Gifted children's understanding of intelligence.

An exploratory study of gifted children's understandings of intelligence showed that between the ages of 6 and 12, external indicators of smartness are synthesized with internal factors of feelings and judgments about intelligence. This synthesis becomes more complex with age. At age 12, children's definitions took on an interpretive quality with references to the psychological serf apparent. A developmental progression in children's understanding was found which suggests that age is a factor to consider when discussing giftedness with children.

In examining how gifted children understand themselves, one area that is neglected is the nature of their understanding of their own intelligence. This understanding appears to be a fundamental part of one's self-definition. While there are studies of gifted children's perceptions of ability (e.g., Cornell et al., 1990; Chapman & McAlpine, 1988), these focus on manifestations of intelligence such as doing well in school and finishing assignments quickly. They do not uncover gifted children's understanding of the construct of intelligence. What does intelligence mean to gifted children? This question is important to informing curricula which aim to help children understand the abstract notion of giftedness (e.g., Betts, 1985). Similarly, knowing how children conceive of intelligence can inform how we motivate and promote self-confidence in academics (Stipek & MacIver, 1989). Beliefs about intelligence strongly predict achievement outcomes (Stipek & Gralinski, 1996). Research relevant to addressing the question of the meanings children assign to intelligence comes from two sources: studies focused on developmental differences in children's assessment of their own competence and studies on children's social understanding.

Development of children's assessment of their own competence

A number of studies identified a developmental progression in children's understanding of intellectual competence. To young children in the first years of school, intelligence is undifferentiated. They see themselves as either all smart or all dumb (Hatter, 1982; Stipek & MacIver, 1989), not taking ability differences in academic subjects into account. Moreover, young children rely on mastery standards to judge their work. Getting it right equates with ability. Good work habits and good conduct also figure in their conceptions of intelligence (Stipek & MacIver, 1989). People who work hard and behave themselves are considered intelligent. By the third to sixth grades, children begin to take performance in different academic subjects into account while work habits and behavior assume less importance. Junior high school students fully differentiate among academic subjects and recognize differences in ability and achievement in themselves and others (Stipek & MacIver, 1989; Thorkildsen, 1993). (See Stipek and MacIver, 1989 for a complete review of relevant literature.)

A similar progression is apparent in how children believe they become intelligent. Young children believe that if they work harder they can become smarter. By junior high school, intelligence is seen as more of an entity (Dweck, 1986), a stable trait not affected by effort (Stipek & MacIver, 1989). Individual differences are apparent, however, with bright students more likely to subscribe to an entity theory (Robinson & Noble, 1991).

No work specifically addresses developmental sequences in how gifted children understand intelligence, although Robinson and Noble (1991) hypothesize that gifted children would be advanced in their understanding. Some support for this hypothesis is found in Yussen and Kane's (1985) work on children's conceptions of intelligence. Yussen and Kane asked elementary school children a number of questions on the meaning of intelligent and smart. The developmental progression in understanding they identified is consistent with that summarized by Stipek and MacIver (1989). They also explored the relationship of children's conceptions to their verbal IQ. Brighter children's responses included more concepts but the level of understanding demonstrated overall was not more mature than that shown by less able children. This finding is consistent with research on gifted children's conceptual understanding done in developmental psychology. Researchers in the neo-Piagetian tradition (e.g., Fischer & Canfield, 1986; Porath, 1992, 1996) found that gifted children's conceptual understanding is advanced by approximately two years, a difference that is less distinguished from average children's development than that of the degree of elaboration and complexity apparent in gifted children's thinking. That is, it is what gifted children do with the level of thinking available to them that is exceptional. Two things are believed to account for these differences, talent and/or experience in a domain and rapid learning of skills within a domain (Case, 1992; Porath, 1992).

Children's social understanding

The current study is based on the premise that understanding of intelligence involves conceptual thought in the social domain. The social domain includes both the understanding of others and the understanding of self (Case & Okamoto, 1996; Gardner, 1983). Understanding of one's intelligence is believed to be an intrapersonal understanding (Case & Okamoto, 1996). The study is done from a neo-Piagetian framework which investigates the conceptual underpinnings of children's thought (Case, 1992). Central conceptual structures (Case, 1992), or children's global conceptual understandings, are the core constructs in neo-Piagetian theory. They have been termed the big picture of development (Fischer, 1980; Flavell, 1982). Central conceptual structures are defined as forming the basis of a wide range of specific concepts in a domain (central), as consisting of the meanings or concepts assigned by children to their world (conceptual), and as constituting children's internal mental entities, or mental blueprints (structures) (Case, 1992). Central conceptual structures are hypothesized to be domain-specific but subject to general maturational constraints. They become increasingly complex as children develop (Case, 1992). Central conceptual structures have been identified in mathematical, spatial, and scientific reasoning, musical and narrative ability, and social understanding (Case, 1992).

