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Development and Validation of Giftedness Assessment Instrument (GAI) for the Identification of Creative –Productive Giftedness ability

INTRODUCTION

Every society, and every school (formal or non-formal) within it, has its own gifted and talented persons. Across cultures and over period in history, such gifted and talented persons have been recognized either through their significantly outstanding positive contributions to society or for some spectacular achievements or positive behavioural manifestation. Children are said to be gifted if their cognitive powers, when developed qualify them to become high level innovators, evaluators, problem solvers, leaders or perpetuators in the complex society in which they live (Oghounu & Oniyama, 2004). They are said to be talented if in the process of doing things, evidences of positive exceptionality and creativity is manifested (Onu, 2002). Sometimes, it is difficult to separate or even distinguish between the two terms since often; one connotes the other (Anih, 2001).

Most countries of the world deliberately and systematically identify and nurture such of their children who are of high intellectual ability. Those who show evidences of exceptional performance or demonstrate very high degree of creativity, memory, motivation, physical dexterity or psycho-motor ability, social adeptness or leadership ability, aesthetic sensitivity or pronounced ability in visual and performing arts, or who demonstrate potential ability in any of these areas (Senate, 1988).

Often times, some of such countries are jolted into action by specific instances or factors like the sputnik which shocked America, or Israel finding herself in the desert or Japan after the Second World War, or Korea after some unfavourable experiences or even some countries planning to dominate world sports and gymnastics (Yoloye, 1986).

Nigeria is anxious to take-off technologically to revamp her economy and improve over-all standards of life and living for the generality of her citizens. The decision therefore to identify Nigerian children who by virtue of outstanding ability are capable of High performance is of paramount importance. Onu (2002) opines that children thus identified require differentiated educational programmes, experiences and services beyond those normally provided by the regular school programme.

However, the development and recognition of giftedness in children started to be of major concern to the Federal Government of Nigeria within the last two decades (Anih, 2001). The National Policy on Education (2004) recognized the existence of the gifted and talented individuals by emphasizing that:

People (children and adult) who have/posses very high intelligence quotient (IQ) and are naturally endowed with special traits (in arts, creativity, music, leadership, intellectual precocity, etc.) and therefore find themselves insufficiently, challenged by the regular school/college/university programmes (p. 47-48).

The policy further enumerated that “opportunities should be provided for exceptionally gifted and talented children to develop their talents, natural endowments/traits at their own pace in the interest of the nation’s economic and technological developments”.

In  the continued efforts of the Federal Government to see the gifted and talented through in her educational system, “an operation catch the genius” was launched in 1982 with the help of Aminu – the Federal Minister of Education at that time (Makinde, 1998). The Minister clearly stated that the purpose of the policy was to ensure that children in Nigeria were not neglected any longer. This policy was buttressed by the establishment of the Suleja Academy for the Gifted and Talented which took off on the 25th of May 1990 (Omoegun, 1998).

Silverman (2003) opines that Giftedness is like developmental delay, which must be identified in children as early as possible. According to her, early intervention is essential for optimal development. She further states that “Gifted four or five year olds are mentally like six or seven year olds, and usually have excellent attention spans, so this is an ideal time for testing”. In Nigeria, selection into the gifted programme is done at primary six levels which fall within the average age of 12 years, according to the Blue print on Education of the Gifted and Talented (1986), it is the ideal age when the children must have finished primary school and are about to start secondary school.

However, the task of identifying the gifted and talented children has become a growing concern for our Nations public and private school systems. For years, our society has judged intelligence on performance records and equated high grades with high intellect. Even though many educators and researchers long realized that many of our brightest students are not necessarily the “A” students. Apart from this, some current definitions of giftedness have also grown out of the awareness that IQ alone does not define all the possible areas of giftedness. Some people have advanced talents in socially valued endeavours that cannot be measured by intelligence tests. Intelligence tests are as Guilford (1985) suggests “only a small sample of intellectual activity in limited areas of human endeavour”.

