The Effectiveness of Nigerian vs. United States Teacher Checklists and Inventories for Nominating Potentially Gifted Nigerian Preschoolers.

In a survey conducted in 50 kindergartens or nursery schools in Nigeria, 380 teachers returned batches of eight variously completed checklists, inventories and rating scales through which a total of 615 preschoolers were adjudged to possess significant traits of giftedness as prescribed by all the instruments. To determine the effectiveness of the instruments for nominating potentially gifted kindergartners, data were collated for each instrument in terms of the number (n) and percentage of children found eligible in the pool of all nominated kindergartners (N) through all instruments. Results generally indicated that some of the instruments developed in the United States were more effective than those developed in Nigeria for nominating preschool children who significantly evidence traits of giftedness. Checklists and inventories were also found to rank better than rating scales in the nomination exercise.

An important aspect which determines the success of gifted education programs anywhere is the nature of the identification plan. Indeed, early identification is one of the major elements used for determining whether or not preschool programs for gifted children are useful models in the United States (Karnes, 1980). Whatever identification strategy is utilized in a gifted education program, the nomination stage is very vital if the approach is to be justifiable as systematic, pragmatic and comprehensive (Richert, 1985; Kitano & Kirby, 1986). And while the nomination stage of identification is a precursor to the subsequent stages of assessment and evaluation, the preschool level of education for every child is the anchor of transition to subsequent levels of formal education. Both the nomination stage of identifying gifted children and variety of preschool programs for gifted children are essential to the efficacy of gifted education programs anywhere in the world. Hence, it is not surprising that recently, considerable interest is being generated about identification of gifted preschool age children.

This article compares the potential effectiveness of four instruments developed in the United States with four others developed in Nigeria for use in nominating pre-school children who evidence traits of giftedness in Nigeria.

Early Childhood and Gifted Education in Nigeria

Early childhood education in Nigeria is completely a private enterprise, unlike other levels of the educational system which are largely funded by the Government (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1981). In this country in which education is on the priority list of public funding of social services, early childhood education still flourishes with a high rate of patronage from wealthy and middle class families (Onibokun, 1989; Nigerian National Commission for UNESCO, 1992). Yet, this strata of the Nigerian educational system has many problems such as unqualified personnel and poor facilities (Oyeneye, 1989; Sunal & Rufa'i, 1995).

Gifted education, since its inception 10 years ago in Nigeria, is still an isolated and exclusive program (Kolo, 1997). Although there are private schools existing in different parts of the country where academic excellence is emphasized, there is no evidence of any form of an articulated programming to meet the needs of gifted children who may be found in such schools (Kolo, 1995). Even the two schools which currently offer provisions for gifted and talented children in the country do so only at the secondary level of education (Kolo, 1997).

At present, there are no articulated preschool gifted education programs in Nigeria. If, in the future, the provisions for gifted education are expanded to cover the lower levels of the educational system, identification procedures will be required as a priority, especially at the preschool level. The search for instruments with demonstrable values of effectiveness and efficiency for selecting preschool children for appropriate gifted education programs will then have to start. As such, now is the time to begin to explore the potential effectiveness of existing instruments for use in future Nigerian preschool gifted education programs.

The Concept of Nomination-Effectiveness of Inventories and Rating Scales

To identify children for gifted education programs, the first step (i.e. the nomination stage) is to pool together a proportional sample of children who would be picked by a given criteria (Correll, 1978; Kitano & Kirby, 1986). To ensure that the sample of children will display traits of giftedness, inventories, checklists, and rating scales are used to enable teachers, parents, peers, and the children themselves to appropriately nominate those who could be potentially gifted.

According to Kitano & Kirby (1986), the more frequently a child is nominated and confirmed by teachers, parents, peers and selves as gifted, the more effective the instruments involved are likely to be. Nomination-effectiveness, therefore, refers to the extent to which specified instruments corroborate themselves in terms of the percentage of children so nominated. The higher the percentage of children nominated by specific instruments out of a pool of those nominated through a number of other instruments put together, the more effective specific instruments are said to be for nomination purposes.

Inventories, Checklists, and Rating Scales for Nominating Preschoolers Who Evidence Traits of Giftedness

Many inventories, checklists, and rating scales exist in several gifted education programs in the United States (Richert, Alvino & McDonnel, 1982). Among the lot included in the Educational and Information Resource Center's Gifted Identification Handbook and the APOGEE Identification Process Handbook for 1993, only four are specifically designated for teacher nomination of preschool children. These are: Renzulli-Smith Early Childhood Checklist-RECC; Checklist for Kindergarten-CFK; Checklist for First Grade Pupils-CFGP; and Richert Early Childhood Teacher Inventory-RETI (Educational Information and Resource Center-EIRC, 1992; and Richert, 1993).

