| The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' theories of giftedness using methods adapted from those used by to study theory-based reasoning in categorization research. This study sought to answer the following questions about the reasoning behind teachers' nominations of students for gifted programs: (a) Do elementary school classroom teachers use theory-based reasoning, as described by the causal status effect in classification, when nominating students for gifted programs? (b) Is there consistency in the theories/beliefs about giftedness between and among teachers with different levels of expertise in gifted education? (c) What is the structure and content of teachers' theories/beliefs about giftedness? (d) Is there a difference in the structure and content of theories/beliefs about giftedness between teachers with varying levels of expertise in gifted education? (e) What differences exist, if any, between teachers with different levels of expertise in gifted education in the inclusion of culturally diverse characteristics of giftedness in their theories of giftedness? and (f) What differences exist, if any, between the expertise groups in their judgments of culturally diverse students? The sample was 60 elementary classroom teachers with varying degrees of expertise in gifted education. Statistical analyses as well as inductive qualitative analyses were used to answer the research questions.; The teachers in this study did not demonstrate theory-based reasoning as described by the causal status effect in their judgments of hypothetical student profiles. In general, the teachers in this study focused on traditional characteristics of giftedness and did not tend to include characteristics associated with diverse gifted students in their theories of giftedness. Comparisons of teachers with greater and lesser degrees of expertise in gifted education indicated that there were no significant differences between the groups. However, there was also little consistency among the teachers in their representations of the causal links among different characteristics of giftedness in their theories, suggesting that all elementary classroom teachers do not define common characteristics of giftedness in the same way.; Recommendations for further research include more focus on critical analysis of individual teachers' beliefs in course and in-services for teachers seeking expertise in gifted education, continuation of this line of research with more diverse samples of teachers, and modification to the procedures used to measure theory-based reasoning in order to better model and measure teachers' reasoning processes. |
