Identification of gifted students: empirical evidence and practical implications

Abstract

The contribution provides a broad reflection on the practical and theoretical implications of identifying children and adolescents with giftedness, starting from the data of the meta-analysis presented at the Educational Research Conference for Teacher Training held at the University of Perugia in October 2022, whose results were published in the journal School Psychology International (Marsili & Pellegrini, 2022). Identification is an important process for initiating educational and didactic planning for gifted children and adolescents (Subotnik et al., 2011). However, this initial step animates the debate in the entire field of gifted education, as it draws attention to the choice of theoretical and practical aspects such as the definition of giftedness, the identification process, evaluation tools, and methods. The results of the meta-analysis discussed here indicate that the multidimensional approach to giftedness from a theoretical and identification perspective is the most complete but also the most complex and resource-intensive.