 The concept of giftedness has also expanded in recent times to include many talents that have contributed substantially to the quality of life for both individual and society (Robinson, 2003). For instance, the contributions of gifted individuals such as William Jerferson, Philip Emeagwali,Wole Soyinka to mention but a few have called for the re-definition of what makes giftedness and how to identify the “real gifted persons for placement in the special programmes. Since our main challenge as educators in Nigeria is to create the conditions that convert potentials into performance, it is pertinent therefore to identify the creative – productive gifted persons, by the use of proper identification instrument (Renzulli, 2005).

Renzulli (2005) conceptualized creative – productive giftedness as the cluster of three – interlocking abilities namely, above average, creativity and task commitment /motivation. He further explain that gifted and talented children are those possessing or capable of developing this composite set of traits and applying them to any potentially valuable area of human performance.

  Fig: 1                        RENZULLI’S Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness    

 

The above clusters of abilities focused on the cognitive and non-cognitive/ affective domains of educational objective. Unfortunately, all the instruments used in Nigeria and abroad to identify gifted children have been focusing on the cognitive domain which is based on intelligence test and observation with rating scales by teachers.

Of recent, the Bloom’s taxonomy of Educational Objectives has been expanded to include the sixth one which is creativity. This can only be assessed properly by the use of attitude scales. Depending on observations also is not reliable as Nigerian teachers cannot be visiting homes to observe, nor to keep accurate record of their observations (Obe & Nna, 2004). They reliable approach is through the use of attitude scales, they affirmed.

Aiken & Groth-Marnat (2006) opine that one of the affective variables that has received a great deal of research attention is attitude scale. Allport as cited by Obe & Nna (2004), defined attitude as a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive and dynamic influence upon an individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related. Ramsden (1998) also sees attitude as the cognitive, emotional and action tendency components, because it is this action- tendency that leads to particular behavioural intents.

An overview of the gifted programme currently going on in Nigeria seems that the children have not made any impact in the society like their other counterparts in the USA, Canada, UK and Israel, despite the entire amount spent on the programme (Onu, 2002, Anih, 2001). The reason also seems to be based on the fact that the “real” gifted- creative- productive persons are left out as a result of over- reliance on cognitive ability/ intelligence test only in the selection process. This is akin to Renzulli’s (2005) definition that giftedness is made up of three inter locking clusters of ability namely above average (cognitive ability), creativity and task commitment/motivation, with their underlining attributes. The cognitive ability test currently in use is measuring only two attributes (verbal and numerical (quantitative) aptitude among all other attributes enumerated by Renzulli’s (2005) conception of giftedness. Secondly, the length and complexity of administration, scoring and interpretation make its use difficult for teachers and career masters with little sophistication in psychometrics.

Moreover, percentile norms are used for the selection process of the gifted .Unfortunately, percentile ranks are unequal score units and also ordinal- level rather than interval measures, hence, the units are not equal on all parts of the scale. The fact that percentile rank units bunch up in the middle and spread out at the extremes of the scale causes difficulty in the interpretation of changes and differences in the transformed scores (Aiken & Groth-Marnat, 2006)

The other two clusters of giftedness (creativity and task commitment / motivation are totally neglected as selection measures. Although, some scales have been developed by psychologists to measure creativity and task commitment / motivation, its application to the selection criteria for the gifted programme is yet to be effected by stakeholders. Similarly, this scale did not also cover all the attributes of creative-productive giftedness, as enumerated by Renzulli (2005). Even for use outside African context, some other properties which call for urgent revision of these present instruments include their considerable length which makes their uses rather time-consuming and method of scoring which is rather cumbersome, for the gifted programme. It is in the light of these numerous problems that the present instrument is being developed with the use of factor analysis.

The theoretical underpinning of the measurement of creative-productive giftedness is that the use of non-cognitive factors like creativity and task commitment are as important as the ability to process information, reason analytically, understand spatial relations and think conceptually that is associated with the use of intelligence/cognitive test. This means that giftedness must incorporate non- academic or non- cognitive components and also the interaction of extraordinary character traits and the socio-cultural adaptive skills that appear to be essential to it.

