Gifted Students and Self- Determination: Do Gifted Underachievers and Achievers Differ?

What Is Self-Determination? Self-determination is defined as “acting as the primary causal agent in one’s life and making choices and decisions regarding one’s quality of life free from undue external influence or interference” (Wehmeyer, Kelchner, & Richards, 1996, p.22). It consists of the following components: (a) choice-making, (b) problem-solving, (c) decision making, (d) goal setting and attainment, (e) positive attribution of efficacy and outcome expectancy, (f) self-awareness, (g) self- management, (h) leadership skills, (i) internal locus of control, (j) self-knowledge, and (k) self-advocacy (Wehmeyer, Kelchner, & Richards, 1996).

Self-Determined Learning Theory

Research Questions Do gifted underachievers and achievers differ in their capacity and opportunity to self- determine? Do teachers rate self-determination prospects of gifted achievers higher than gifted underachievers?*** Other interesting questions? ***Do we want to look at teachers’ perceptions?

Participants Elementary and middle school gifted students or just gifted middle school students??? High achievers too?

Instrumentation AIR Self-Determination Scale (measures capacity and opportunities to self-determine) School Attitude Assessment Survey-Revised (measures goal valuation, motivation/self- regulation, attitudes toward teachers, attitudes toward school, and academic self-concept) Student-reported GPA Teacher-reported GPA???

Instrumentation Continued SAAS-R (McCoach & Siegle, 2003) – 35 items – 7 point Likert scale (1 strongly disagree to 7 strongly agree) – 15 minutes to administer AIR Scale for Students (Wolman, Campeau, DuBois, Mithaug, & Stolarski, 1994) – Capacity to self-determine subscales, 18 items – Opportunities to self-determine subscales, 12 items – 5 point Likert scale (1 never to 5 always) – Administration Time? 15 minutes?

Instrumentation Continued AIR Scale for Teachers – Capacity to self-determine subscales (18 items) – Opportunity to self-determine subscales (12 items) – Administration time? 15 minutes?

Implementation Teacher or researcher administers the surveys via Qualtrix or paper??? Other ideas so we do not disrupt class time?

Where Do We Go Next? We hopefully will demonstrate that g/t kids and/or g/t underachievers need self-determination skills and the opportunities to demonstrate these skills. Interventions to teach g/t students particular aspects of self-determination (e.g., self-advocacy, goal-setting, self-management)??? Training for teachers on providing g/t students with opportunities to self-determine. Other???