The study presented here builds on work on social understanding conducted by Griffin (1992) and McKeough (1992) which describes children's developing abilities to describe their intentional states or the feelings and judgments relevant to themselves or others. The study represents exploratory work on gifted children's perceptions of ability. It focuses on describing a central conceptual structure that may be relevant to understanding their conceptions of intelligence. Such a structure is believed to be one which is social in nature where children coordinate, in an increasingly complex fashion, their external world of actions and events with their internal world of intentional states concerning intelligence.

In general, at about age 4, children's social understanding centers on what Bruner (1986) termed the landscape of action; their explanations for social events include descriptions of actions and external events. Between the ages of 5 and 7, they incorporate reference to the landscape of consciousness (Bruner, 1986) in their explanations, including reference to an internal state. Between 7 and 9 years of age, two references to internal states are common, and between 9 and 11 they are capable of including two or more intentions in their explanations, coordinated in a way which demonstrates an integrated and well-reasoned notion of their own or others' intentional states. Intentional states can involve: feelings (e.g., You really feel good about it when you ace a test), personal judgments (e.g., to be good at things), other's judgments (e.g., More people will be happy for you), or social judgments (e.g., You will be more successful). In early adolescence, thinking takes on a more abstract psychological quality and becomes interpretive in that actions and mental states are described as being influenced by the type of person one is (McKeough, 1992).

If gifted children's conceptions of intelligence are advanced, their central conceptual structures should be somewhat in advance of the age ranges described above. In addition, their understandings may be elaborate and complex as suggested by Fischer and Canfield (1986) and Porath (1992).

Method

Participants

Children aged 6 to 12 with IQs and one or more academic achievement scores of 120 or higher obtained in an assessment at a university clinic focused on the identification and longitudinal study of gifted children participated in the study. IQ was measured with the WISC III; academic achievement with the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement -- Revised: Standard Battery (WJ-R). Thirty-three children formed the sample (12 girls and 21 boys). The gender ratio is the same as that of overall referrals to the clinic. Four groups were formed: 6-year-olds (n=3); 7- and 8-year-olds (n = 13), 9- and 10-year-olds (n = 10), and 11-and 12-year-olds (n=7). Descriptive statistics for the sample are summarized in Table 1. Because there were so few 6-year-olds, their responses were used only for informing scoring criteria and were not included in analyses.

Table 1
Mean (SD)Age, IQ, and WJ-R Achievement Levels

                             Age in months          IQ

7- and 8-year-olds (n=13)     95.15 (5.38)       125.92 (4.75)
9- and 10-year-olds (n=10)   118.20 (6.44)       130.60 (6.17)
11- and 12-year-olds (n=7)   143.14 (6.67)       132.00 (7.39)

                                Reading          Mathematics

7- and 8-year-olds (n=13)    137.00 (10.04)(a)   133.17 (10.63)(a)
9- and 10-year-olds (n=10)   132.22 (19.97)(b)   139.22 (21.62)(b)
11- and 12-year-olds (n=7)   126.50 (12.37)(c)   131.17 (9.37)(c)

                             Written Language     Broad Knowledge

7- and 8-year-olds (n=13)    114.08 (8.72)(a)    123.17 (9.62)(a)
9- and 10-year-olds (n=10)   123.00 (18.36)(b)   125.11 (10.31)(b)
11- and 12-year-olds (n=7)   121.50 (15.20)(c)   114.17 (7.31)(c)

                              Skills

7- and 8-year-olds (n=13)    133.92 (9.73)(a)
9- and 10-year-olds (n=10)   128.56 (19.78)(b)
11- and 12-year-olds (n=7)   121.00 (9.44)(c)

(a) n=12; (b) n=9; (c) n=6

Note: Ns vary for academic achievement scores since some participants, assessed at the inception of the clinic, were given the Kaufman Tests of Educational Achievement - Brief Form. There was insufficient ceiling on this measure for this population.

Procedures

Children participated in two assessment sessions, each of which was two to three hours in length. Tests were administered by qualified graduate examiners under the supervision of the clinic coordinators. Measures of ability, achievement, and social development were included. Several research tasks form part of the assessment battery. The research task focused on the central conceptual structure for intrapersonal understanding, the construct of interest, was given near the end of the first session.