 The traditional method of identification of giftedness relied solely on intelligence tests with evidence from the works of Terman 1925, Getzels & Jackson (1962), Witty (1958) and Dehaan (1962). A review of the literature shows that most of the intelligence tests used for instance Wechsler intelligence test for children (WISC-iv), Wechsler (2003) has four indices namely verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory and processing speed.  The Slosson’s Intelligence Test (SIT) for children and Adults Slosson (1985) which measures the general intelligence and the Differential Ability Scales (DAS) which is found particularly useful with visual – spatial children (Silverman 2003). The Gifted Children Education screening examination paper 1&2 (English, and verbal and Mathematics and quantitative) (NECO 2005) have four subsections of 80 items. The main demerits of I.Q tests of this nature, is that they underestimate children’s abilities rather than overestimating them.

Secondly, these tests are cumbersome to administer, they require training and expertise to do so, and the time for administration is rather long as a result of which testees sometimes feel bored and disinterested in the exercise. The use of IQ tests for identification was partially remedied in tests like Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) (Torrance 1998), Scales of Rating the Behavioual Characteristics of Superior Students (SRBCSS) (Renzulli 2004), Ibadan Creative Assessment Scale (ICAS) (Akinboye 1979).

 

Although, these tests measure creativity which is an aspect of giftedness, they have their own problems. For instance, SRBCSS requires only the teacher’s ratings which may be subjective. ICAS has 5 subsections and 75 items; TTCT has 4 sub sections and 72 items. The gifted children education programme screening examination I & II has 2 sections each with 80 multiple choice questions on each. The numerous items in these tests and the lengthy time it takes to complete them makes them unsuitable as tests that can be used for quick screening for the identification of gifted children for placement in a gifted programme. Secondly, these tests are each measuring an aspect of giftedness which is either creativity (affective) or above average ability (cognitive).

Another aspect of the literature review is in respect of effort that has been made to use multiple criteria approach for identification of gifted children in Nigeria Blue print on the identification of the gifted and Onu (2002).

1.  Even though a lot of instruments were developed to discover the cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics of the gifted. For instance, standardized tests, test of special abilities, cumulative school History, teachers information questionnaire, peer observation technique and pupils’ checklist. The basic assumption of the authors is that pupils who scored 80 percent   and above in all these measures put together should be rated as gifted. The focus of the above multiple measures were rather narrow as the instruments did not go through proper validation and standardization process (Fakolade, 2006). Moreover, Nigeria is still over relying on the use of intelligence test only which is just an aspect of giftedness.

These numerous problems of the various cognitive and non cognitive instruments for the identification of giftedness are the main challenges that have been tackled in the development of Giftedness Assessment Instrument (GAI). The GAI is integration, of cognitive and non-cognitive measures. The cognitive aspect covers the characteristics of above average ability which is one of the domains of giftedness and the non-cognitive measures dealt with the affective (creativity and Task commitment /motivation) domains of giftedness respectively (Renzulli 2005).

The main purpose of developing and validating GAI is to produce a reliable and valid   instrument that will possess these characteristics by Renzulli (2005) for the identification of creative-productive giftedness ability among Basic six school pupils. To achieve this objective using a large enough sample size as well as minimising the short comings of the existing instruments that have been enumerated. It is therefore hypothesised that GAI will have adequate psychometric properties.

                                                  Methodology

Participants

The participants for the study were 600(males=275, females =325) in the age of 9-13 (mean=12.24,S.D=1.94) years randomly selected from both public and private primary schools in Lagos state. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select four schools (two public and two private) from each educational district in Lagos, while intact classes were adopted for the study in order not to eliminate the target group-creative-productive gifted persons. The locations of the schools cut across all the local Governments in the state.

INSTRUMENTATION

The following instruments were used to obtain relevant data for the study.

(1)              Above average/Cognitive ability  test (GAI-1)

(2)              Creative  ability scale (GAI – 2)

(3)              Task Commitment/Motivation Scale (GAI – 3)

(4)              Gifted Children Education Programme Screening Examination (2005) paper I (Mathematics and Quantitative aptitude)

(5)              Gifted children Education Programme screening Examination (2005) paper 2 (English language and Verbal Aptitude).

