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Gifted Education Models and Biography: Developing and Validating an Assessment to Document Student Outcomes — Ann Robinson, Jill L. Adelson, & Keila Moreno

Monday, May 20, 2024, 1:45 – 3:15 pm, Lawrence D. McHugh Hall, Room MCHU 302

Biography appears as an important component in at least three program and curricular models in gifted education: The Autonomous Learner, the School-wide Enrichment Model (SEM-R), and the STEM Starters model. In each model, biography is used as a self-exploration of talents and to show powerful role models through books. To document student responses and to contribute to evidence-based practices in talent development, the Biography Information and Opinions Survey (BIOS) was developed and validated with a sample of 866 elementary students. The BIOS has two parts: Knowledge of Biography and Enjoyment of Biography. Using an expert panel, we matched the items with objectives from a scope and sequence document developed to capture important features of biography as a non-fiction text choice. Through Item Response Theory (IRT) Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Reliability Analyses, we established and report the psychometric properties of the BIOS. The BIOS can be used by researchers to investigate talented students’ understanding and enjoyment of biography and by classroom teachers and gifted education specialists to document outcomes for their gifted education services.