Equitable Assessment of Gifted Students Using the Naglieri General Ability Tests

Abstract

Even though it is well documented that Black, Hispanic, Native American students have been denied access to gifted education for decades, injustice continues. The authors present research showing that traditional IQ tests with their verbal and quantitative questions contribute to under-representation because they yield large differences for students of color. Some (e.g., NNAT), but not all, nonverbal tests help but verbal and quantitative content is omitted. The authors suggest that students of color who are intellectually capable (gifted) but perhaps not talented (knowledgeable) could be more equitably evaluated if the verbal comprehension of instructions and verbal and quantitative knowledge were taken out of the tests used for identification. Research evidence is provided which shows that the Naglieri General Ability Tests: Verbal, Nonverbal, and Quantitative, which have nonverbal directions, do not demand knowledge acquired at school and do not require verbal response yield small differences by gender, race, ethnicity, and parental education.