(6)              Answer sheet (OMR form)

(7)               Lagos State (2007) Primary Six Mock Examination in Aptitude test and General Paper / Civic

(8)              Ibadan Creativity Assessment Scale (ICAS)

(9)              Ibadan Task Commitment/Motivation Scale (ITCMS)

(10)         Mathematics Attitude Scale (MAS)

Above Ability/Cognitive test (GAI-1): It is the first component of GAI. It is a 40-item multiple choice aptitude test designed by the researcher and her supervisors, to measure the cognitive ability of the participants. It has five options lettered A-E, testees are expected to choose the letter that bears the answer to the question. They are allowed 20 minutes to finish the test.   It is presently going through a process of validation.

Creative Ability Scale (GAI -2). It is the second component of GAI made up of a 22 – item inventory also designed by the researcher and her supervisors, to measure the pupil’s creative ability. It yields scores on a 4-point responds format ranging from 1-4. The scale is also going through a process of validation.

Task commitment/Motivation scale: This is the third component of GAI measure that comprises of a 21-item inventory designed by the researcher and her supervisors to measure the pupil’s motivation and competent ability in pursuing a certain task. It is also a self rating scale that yields score on a 4-point responds format ranging from 1-4. It is also a section of the newly constructed instrument going through the process of validation.

Gifted – Children’s screening examination Paper I & II

This examination was designed by the National  Examination Council of Nigeria (NECO 2005), to identify the pupils that are gifted for placement in the Gifted Children’s Academy in Suleja.It consists of an 80-item multiple choice aptitude test respectively for  both mathematics and quantitative in paper I and English and verbal aptitude in paper II. The time allocated for the examinations is 1 ½ hours respectively. NECO reported a three week test-retest reliability coefficient of 0.88 and 0.85 respectively. It has an internal consistency of 0.87.

Scoring: Each question carries 1 mark for the 80 questions. The test scores for each testee is converted into percentile and the highest score in the percentile rank is regarded as gifted and is admitted into the school for the gifted and talented in Suleja. The aim of using this test is to determine its construct validity with the GAI-1.

Answer sheet: This is an OMR form, designed to be used by the pupils to supply the answers to the multiple choice questions. They are three types- the form used for the GAI-I test contains 40-items with 5 options A-E while the form for the screening and mock examinations contain 80-items with 5 options A-E and 50 –items respectively. The pupils are expected to use HB pencil to shade the correct answer, since the OMR is being scored by the computer. The form is divided into two sections; section A contains the pupil’s demographic information while section B contains the options.

 Basic Six Mock Examinations 2007 (General paper):   This is made up of a 50-item multiple choice aptitude test and also a 50-item multiple choice questions in general knowledge/civic developed by the Lagos State Examination Board. The first test is specifically designed to measure the pupils aptitude in Mathematics, quantitative, English, verbal aptitude and vocational aptitude. The developers obtained a test-retest reliability of 0.82 and an internal consistency of 0.88 with Cronbach’s alpha method. The second part of the mock examination is testing the pupil’s knowledge of the world around them. The test developers also obtained a test-retest reliability of 0.73 and an internal consistency of 0.86 with Cronbach’s alpha method.

Scoring: Each test type has a total score of 100% with 2 marks for each correct answer. The total score is calculated by multiplying the overall correct answers by 2.

Ibadan Creativity Assessment Scale (ICAS): This is a self-rating attitude scale designed by Akinboye (1979) to assess an individuals’ degree of creativity. The scale has four subsections namely: ideative fluency, flexibility, originality and task motivation. It is a 75-item inventory with 9-point scale. Akinboye reported a test-retest reliability of 0.79 and internal consistency with coefficient alpha of 0.76.

Scoring:  It yields a 9-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (totally unlike me) to 9 (very much like me).It has both   direct and reverses scoring method. Mathematics Attitude Scale (MAS): It was developed by Obe (2002) to measure an individuals’ attitude towards mathematics. It consists of 30-items that yield scores on a 5-point Likert scale. Obe (2002) recorded a high stability coefficient of 0.79 and Cronbach’s coefficient alpha ranging between 0.76 to 0.82.

Scoring: Scoring of the instruments was by assigning 5,4,3,2 and 1 for positively stated items. The points were also awarded in the reversed order for negatively stated items.

