the NNAT’s correlation with other intelligence measures and its ability to identify gifted students from traditionally underrepresented groups. The NNAT was specifically chosen as the focus of this meta-analysis because it was developed for the purpose of identifying students from diverse backgrounds for gifted services and is a widely used instrument within the United States. 
 
In this meta-analysis, the NNAT demonstrated a moderate relationship (r = +0.44) with other intelligence measures. Breaking these measures into sub-categories, the test demonstrated a relatively strong relationship (r = +0.68) with academic achievement, but much weaker relationships with other intelligence tests (r = +0.31) and alternative measures (r = +0.20), such as teacher recommendations. The researchers also noted that studies authored by Naglieri (the developer of the NNAT) demonstrated a much stronger relationship with other measures (r = +0.58) compared to studies from other authors (r = +0.32). The researchers suggested the relatively weak correlations between measures provides evidence for the use of multiple measures when identifying students for gifted services.
 
The researchers used a risk ratio (RR) comparing the proportion of underrepresented students identified for gifted services with the proportion of well-represented students identified as a measure of equity for the test. The meta-analysis indicated the NNAT struggles to identify traditionally underrepresented students (RR = 0.42). However, this finding was slightly stronger than previous findings for other nonverbal tests (RR = 0.34) and tests using traditional identification methods (RR = 0.27). The authors concluded that while the NNAT has demonstrated some improvement in identifying underrepresented students for gifted services, existing evidence does not demonstrate that it effectively achieves its purpose of equitably identifying students from diverse backgrounds.

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