What is more important for fourth-grade primary school students for transforming their potential into achievement: the individual or the environmental box in multidimensional conceptions of giftedness?

Abstract

Multidimensional models of giftedness specify individual and environmental moderators or catalysts that help transform potential into achievement. However, these models do not state whether the importance of the ‘individual boxes’ and the ‘environmental boxes’ changes during this process. The present study examines whether, during the early stages of talent development, the ‘environmental boxes’ play a more important role than the ‘individual boxes.’ To answer this question, we analyzed individual moderators and environmental moderators of achievement for fourth-grade primary-school students (N = 976). A cluster analysis that included intelligence, achievement, and two individual moderators (motivation and learning behavior) revealed three groups of students, two of which are of particular interest, as they both displayed high intelligence and achievement but differed in their motivation and learning behavior. Questionnaire data on family environment (filled out by parents, N = 682) and school environment (filled out by teachers, N = 47) supported the assumption that among young students an inauspicious set of individual moderators, in this case maladaptive motivation and learning behavior, can be compensated by a sufficiently propitious set of environmental moderators, in this case parents’ and teachers’ learning support, cultural capital within the family, and teachers’ commitment to support their students’ learning.

Keywords:

• multidimensional models of giftedness
• motivation
• learning behavior
• parental involvement
• teacher commitment

Notes

1. In giftedness literature, references are made both to multifactorial and multidimensional models. We refer throughout the multidimensional models in the sense defined by Stoeger (2009, p. 22).

2. The subject is called Heimat- und Sachunterricht in Bavaria, Germany, and deals with basic aspects of everyday life, including topics from biology, geography, physics, health, and social sciences.