 Development of the Instrument The development of GAI started by item selection based on the attributes and theories of Giftedness. For GAI-1 an initial pool of 64 items were generated. These items were then assessed for face and content validity with the help of experts in measurement and evaluation and psychology including the supervisors of this work. Based on the recommendation of these individuals some items were removed and others revised or reworded, as a result of which the number of items was pruned down to 50.

The draft of the instrument was then written out on a five option multiple choice test designed to measure the aptitude of the respondents. It was then administered to a selected sample of 100 male and 100 female Basic six pupils from Owerri-Imo state for the initial pilot study. The test was scored according to the provision in the manual and the scores were subjected to item analysis. In the item analysis, items whose index ranges from 0.5 and 0.9 are selected as good, while those having below 0 and 0.4 were eliminated as bad items (Ilogu, (1994) & Doran, (1980). This brought the final test to 40 items. A table of specification was also used in the construction of the test which also indicates the content validity of GAI.

         Table 1: Table of specification for GAI-1

Content / behaviour objectives

Weight

Knowledge

Comprehension

Application

Analysis

Synthesis

Evaluation

Total

 

 

30%

20%

15%

15%

14%

6%

100%

Abstract thinking

30%

9, 3, 4

 

2,8,34

 

1,7

 

-

 

36

 

6

 

10

Verbal reasoning

24%

10,11,12,13

 

14, 36

 

15, 17

 

16

 

18

 

-

10

Numerical reasoning

18%

19,24,25,

 

20

 

22

 

23

 

-

21

 

7

Special reasoning

14%

35, 32,33

 

30

 

-

29

 

26,28

 

-

8

Vocational Aptitude

14%

39,37,5

 

-

40

 

27

 

-

38

 

6

Total

100%

17

7

6

4

4

3

40

 

Scoring: There is no special rule in the scoring of GAI-1.The whole test carries 40 marks of 1 mark for each correct answer. A participant’s overall score is calculated by counting the total number of right answers. The higher the score, the higher the possession of above average ability. 

The development of creative Ability scale (GAI-2) also followed the same process; an initial pool of 48 items was generated and given for assessment by experts. This was also reduced to 22 items after item analysis. The draft was also written with 4-point Likert scale response from 1-4 which is generally accepted format for instruments designed to measure attitudes.

Scoring: The total score was obtained by reversing the values of items 2, 4,6,9,12,14,17,20,21 and using direct scoring for the remaining items. The sum of the reverse and direct score items gave a participant’s overall score in GAI-2.The higher the score, the higher the possession of a creative ability by the individual.

 Development of the third section of the GAI also followed the same method, after generating an initial pool of 45 items which was given to experts for assessment. The items were reduced to the final draft of 21.

Scoring: The total score was also obtained by reversing the values of items 2, 4,7,9,10,14,17,19,21 and using direct scoring for the remaining items. The sum of the reverse and direct score items gave a participant’s overall score in GAI-3.The higher the score, the higher the possession of a task commitment/motivation ability by the individual.

 

                 Procedure

 The first set of the instruments comprising the GAI were administered to them. The second day, the Gifted Children Screening test was administered to them in the morning period, the afternoon period was used for ICAS, ITCAS and MAS.The third and last day was used for the Mock Examination. As a sort of reinforcement and also to sustain their interest and continued presence for the duration of the exercise, the researcher brought a lot of refreshment which was shared after each section of the test. The pupils were happy and each time promised to participate in the next session The well-behaved ones were given cash rewards as a sort of encouragement to others.

      Data Analysis and Presentation of Results

 The data obtained in this study were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) programme to compute for mean, standard deviation, standard scores, Cronbach’s alpha, correlation coefficients as well as factor analysis by principal factoring with iteration.

Norms: To obtain norms for the measure of creative-productive giftedness (GAI), the three components were administered to the participants. Mean scores, standard deviation and standard scores (Z-score to T-score) obtained across gender and type of school under the normal testing condition were computed as the local norm.

