Identifying Hispanic gifted children using the Screening Assessment for Gifted Elementary Students

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Psychometrics
• Gifted Education

Background:

• Accurate identification of gifted students is crucial for appropriate educational interventions.
• Existing screening tools may exhibit ethnic bias, impacting equitable identification.
• The Screening Assessment for Gifted Elementary Students (SAGES) is a widely used measure.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the SAGES in identifying gifted Hispanic students.
• To determine if SAGES subscale scores predict ethnic group membership.
• To assess the fairness and psychometric properties of SAGES across ethnic groups.

Main Methods:

• Direct discriminant analysis was used to classify students based on SAGES subscale scores.
• A validation procedure was conducted on an independent sample.
• Multivariate profile analysis compared score differences between ethnic groups.

Main Results:

• SAGES subscale scores did not accurately predict ethnic group membership, misclassifying most Hispanic students as Anglo-American.
• A validation sample yielded similar results, indicating a lack of predictive validity for ethnic group.
• Multivariate analysis revealed minimal score differences and similar cognitive processes assessed across groups.

Conclusions:

• The SAGES appears to function equitably across Anglo-American and Hispanic students.
• Score differences between ethnic groups were small, suggesting the assessment is not biased.
• Further research may explore alternative methods for identifying giftedness in diverse populations.