Examining the Most and Least Changeable Elements of the Social Representation of Giftedness

Abstract

Giftedness and high abilities have been broadly defined and this fact has led to many problems related to the detection and educational response given to gifted or highly able pupils due to the stereotyped social representations of the concepts. However, the main misconceptions might be changed with the aim of solving the mentioned problems. For this purpose, the aims of this study are to explore the main misconceptions of giftedness and to identify which among them seem to be most and least changeable. A questionnaire with the most extended myths and stereotypes about giftedness was applied in a sample of 824 participants. The items’ analyses were carried out by first studying item-test discrimination indices (test classical theory), and secondly, the a and b parameters of items (item response theory). The results show that there are items that would be easily changeable (9 items) and others less malleable (4 items). Therefore, it might be concluded that the social representation of giftedness would have peripheral elements that could be changed, while there would be less malleable central elements. Thus, different strategies to foster the change of the social representation of giftedness should be considered, which will have social and educational implications.