 

 

 

Table 2: Mean scores, Standard Deviation of the participants on GAI

Sex

Descriptive statistics

GAI-I

GAI-2

GAI-3

Male

Mean

SD

N

19.88

5.30

275

74.78

7.63

275

54.12

7.65

275

Female

Mean

SD

N

21.17

5.40

325

74.65

7.05

325

56.03

7.58

325

Total

Mean

SD

N

20.54

5.40

600

74.71

7.31

600

55.15

7.67

600

Type of school

Descriptive statistics

GAI-I

GAI-2

GAI-3

Public

Mean

SD

N

17.43

4.4

350

74.02

7.1

350

53.56

7.3

350

Private

Mean

SD

N

24.9

3.4

250

75.67

7.5

250

57.39

7.7

250

Total

Mean

SD

N

20.54

5.4

600

74.71

7.31

600

55.15

7.7

600

 

 

 

The descriptive data presented in Table 3 indicates that females recorded higher scores in the GAI-I and GAI-3 while males recoded higher scores in GAI-2. Consequently, the pupils in private schools recorded higher scores than their public school counterparts.

To further enhance the interpretation of norms for the GAL-1, the raw scores of the participants were grouped and converted to standard scores (T-score) as presented in table 3.

Table 3: T-score Norms for GAL-1 (N=600)

CLASS INTERVAL

X

F

Z - SCORE

T – SCORE

7-9

8

5

-2.3

27

10-12

11

65

-1.7

33

13-15

14

57

1.2

38

16-18

17

87

-0.6

44

19-21

20

118

-0.1

49

22-24

23

95

0.5

55

25-27

26

127

1.0

60

28-30

29

42

1.6

68

31-33

32

5

2.1

71

 

Table 3 indicates that T - Scores of 60-71 fall above the mean scores. The T – Score is useful in order to enable a layperson to understand the scores and for easy interpretation to the parents (Nwadinigwe, 2002).

In order to determine the reliability coefficient of the GAI, a two week test – retest with Pearson product moment statistical technique, Cronbach’s Alpha for internal consistency and split – half were computed.

Table 4: Reliability Coefficient of GAL Components

GAI COMPONENTS

 

N

 

X1

 

X2

 

Sd1

 

Sd2

 

r

Cronbach’s

alpha

Split- half

GAI – 1

200

29.17

28.40

4.83

5.35

0.89

0.94

0.89

GAI – 2

200

66.56

65.68

7.41

9.28

0.78

0.87

0.86

GAI – 3

200

61.42

60.97

6.26

7.21

0.84

0.86

0.78

*Significant at P<.05 df 198 r crit. = 0.139

The result in table 6: Shows that GAL has a significant high test- retest and internal consistency reliability coefficient, with GAI – I having r = 0.89, Alpha of 0.94 and split – half reliability coefficient of 0.89, respectively. GAI – 2 recorded a remarkable value of r = 0.78, alpha of 0.87 and split – half reliability coefficient of 0.86 especially, while the analysis also produced for GAI -3 an alpha coefficient of 0.86, r of 0.84 and split – half of 0.78.

In order to determine the concurrent and discriminant validity of GAI, Pearson Product movement statistics was used to correlate the scores of the 600 participants in the three components of GAI and other psychological measures (criterion) as indicated in table 6.

 

 

 

 

Table 5: Intercorelation matrix of GAI Components and other measures (Criterion).

 

GAI-1

GAI-2

GAI-3

Mock (Aptitude test)

ICAS

MAS

GCSE-1

GCSE-2

IBTCMAS

 

Mock(General knowledge/civic)

GAI-1

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GAL-2

.129**

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GAL-3

.251**

.038

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mock (Aptitude test)

.823**

.153**

.235**

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

ICAS

.151**

.679**

.306**

.116**

1

 

 

 

 

 

MAS

-.074

-.085*

-.009

-.080

.033

1

 

 

 

 

GCSE-1

.203**

.145**

.075

.191**

.247**

-.010

1

 

 

 

GCSE-2

.361**

.103*

.148**

.296**

.197**

.041

.474**

1

 

 

IBTCMAS

.148**

.183**

.646

.166**

.297**

-.085

.146**

.111**

1

 

Mock(General knowledge/civic)

.123**

.035

.056**

.265**

.171**

.018

.121**

.189**

.026

1

**  Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

The above table indicates that the components of GAI have significant relationships with other convergent and divergent criterions.

