Scenario problem solving: A measure of the quality of gifted students' thinking

Abstract

Teachers continue to face the challenge of identifying efficaciously gifted students' learning capacity in its multiple forms. While most educators acknowledge its multidimensional characteristics, the protocols used to identify it are frequently evaluated as unnecessarily restrictive. This study investigates an assessment tool that could potentially assist in responding to this challenge - the use of scenario problem solving tasks. These tasks present solvers with a scenario of a real world situation that has an embedded problem. A cohort of 357 third to sixth graders completed various conventional tasks used to identify verbal and nonverbal gifted students' learning capacity. As well they ..