An Interview With Michael Swan

It was a hard, though enjoyable, task to sort out a list often from the large number of interesting questions that weresent in. In some cases several teachers dealt with essentiallythe same topic, which made it particularly difficult to chooseone rather than another. Here is my final selection of the "topten" questions, together with my attempts to answer them.     

Remarkable Trailblazer: An Interview With Jonathan Plucker

The quest for culture‐free or even culture‐fair tests of abilities has not succeeded. In their place, a culture‐specific approach to testing is suggested to identify talent hidden by socioeconomic deprivation. The culture‐specific approach to testing for artistic talent in black students suggested here is “Tactuality.” Tactuality was constructed by finding characteristics common to black cultural strengths and the artistically talented. The four characteristics of Tactuality identified were: emotional intensity, flexibility and open‐endedness, holistic perception, and tactile sensitivity. A Tactuality Test (Tac Test) was devised based on these four characteristics. The Tac Test was pilot tested with 63 fourth‐graders comprising an ethnic mixture. Statistical problems with validation occurred, requiring further statistical analysis and a larger test population.     

A Quest for Knowledge: An Interview With Roland S. Persson

This article describes the CREST (Creative Resources Enriching Student Talents) program's creative arts model for gifted elementary school students. Using Type I, II, and III activities adapted from Renzulli's enrichment triad model, courses in the visual and performing arts using community resources and artists are scheduled to broaden and enhance each child's creativity. The process encompasses both the gifted and talented students for whom art studies are a growth experience. Identification, goals, planning, curriculum design, and management are explained, and evidence of successful Type III projects are documented.     

Groundbreaking Investigator of Creativity: An Interview With James C. Kaufman

The University of Redlands and Redlands Unified School District cooperate to provide a program for gifted 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students. The cooperative venture began as a way to maintain a gifted program in the wake of budget cuts. In three years of operation the program has experimented with scheduling patterns, course offerings, and teacher selections. What has been learned may be of benefit to other districts considering a cooperative university/school district gifted program.     

A Journey Toward Excellence: An Interview With Bruce M. Shore

From a sample of 13,176 children with disabilities who were a part of the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study, 330 students achieved a score at the 90th percentile or higher on the Woodcock-Johnson III. These children represent some 9.1% of children who have disabilities nationally and who might be identified as gifted or academically advanced. Only 11.1% of these students were participating in programs for gifted and talented students with African Americans, Hispanics, or females significantly less likely to participate. The discussion considers the reasons behind these results and possible approaches for identifying and serving students within a current response-to-intervention approach.     

An International Perspective on Gifted Education: An Interview With Kirsi Tirri

Expectancy-value motivation profiles were identified in a sample of US ninth-grade students in 2009 (n = 19,259) using latent profile analysis. Of four distinct profiles, two were high, one typical, and one low in math and in science. In each area, the two high profiles were distinguished by (1) high self-efficacy with lower utility value and (2) high utility value with lower self-efficacy. High-ability was identified by a math score at least one standard deviation above the mean within the race/ethnicity group. Forty-one percent of high-ability students had high math motivation, while only 27% had high science motivation. Evidence of disidentification was observed. Some high-ability students had low motivation in math (15%) and science (28%). Implications for talent development and gifted education are discussed.     

Field of Gifted Dreams: An Interview With Susan Assouline

The characteristics of teachers in a full day program for the gifted were compared with those of teachers in the regular program using the Teacher Perceiver Interview, a structured interview technique which measures 12 characteristics of outstanding teachers. Six of the themes differentiated between the two groups. In comparing the six themes to characteristics of teachers of the gifted found in the literature, some traits which had previously been suggested to be characteristics of gifted teachers were confirmed, some were found not to be different from good teachers in general, and some characteristics not previously noted were found to differentiate teachers of the gifted.     

The Creative Path: An Interview With Dean Keith Simonton

Creativity tests measure specific cognitive processes such as thinking divergently, making associations, constructing and combining broad categories, or working on many ideas simultaneously. They also measure noncognitive aspects of creativity such as motivation (e.g., impulse expression, desire for novelty, risk‐taking), and facilitatory personal properties like flexibility, tolerance for independence, or positive attitudes to differentness. Raters can score the various kinds of test with substantial levels of agreement, while scores are internally stable to an acceptable degree. The tests also correlate to a reasonable degree with various criteria of creativity such as teacher ratings, and are useful predictors of adult behavior. Thus, they are useful in both research and education. However, they are best thought of as measures of creative potential because creative achievement depends on additional factors not measured by creativity tests, such as technical skill, knowledge of a field, mental health, or even opportunity. However, the multidimensional creativity concept they define indicates that assessments should be based on several tests, rather than relying on a single score.     

Strengthening Emotional Development: An Interview With Child Psychiatrist Joan Luby

Metacognition is an important component of advanced intellectual performance and, therefore, has been proposed to be more advanced in intellectually gifted than average children. However, existing research comparing gifted to average children's metacognitive abilities does not support this idea uniformly. Compared to average children, gifted children appear to have generally better declarative metacognitive knowledge and better ability to transfer strategies to situations distinct from those in which the strategy was learned. However, gifted children do not demonstrate consistently better strategy use, maintenance, or near transfer compared to average children. Nor do they display better cognitive monitoring ability compared to average children. Metacognition appears to be important to the development of high achievement in a domain. We argue that metacognitive abilities might be incorporated as additional criteria for entry into programs for the gifted beyond standard intelligence measures. Several identification methods which include metacognitive information are discussed.     

著名哲学家陈来先生访谈录

陈来先生是中国当代著名哲学家、北京大学教授、明清理学，其研究成果代表了目前本领域的世界领先水平。博士生导师。陈来先生的主要研究方向为儒家哲学、宋元康香阁副主编就什么是中国哲学，中国哲学的合法性，中国哲学学科的基本内涵，中国哲学研究的基本方法，中国哲学如何走向世界，20世纪冯友兰、张岱年二位先生的中国哲学研究，宋元明清时代的三大哲学家朱熹、王阳明和王夫之的研究以及《苟子》研究等学术前沿问题与陈来先生进行了访谈。同时还邀请哲学博士杨柱才教授、王楷博士和高海波博士等围绕陈来先生的学术成果撰写了3篇研究论文一同发表，以飨广大读者。     

教学与研究并重:我与教学论——访李定仁先生

李定仁先生投身西北教育50余年,为我国教育事业发展做出了重要贡献,在工作中坚持以教学促进科研,以科研带动教学,为我国教学论专业发展培养了一大批优秀人才。因此我们专访了李定仁先生,与先生就学术研究、研究生培养以及教学论专业发展趋势等方面的看法进行了交流。