Factorial Validity: To determine the factorial validity of GAI the technique of principal component analysis with iteration was used to factor analyse the scores of 200 participants as indicated in table 6.

Table 6: Initial Eignevalues of the extracted Factors of GAI – 1.

COMPONENTS     

TOTAL

% OF VARIANCE 

CUMULATIVE %

1.

5.16

12.90

12.90

2

5.86

12.15

25.05

3

3.21

8.06

33.11

4.

2.79

6.97

40.08

5.

2.64

6.61

46.69

6.

1.91

4.77

51.45

7.

1.73

4.39

63.32

8.

1.67

4.17

59.94

9.

1.36

3.39

63.32

10.

1.34

3.35

66.68

11.

1.25

3.12

69.78

12.

1.03

2.57

72.38

 

Evidence from table 6: Shows that the analysis extracted 12 component factors that conformed to Kaiser’s Criterion by each having eigenvalues greeter than one before rotation. The result also shows that the 12 factors accounted for 72.38% of the total variance.

The extracted factors were maximized using varimax rotation. Using Burt-Bank formula to determine significant factor loading, 5 factors were extracted that conformed to Kaiser’s criterion and Thurnston’s principle as indicated in table 7.

Table 7: Names, Eigenvalues and Percentages of variances of Varimax – Rotated Orthogonal Factors of GAI - 1.

FACTORS

NAME

EIGENVALUE

%  OF Variance

CUMULATIVE %

1.

Abstract Reasoning

4.64

11.59

11.59

2.

Verbal Reasoning

4.53

11.33

22.93

3.

Numerical Reasoning

3.59

8.97

31.89

4.

Spatial Reasoning

3.17

7.92

39.82

5.

Vocational Aptitude

2.75

6.92

46.69

 

The result shows that 46.69% of the total variance was accounted for by the 5 factors. The factors were named on the basis of the items which significantly loaded or distinctively clustered on each factor.

Table 8: Initial Eigenvalues of the extracted component of GAI – 2

 FACTORS

EIGENVALUE

%  OF Variance

CUMULATIVE %

1

2.45

11.15

11.15

2

2.06

9.34

20.49

3

1.93

8.76

29.28

4

1.80

8.19

37.47

5

1.42

6.45

43.92

6

1.29

5.89

49.82

7

1.19

5.40

55.22

8

1.097

4.99

60.22

 

This table indicates that the analysis for GAI-2 extracted 8 component factors that conformed to Kaiser’s Criterion by each having eigenvalues greater than one before rotation. The result also shows that the 8 factors accounted for 60.22% of the total variance. The extracted factors were maximized using varimax rotation. Using Burt-Bank formula to determine significant factor loading, 7 factors were extracted that conformed to Kaiser’s criterion and Thurnston’s principle as indicated in table 9.

 

 

Table 9: Names, Eigenvalues and Percentages of variances of Varimax – rotated orthogonal factors of GAI-2.

FACTORS

NAMES

EIGENVALUES

% OF VARIANCE 

%

CUMULATIVE 

1

Fluency

2.00

9.09

9.09

2

Flexibility

1.80

8.19

17.29

3

Originality

1.79

8.16

25.46

4

Curiosity

1.73

7.85

33.31

5

Speculative

1.71

7.79

41.09

6

Adventurous

1.59

7.20

48.29

7

Elaboration

1.52

6.92

55.22

 

Table 9 shows that 55.22% of the total variance was accounted for, and seven factors were extracted that conformed to Kaiser’s Criterion and Thurnston’s principle. Hence, the factors were named on the basis of the items which significantly loaded or clustered on each factor.

