Date of Award
Spring 5-9-2015
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (EdD)
Department
Educational Policy Studies
First Advisor
Dr. Janice F. Fournillier
Second Advisor
Dr. Hayward Richardson
Third Advisor
Dr. David L. Cole
Abstract
A great disparity exists between White and minority gifted student identification in states such as Georgia (McBee, 2010). To address equity issues in gifted creativity identification, Georgia teachers need a readily available, easy-to-use, and cost-effective creativity assessment alternative that conforms to the 2012 Georgia Department of Education (GADoE) gifted identification rule. The GADoE encouraged Georgia school districts in 2012 to include the use of products and/or performance tasks as part of the multiple criteria gifted screening process for creativity (Georgia Department of Education, 2014), but little guidance and no financial support was provided. The purpose of this participatory mixed methods action research study (PMARS) was to determine the effectiveness of a newly developed creativity performance task assessment in the gifted screening process compared to the traditional structured creativity assessment titled Profiles of Creative Abilities (PCA).The researcher used subjectivism as the research epistemology and a critical inquiry theoretical perspective to frame the research study. The researcher used a criterion purposive sample of 20 elementary students who were recommended for gifted screening and reflected the school district demographics. The students from one small urban school district completed a new authentic creativity performance task, which the researcher and another gifted specialist developed. The researcher trained gifted teachers from five elementary schools to implement the A&W Buttons Creativity Performance Task with the 20 students. The data collected included student observation and performance Pearson r correlation coefficients for the comparison of student performance on the new A&W Buttons Creativity Performance Task, the Profile of Creative Abilities assessment, and teacher perception interview data on the A&W Buttons Creativity Performance Task. Sixty percent (60%) of the students met gifted creativity characteristics with the A&W Buttons Creativity Performance Task compared to 35% with the PCA. Insignificant zero to weak correlation coefficients were found for student performance on the A&W Buttons Creativity Performance Task and PCA. Males collectively performed higher on the A&W Buttons Creativity Performance Task and lower than females on the PCA; but neither result was significant. All the teachers who participated in the interview held a positive perception of the A&W Buttons Creativity Performance Task.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/7083557
Recommended Citation
Alvarez, Charles, "Addressing Gifted Identification Equity through Alternatives: Assessing Creativity using an Authentic Performance Task." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2015.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/7083557