In Nigeria, there is no inventory, checklist or rating scale specifically designated for nominating preschool children who evidence traits of giftedness. However, existing scales and inventories have been developed for use in the country for identifying older gifted students. These include: Adapted Scales for Rating Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students-A-SRBCSS (Obani, 1989); Scale for Identification of Major Special Education Categories (C)-SIMSEC-C (Kalu, 1993); Scale for Rating Outstanding Traits in Children and Youths-SROTCY (Kolo, 1993a); Outstanding Students Nomination Inventory-OSNI (Kolo, 1994); and Scales for Rating Abilities of Children and Youths-SRACY (Kolo, 1994).

Although these instruments are largely adaptations from those in the United States, they are reasonably effective for identifying gifted children of elementary and secondary school age (Kolo, 1996). On the other hand, these instruments do not have research results pointing to their utility in nominating preschool aged children who evidence traits of giftedness. However, there are no negative empirical research pointers as such. Therefore, the instruments are available for possible pilot trials with teachers of preschoolers in the country.

The checklists consist of items describing major characteristics of gifted children (e.g. precocious traits, inquisitiveness, explorative tendencies, dislike for routine tasks, etc.). Item descriptors presented are expected to be rated as observable in a child using categorical (i.e. yes or no) or discrete (i.e. Likert-type) response scales, depending on the instruction of specific checklists. The two inventories are based on a format in which examples of traits of giftedness in children are described, and respondents required to list out in provided spaces, names of specific children whose characteristics match the described traits.

Method

Against the background that there are existing instruments which serve the specific purpose of nominating gifted preschoolers in the United States and the existence of instruments which can only generally (but not specifically) serve the similar purpose of nominating children or students who evidence traits of giftedness in Nigeria, the process of testing the two sets of instruments to determine their potential nomination-effectiveness was initiated. For this purpose, the RECC, CFK, CFGP and RETI, all of which were developed for rating characteristics of giftedness in kindergartners in the US, were adapted for use in Nigerian nursery schools. The adaptation was based simply on making examples of item descriptors more relevant to Nigeria. For example, an item on TCK which spelled out examples in the form of `penny, nickel, dime, quarter and dollar' was changed to read `Naira and kobo' to ensure a clearer understanding of the meanings of item descriptors on the US developed instruments.

Across the country, 50 early childhood education centers (referred to as nursery schools in Nigeria) were reached by assistants who were trained to administer the 8 instruments. All nursery schools visited averaged 150 children and 12 teachers.

With active supervisory visits by the researcher, the assistants received permission to reach and randomly select 8 teachers, each of whom was given one of any of the instruments. The teachers were permitted to read through the specific checklist, inventory or rating scale given to them and were encouraged to ask any clarifying questions before responding to items listed accordingly. As teachers in the respective schools, all those who filled the various checklists and inventories knew the children they were nominating or rating, and this enabled them to be able to determine their personal views as required by the instruments.

In all, 380 nursery school teachers returned instruments which were satisfactorily completed for data collation. For the purpose of data collation, certain criteria were considered for ascertaining children evidencing significant traits of giftedness. All the checklists had their defined criteria based on attainment of at least 90% positive indicators of stated item descriptors rated by teachers. The inventories on the other hand had their defined criteria based on a high frequency of children's nomination put at no less than 90% of nomination frequencies.

At the end of the collation exercise, 615 kindergartners had met the set criteria for nomination as potentially gifted children by the various instruments.

Results and Discussion

To determine the extent of effectiveness of the eight instruments administered during data collection, the percentage of children who met the set nomination criteria for each instrument (n) was calculated from the overall total number of pupils (N) nominated into the pool through all the instruments put together. The effectiveness of the instruments was then compared on the basis of rank order and source (i.e. the country in which they were developed). Tables 1 and 2 illustrate the levels of effectiveness of the eight instruments as determined from the survey.

Table 1 shows the precise number of kindergartners who met the set criteria for determining a significant level of manifestation of traits of giftedness by each of the eight instruments (n). The table also indicates the percentage (%) of the number of nominees by each instrument as worked out from the total number of pupils nominated by all the instruments put together (N). Since in a number of instances, some pupils got nominated through more than one instrument, `n' as indicated here would not add up to `N'. With regards to the CFGP, for example, 416 children (n) met the set criteria. This figure (n) is 68% of the total number (N) of children who met the set criteria by all the eight instruments. This puts the nomination effectiveness of CFGP at 68%.