Table 10:  Initial Eigenvalues of the extracted component of GAI – 3

FACTORS

EIGENVALUES

%  OF Variance

CUMULATIVE %

1

2.07

9.87

9.87

2

1.76

8.37

18.24

3

1.63

7.77

26.01

4

1.56

7.55

33.56

5

1.33

6.35

39.91

6

1.18

5.61

45.52

7

1.14

5.41

50.93

8

1.04

4.97

55.90

 

Evidence from table 10 shows that the analysis for GAI -3 extracted 8 component factors that conformed to Kaiser’s Criterion by each having eigenvalues greater than one before rotation. The result also shows that the factors accounted for 55.90% of the total variance.

The extracted factors were maximized using varimax rotation. Using Burt – Bank formula to determine significant factor loading, 7 factors were extracted that conformed to Kaiser’s Criterion and Thurnston’s principle. The result is presented in table 11.

 

    Table 11: Names, Eigenvalues and Percentages of variances of Varimax – rotated orthogonal factors of GAI-3.

FACTORS

NAMES

EIGENVALUES

% OF VARIANCE 

%

CUMULATIVE 

1

Interest

1.70

8.10

8.10

2

Enthusiasm

1.61

7.69

15.79

3

Fascination

1.55

7.38

23.17

4

Perseverance

1.49

7.08

30.25

5

Endurance 

1.49

7.07

37.33

6

Determination

1.45

6.91

44.24

7

Self-confidence

 1.41

6.69

50.93

 

The result in table 11 shows that 50.93% of the total variance was accounted for by the 7 factors. Hence, the factors were named on the basis of the items which significantly loaded or clustered on each factor.

                 DISCUSSION

The results, which are basically the psychometric properties of GAI, reflect the extent to which it is a reliable and valid measure of creative-productive Giftedness. The norms in Table 2 indicate the cut-off points for evaluating the relative potentials of individual participants and hence the performance level for decision making in recruitment and screening of pupils (Omoluabi, 2006).  The importance of the norms lies in the fact that such decision making is not arbitrary but one that is based on objective criterion. This view therefore negates the common practice of arbitrary taking 80% performance as the criterion for decision making when the cognitive test only was adopted for the recruitment of students into the Gifted Academy. A norm therefore represents an equitable value of the relative performance of all the participants in the standardization sample.

The reliability coefficient obtained: Cronbach alpha, test retest and split –half are both high and significant (p <.05) and thereby confirming the hypothesis stated. This result is in consonance with Aiken (2006) who affirmed that the acceptable reliability coefficient of a new test must not be less than .70.

In respect of the validity of GAI, the result in Table 5 shows that its components have very high convergent validity coefficient with different related criterions and expected direction (negative) divergent validity coefficient with non-related measures (criterion).The low value is expected because it shows that GAI components and these measures are not related eventhough the are both cognitive and attitude measures (Anastasi & Urbina, 2004).The abilities required to perform GAI-1 are very different from those required for GAI-2 or ICAS.The fact that a modicum of relationship between GAL components and other measures may be due to the similarity in the abilities required for the subscales.

  

Tables 6-11 reported the factorial validity of GAI with factor analysis. The 5, 7 and 7 orthogonal factors extracted by the different GAI components indicate that similar items or those describing similar manifestations are grouped together. The factors may be regarded as different domains of creative- productive giftedness as contained in the GAI components because they conformed to kaiser’s criterion in the process of initial factoring. The fact that these factors fulfilled Thurnstone’s principle suggests that the domains or clusters are separate and distinct entities. Also, the fact that all the factors have each eigenvalues greater than one suggests that they are independent of one another.  This implies that an individual may score high in one factor and low in another suggesting lack of overlapping of items. This apparent lack of overlapping of items also implies the enhanced factorial validity of GAI.

    

 

 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

The psychometrics properties of GAI indicate that it is a reliable and valid measure of creative-productive Giftedness ability and its use can be generalized to other populations owing to the heterogeneous characteristics of the sample.GAI has therefore objectified the works of Akinboye (1979), NECO (2005), Wechsler (2004), Torrance (1998) and Renzulli (2004).Generalization will be enhanced if this study is replicated with adult sample.

Specifically, individuals whose scores are equal to or above the norms of the components qualify for placements in the gifted Academy.

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About the Author

i am a doctorial student of univer sity of lagos, Nigeria.
The work has been presented in an international conference.it is supervised by dr. I.P.Nwadinigwe-senior lecturer

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