Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-2010

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

School Psychology

Major Professor

Sherry K. Bain

Committee Members

R.Steve McCallum, Sherry M. Bell, John Lounsbury

Abstract

Forty-seven gifted and non-gifted African American and Caucasian students in grades third through fifth were rated by their teachers on the Universal Academic, Cognitive, Creativity, and Emotion Screening Scale (UACCESS) (McCallum & Bracken, in press). Internal consistency was high with Chronbach’s alphas ranging from .97 to .99 and correlation coefficients for the six scales ranged from .42 to .92. Factorial MANOVA’s for each composite scale showed no significant score differences between African American and Caucasian students. There was a significant difference in scores based on placement, with higher scores in favor of gifted students on both the General Aptitude Composite (Wilk’s Lambda=. 70, F(3,41) = 5.87, p <. 01 and the Specific Academic Aptitude Composite (Wilk’s Lambda=. 73, F(3,41) = 5.03, p <. 01. There were no interaction effects for placement x race. A discriminant analysis using the six UACCESS scales resulted in 76.6% of participants being correctly classified as gifted or non-gifted. There were no score differences across gender. Based on the results of this study, the UACCESS shows some promise as an effective gifted screening instrument to supplement the referral/nomination process.

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