Misconceptions About the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test: A Commentary of Concerns and Disagreements

Abstract

Black and Hispanic students are undeniably underidentified as gifted and underrepresented in gifted education. The underrepresentation of the two largest groups of “minority” students is long-standing, dating several decades, and is a serious area of contention. Most debates focus on the efficacy of traditional intelligence tests with verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal scales compared to intelligence tests that are nonverbal when identifying underserved gifted students. Test developers; researchers; federal, state, and local government officials; policymakers; administrators; and educators have debated different solutions to the problem of underrepresentation of minorities in gifted educational programs for decades. Controversies surrounding how to equitably identify these gifted students abound, and arguments are quite polemic and entrenched; nonetheless, in many instances gifted Hispanic and Black students are often disproportionally denied access to gifted education because of the methods and instruments used. In this article, we review a study by Giessman, Gambrell, and Stebbins regarding one Nonverbal Test of General Ability (NNAT2), which has been widely used for identification of gifted non-White students. We address concerns about conclusions raised by Giessman and coauthors and present cautions about the problems involved in reporting archival data.

Keywords:

• Black students
• CogAT
• gifted identification
• gifted underrepresentation
• Hispanic students
• NNAT
• nonverbal tests
• test fairness

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jack A. Naglieri

Jack A. Naglieri, PhD, is Research Professor at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, Senior Research Scientist at the Devereux Center for Resilient Children, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at George Mason University. Dr. Naglieri is the author or coauthor of numerous scholarly papers, books, and tests. His scholarly research includes investigations related to topics such as intellectual disabilities, specific learning disabilities, giftedness, and attention deficit disorder; psychometric studies of tests such as the Wechsler Scales of Intelligence, Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test, Cognitive Assessment System, and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children; examination of race, gender, and ethnic differences in cognitive processing; fair assessment using nonverbal and cognitive processing tests; identification of gifted minorities; IDEA and identification of specific learning disabilities; and cognitively based academic interventions. E-mail: [email protected]

Donna Y. Ford

Donna Y. Ford, PhD, is a professor of special education in the College of Education at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of several books, chapters, and articles that focus on underrepresentation among gifted Black and Hispanic students. Her scholarly foci include closing the achievement gaps; underachievement among gifted Black students; identification and assessment of gifted underrepresented students; addressing social, emotional and psychological development of culturally different students; multicultural counseling; and multicultural and culturally responsive education for gifted students. Dr. Ford consults nationally on recruiting and retaining underrepresented students in gifted education and supporting educators in becoming culturally competent. She is a member of several professional organizations. E-mail: [email protected]