Table 1

Level of potential effectiveness of selected instruments used by preschool teachers to nominate kindergartners evidencing traits of giftedness in Nigeria (N = 615)

Instruments                     American
                              developed (A)
                                Nigerian          Nomination
                              developed (N)   Effectiveness Value
                                                 n         %

1. Checklist for First
   Grade Pupils (CFGP)              A           416       68
2. Richert Early Childhood
   Teacher Inventory (RETI)         A           397       65
3. Outstanding Students
   Nomination Inventory-T
   (OSNI:T)                         N           329       53
4. Renzulli-Smith Early
   Childhood Checklist
   (RECC)                           A           287       47
5. Scales for Rating
   Abilities of Children
   and Youths (SRACY)               N           254       41
6. Checklist for
   Kindergarten (CFK)               A           237       39
7. Scales for
   Identification of Major
   Special Education
   Categories-C (SIMSEC:C)          N           211       34
8. Adapted Scales for
   Rating Behavioral
   Characteristics of
   Superior Students
   (A-SRBCSS)                       N             98      16

Instruments                     Rank Order of
                                Effectiveness

1. Checklist for First
   Grade Pupils (CFGP)               1
2. Richert Early Childhood
   Teacher Inventory (RETI)          2
3. Outstanding Students
   Nomination Inventory-T
   (OSNI:T)                          3
4. Renzulli-Smith Early
   Childhood Checklist
   (RECC)                            4
5. Scales for Rating
   Abilities of Children
   and Youths (SRACY)                5
6. Checklist for
   Kindergarten (CFK)                6
7. Scales for
   Identification of Major
   Special Education
   Categories-C (SIMSEC:C)           7
8. Adapted Scales for
   Rating Behavioral
   Characteristics of
   Superior Students
   (A-SRBCSS)                        8

From the rank order in Table 1, it is evident that the three instruments with the highest levels of effectiveness potential for nominating gifted preschoolers in Nigeria are in the order of CFGP, RETI, and OSNI-T. The instruments with the least potential effectiveness are the A-SRBCSS, SIMSEC-C, and CFK. On their part, RECC and SRACY ranked at average levels of effectiveness-potential for nominating Nigerian gifted preschoolers. It is interesting to note that despite the fact that CFGP and RETI were developed in the United States and, therefore, may be presumed to be culture restrictive if they were to be used in Nigeria, they still showed the highest levels of effectiveness (68 & 65%, respectively) among the 8 instruments used. OSNI-T, a Nigerian developed instrument, on its part ranked well enough (53% effectiveness) along with the American developed instruments. Considering that Gifted Education is merely taking off in Nigeria, one would say that this is an encouraging finding.

Equally interesting to note also is that the two instruments which recorded average levels of effectiveness (RECC 47%, and SRACY 41%) are also American and Nigerian developed instruments, respectively. The least effective instrument is a Nigerian one adapted from an American instrument.

Teachers' ability to be able to identify gifted children is attributed to their closeness to pupils in learning situations (Pegnato & Birch, 1959; Gallagher, 1966; Obani, 1987; Kolo, 1994). At the nomination stage of identifying gifted children, therefore, instruments which explicitly and very clearly spell out the traits or characteristics to be used by nominators (e.g. teachers as in this study) for rating or selecting nominees into a pool of children evidencing potential for giftedness were more effective than those ones in which the traits to be rated or checked are not so obvious. For example, items 1 and 2 on CFGP are about pupils' abilities to read and recognize numbers in sequence. These are obvious traits which mostly mark out gifted kindergartners from their peers (Kitano & Kirby, 1986).

On the other hand, the A-SRBCSS lists general characteristics of giftedness such as the tendency to remember information and high levels of concentration. These traits may not be easily noticeable in children of preschool age. As Kitano & Kirby (1986) asserted, gifted preschool children do evidence uneven development which makes it difficult to notice some general characteristics of giftedness in them. Hence, as Martinson (1974) indicated, the list of characteristics of giftedness often described in many identification instruments are often very similar in terms of traits demonstrated by many gifted children. However, Martinson made an exception to the fact that the differences in such listed traits on identification instruments do depend on the types of talents and specific children (i.e. infants or adolescents) to be identified.

