Validity Evidence of The HOPE Scale in Korea: Identifying Gifted Students From Low-Income and Multicultural Families

Abstract

The underrepresentation of students from low-income families and of culturally diverse students is a longstanding and pervasive problem in the field of gifted education. Teachers play an important role in equitably identifying and serving students in gifted education; therefore, the Having Opportunities Promotes Excellence (HOPE) Scale was used in this study with a sample of Korean elementary school teachers (n = 55) and their students (n = 1,157). Confirmatory factor analysis and multigroup confirmatory factor analysis results suggested the HOPE Scale shows equivalence of model form, factor loading, and factor variances across different income and ethnic groups. A follow-up interview with teachers (n = 6) revealed they acknowledged the importance of using the HOPE Scale as an additional method for identifying gifted students; however, they indicated less confidence about rating gifted students’ social characteristics compared with academic components in the HOPE Scale.