DISCOVER in High School: Identifying Gifted Hispanic and Native American Students

Abstract

Based on Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, the DISCOVER assessment was designed to identify gifted minority students for placement into programs for the gifted. In previous studies, the reliability and validity of the assessment in elementary grades were examined and yielded mostly positive results. In this study, similar analyses were carried out to investigate some validity aspects of DISCOVER with secondary students. The sample consisted of 303 predominantly Hispanic and Native American ninth graders. The results provided evidence for an alignment of the assessment with the theory of multiple intelligences. Also, no overall gender or ethnic differences were found in the numbers of students identified. In addition, the results suggested that the use of the DISCOVER assessment might help in reducing the problem of minority students' under-representation in programs for the gifted, as 29.3% of the high school students who participated in this study were identified as gifted.