Task

In a semi-structured interview based on the work of Griffin (1992), children were asked the meanings of happy, sad, smart, dumb, proud, and embarrassed. Data from the children's responses to smart are analyzed in this study. Children's responses for dumb were structurally similar to those for smart and represented negative forms of the content of their replies to smart. Children were asked to respond to three questions: What does it mean to be smart? What else can it mean? What is happening when you are smart? The interview approach has limitations, namely that children may not be motivated to talk about what they know and/or may not have the language to describe certain concepts. However, the approach has considerable heuristic potential when doing initial study in an area (Yussen & Kane, 1985). It can elicit rich, interpretable responses from children (Harter, 1983).

Scoring

Based on the reliable coding schemes developed by McKeough (1992) and Griffin (1992), children's responses to the three questions were pooled and scored according to the following criteria. Scoring was done blind to age. Responses also were scored by an independent rater. Interrater reliability was acceptable (coefficient alpha = .82).

Uni-intentional conceptions of intelligence. At around age 6, children begin to coordinate actions or events with one intentional state in their descriptions of social phenomena. A prototypical uni-intentional definition of intelligence involved the coordination of a school event such as reading, math, the more general doing work, or physical ability (the landscape of action) with one intentional state (the landscape of consciousness). Examples of prototypical responses are being happy; concentrating and being a good reader. Following Case's (1992) prediction that uni-intentional thinking involves the coordination of two elements, a score of 2 was assigned to responses of this nature.

Smartness also was characterized as having a big brain or the degree of work the brain did (e.g., Your brain is working a lot). Similar quantitative judgments were made about knowing (e.g., to know lots). This type of response also was scored 2 since it was considered typical of an early primary conception of ability (Stipek & MacIver, 1989), a developmental period that overlaps that described as uni-intentional by Case (1992). To know lots or to have a big brain were considered to represent an undifferentiated view of ability.

Bi-intentional conceptions of intelligence. A prototypical bi-intentional response involved the coordination of a school event with two intentional states (e.g., drawing better; being stronger than other kids) and was scored 3. Responses that showed a somewhat more differentiated conception of smartness, incorporating additional interpretations of intelligence and including specific indicators of what it means to know lots also were considered indicative of this level of development (e.g., Knowing lots of stuff,' when I get my tests right; when I get my math done fast; knowing what to do, like cheering up a sad person.) Indicators of the beginnings of social comparison, found to be typical of children at this age (Stipek & MacIver, 1989), also were scored as bi-intentional responses (e.g., To be good at things that others aren't good at.) In an alternative demonstration of the understanding of the role others play in conceptions of one's ability, children at this age considered how ability is fostered (e.g., You can teach other people to be smart).

Elaborated bi-intentional conceptions of intelligence. A prototypical elaborated bi-intentional response coordinated an event with two or more intentions in a way that demonstrated a more integrated notion of what intelligence is. This integration took a variety of forms: incorporation of the concept of personal responsibility (e.g., Someone gave you a gift and you should use it. Your brain is smart -- you should use it and do the best you can), the articulation of a metacognitive aspect of intelligence (They think of stuff, of what is going to happen if they do something. You find if you have done something it would turn out what you thought it would be), or the notion of personal choice in defining intelligence (e.g., You make a good choice when there's a choice to be made -- the one you really want).

Responses at this level also reflected the rudimentary understanding of a differentiated notion of intelligence (e.g., Do good in school and in all subjects and sports, an all around good person). Similarly, a basic understanding of the role of effort in intelligent performance was expressed by some children, an understanding which may be a precursor of the formal operational ability believed necessary to understand the reciprocal relationship between ability and effort (Stipek & MacIver, 1989) (e.g., Everybody could probably be smart if they try or aim for what they want; some people don't try -- sometimes they get the marks they want; sometimes they don't). Responses at this level were scored 4.

Interpretative conceptions of intelligence. This type of response is representative of a qualitative shift in thinking from intentional to interpretive (McKeough, 1992). In this first substage of adolescent thinking a more complex level of judgment is demonstrated and a psychological dimension is incorporated reflecting the understanding that intelligence may play a part in the type of person one is (e.g., You can answer a lot of things. You will be a better person in life. You will be more successful; more people will be happy for you. Maybe you will graduate sooner or something). More complex judgment and the psychological self also were reflected in:

* more developed notions of the relationship between ability and effort than were demonstrated in the previous substage Know more than average; good instincts. You learn at a faster pace. Just what you made yourself to be. If you think you can do something...self-esteem is at the heart of it.

* acknowledgment of individual differences with moral underpinnings Some smart people could be using their intelligence the wrong way -- to conquer everyone else. Clever, not wise. It's possible for a smart person to not be wise. There's a difference between wise and smart; wise means doing the right thing.

