Screening of indicators for high skills and giftedness to teachers

instrumental development

Abstract

The paper presents the process of building a screening tool for indicators of giftedness to be answered by teachers, as part of a comprehensive process of identification of the phenomenon. The instrument consists of 42 items, referring to behaviors in five areas: general intellectual capacity, specific academic skills, leadership, creativity and artistic talent. The teacher must read each item and judge the intensity with which each behavior represents the evaluated student, choosing one of three alternatives: development below the expected level for the age, level equal to that presented by children of the same age or very characteristic of that child (development above average). It is aimed at evaluating students from the 3rd to the 9th grade of elementary school. A series of studies aimed at investigating the psychometric qualities of the tool have already been conducted and will be presented, in summary form, throughout the work. Among them, there are evidences of construct validity, internal structure, external criteria and external measures, as well as precision through internal consistency. The results obtained so far confirm the adequacy of the scale for the purpose for which it was created, to function as a screening tool for the presence of indicators of high skills / giftedness, which justify the indication of the student for a broader and more thorough evaluation.