Beyond Academics: Examining the Impact of Gifted Programs on Students' Valuation of Education

Abstract

Gifted and talented programs, which provide students identified as gifted with differentiated instruction, are a widespread and decades-old solution for providing children of varying academic needs with an appropriately challenging curriculum. Though they are common throughout the United States—49 states provide gifted services for students, and there are an estimated 3.3 million gifted students in schools throughout the country—in recent years, experts and policymakers have begun to question if gifted programs are truly beneficial to students. While research on the impact of gifted programs on students’ academic outcomes has been conducted for many years, yielding mostly positive results for gifted instruction, gifted programs are facing increased pushback due to the potentially harmful effects of “tracking” students by ability group, as well as their underrepresentation of minority students. Academic tracking, some critics argue, is detrimental to students in lower ability groups, and of particular concern when those students left behind are more likely to be racial minorities. When considering whether gifted programs serve students well, however, more than just academic outcomes must be considered. Less is known about the psychological and emotional impact of these programs on students, but it is critical that we understand these potential effects to make decisions about whether placing some students in gifted programs, as young as elementary school, is an advisable practice. This study utilizes data from the ECLS-K database, a longitudinal study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics of a nationally representative sample of children, to examine the potential relationship between being placed in a gifted program in elementary school and how much a student values their grades in middle school, adding to the relatively small amount of research available on the psychological impact of gifted programs. The results indicate that elementary school gifted programs have a small, positive impact on gifted-eligible students, slightly increasing the likelihood that they report their grades are very important to them in middle school. Other factors, however, including how highly a student’s parents and friends value grades, seem to have a much larger impact on students’ own valuation of education. While these results are favorable for offering gifted instruction in elementary school and provide some evidence that such programs have a positive impact on students’ attitudes toward their education, more research on the topic is needed.