* a differentiated conception of intelligence, again with a moral dimension Not always academic; can be sports; doing your best at everything, not a snob -- doing the best at everything you do. Can be academic but that's not really the whole thing -- love your friends and not betray them. When doing the right thing, you' re not going to regret anything. Responses at this level were scored 5.

Results

Means (standard deviations) by age group for level of understanding of "smart" were: 7- and 8-year-olds 2.46 (.52), 9- and 10-year-olds 3.70 (.82), and 11- and 12-year-olds 4.29 (.95). Scores of 7- and 8-year-olds had a limited range, from 2 to 3. Scores of the two older groups ranged from 3 to 5. Mean scores of the different age groups compared to Case's (1992) theoretical predictions are shown in Figure 1. Mean scores are slightly lower than those predicted by the theory but do show a developmental progression. With an alpha level of .05, a one-way analysis of variance of scores on the smart task showed a significant effect for age, F (1, 29) = 16.04, p = .000 and a significant linear trend in scores, F (1,29) = 30.83, p = .000. Post-hoc comparisons of differences between groups using the Scheffe test showed significant differences between the youngest group and the two older groups but no significant difference between the two older groups.

[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

One-third of the children gave elaborate responses. For example, a 9-year-old boy replied, To know an exceptional amount of information for your age. It can also be used to mean smart alec. You can look smart when you look sharp. Getting good scores and grades on your report. This bi-intentional response included a number of exemplars of this type of reasoning. Similarly, a 7-year-old girl's uni-intentional response of, Very, very knowative. You know how to do everything. When I am smart, I know most of my problems showed an elaborate form of knowing lots.

Discussion

Several limitations need to be considered when interpreting the results of the study. First, the number of children was small and this was not a random sample of gifted children. The sample was of a volunteer nature and included children referred for psychoeducational assessment. It thus may not be representative of all gifted children. Second, the task given results in responses which are somewhat constrained by the questions posed. Children may not have demonstrated their optimal level of understanding (Fischer & Pipp, 1984). This possibility is particularly relevant to the two older groups where more variance in response level was apparent. While this finding is consistent with other research within Case's perspective (Case, 1992), it suggests that tasks whose demand spans multiple levels of development (Fischer, Knight, & Van Parys, 1993) may elicit a more accurate picture of what children in middle childhood think about their own intelligence. It also would be appropriate to have more information on the types of classroom environments and feedback on ability which children experience. Development of knowledge structures are dependent not only on maturational increases in information processing capacity but also on one's experience and learning opportunities (Case, 1992). The academic and social environments in which children engage influence their theories of mind (Astington & Jenkins, 1995; Yussen & Kane, 1985).

Despite the limitations, the results of the study do offer some preliminary notions of how gifted children perceive intelligence at different ages which are compatible with Case's (1992) theory of intellectual development. A developmental progression in children's understanding of intelligence consistent with development in the social domain articulated in neo-Piagetian studies (Case, 1992; Griffin, 1992; McKeough, 1992) and development of conceptions of ability identified by Stipek and MacIver (1989) was found. Gifted children's conceptual structures became increasingly complex with age, with more differentiated conceptions of what it means to be smart developing throughout middle childhood. Children of high ability appear to follow a similar developmental trajectory to children of average ability and it appears that some of them have elaborate notions of what it means to be intelligent. Comparative study is necessary to explore the nature of their thinking more precisely but the responses in this study suggest that gifted children incorporate multiple indicators in their definitions of intelligence.

Apparent developmental differences in understanding across middle childhood could inform instructional approaches and affective components of gifted education which focus on helping children to understand their giftedness. For example, Betts' (1985) Autonomous Learner Model includes the topic of understanding giftedness in the orientation phase. The activities and references for relevant literature included appear to be a good match for upper elementary and secondary students. The ideas could, however, be modified to help younger children develop their understanding of their own abilities. A framework that recognizes the developmental nature of the way in which children come to understand the construct of intelligence could provide guidelines for selecting children's literature and planning activities that match younger children's relatively undifferentiated views of intelligence. Using children's understandings as a starting point for instruction, developmentally meaningful responses to what the children say (Paley, 1986) can be planned. Knowing the sorts of understandings that develop in subsequent stages can help teachers guide children toward deeper knowledge of their own intelligence.

(*) A version of this paper was presented at the Canadian Society for Studies in Education at The University of Quebec at Montreal, June 1995. The support of the Psychoeducational Research and Training Center at The University of British Columbia and the participating parents and children in conducting this study is gratefully acknowledged.

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Marion Porath is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Special Education at The University of British Columbia and a Contributing Editor of the Roeper Review. Her research interests include the academic and social development of highly able students with specific forms of giftedness including artistic, literary, and social.