Results in Table 1 support this assertion. For example, the CFGP and RETI which have the most demonstrable effectiveness value are made up of item descriptors which are very specific about the types of traits evidenced by gifted kindergartners while SIMSEC-C and A-SRBCSS which recorded the least evidence of effectiveness are not so explicit about specific traits of giftedness in kindergarten-aged children. This observation also possibly explains why, overall, the American developed instruments (ranking 1, 2, 4 and 6 in that order) which were meant specifically for sorting out gifted kindergartners evidenced higher effectiveness values than the Nigerian developed ones (ranking 3, 5, 7 and 8) which evidenced lesser effectiveness values.

Another important thing worth noting from the results is that at the nomination stage of identification, checklists and inventories, rather than rating scales may be more effective for nominating children who evidence the gifted potential. This trend is clearly demonstrated as the four instruments with the higher effectiveness values (CFGP, RETI, OSNI-T, and RECC) are mainly checklists and an inventory. Of the remaining four instruments, three are rating scales, and a checklist (CFK) which ranked last of the eight instruments.

In Table 2, the higher potential effectiveness of the American-developed instruments than the Nigerian ones is further demonstrated.

Table 2

The Potential effectiveness of American instruments for nominating children evidencing significant traits of giftedness compared to Nigerian instruments (N = 615)

Instrument Category             Overall No of        %
                                pupils eligible    (of N)
(+ n)                           for nomination

USA developed instruments
 (RECC, CFK, CFGP and RETI)           556            90

Nigerian developed
 instruments (A-SRBCSS,
 SIMSE-C, OSNI-T and SRACY)           403            66

Instrument Category             No of pupils        %     Rank order
                                missed out       (of N)   difference
(+ n)                           from the total
                                pool (- n)
USA developed instruments
 (RECC, CFK, CFGP and RETI)           59           10         23

Nigerian developed
 instruments (A-SRBCSS,
 SIMSE-C, OSNI-T and SRACY)          212           34         13
 and SRACY)

When the total number of pupils found eligible for nomination into the pool of kindergartners evidencing significant traits of giftedness by the four American instruments were put together, an effectiveness value of 90% (556 pupils) was obtained. This means that from the overall pool of preschoolers found eligible for nomination by all the eight instruments (615) only 10% (n=59) were missed by the set of American instruments used. On the other hand, the Nigerian instruments put together found 403 pupils (66%) eligible, while 212 (34%) were missed. From the Table 2, we can also deduce that as many as 153 of the pupils found eligible by the American instruments were missed by the Nigerian instruments. This amounts to some 25% of the total from the pool. Overall, the American instruments recorded a higher rank-order difference (23) compared to the Nigerian instruments which recorded (13).

In a study by Jacobs (1971s), it was found that kindergarten teachers nominated only 10% of the total number of children already identified as gifted by some other measures like tests of intelligence and creativity. Other previous researchers also indicate that teachers often miss or misidentify substantial numbers of children who are likely to be gifted in later life and who would be identified by other sets of criteria or approaches (Martinson, 1974; Correll, 1978). It is for this reason that teacher judgments, and recommendations or nominations are not advised to be used as the sole criteria for identifying gifted children. Hence, even when teacher nominations are used, it is recommended especially for emerging gifted education programs (i.e. that of Nigeria) that more than one nomination instrument be used and restricted to the nomination stage of identification (Kitano & Kirby, 1986; Kolo, 1994).

Given the discrepancy in effectiveness levels between American and Nigerian instruments used for nomination purposes as demonstrated in the results of this study, the fear of exclusively using a single or restricted number of instruments for nominating potentially gifted kindergartners in Nigeria is again brought to the fore. In other words, the more instruments used for nomination purposes in identifying gifted kindergartners, the more effective will be the overall teacher judgment.

Implications and Recommendations for Identification of Gifted Children in Nigeria

While there is a growing tendency towards early identification in countries with developed gifted education programs, the Nigerian pursuit at the secondary level is entangled in a number of technical problems related to the efficacy of the identification approach used (Kolo, 1993; Roeper, 1997). The need for adopting a multiple criteria approach to identifying gifted children in Nigeria has also been clearly demonstrated by a previous study (Kolo, 1994). Against this backdrop, therefore, findings of this study have implications for identifying gifted children in Nigeria in the following ways:

* Existing instruments which can be used for nominating gifted children (especially at the early childhood age) in Nigeria may not be found adequately effective, particularly because of technical reasons. The American-developed instruments have a strong potential for use as nomination instruments in identifying gifted children in Nigeria and should as much as possible be adopted.

* Nigerian teachers (including those of nursery schools) may be useful in identifying gifted children, particularly at the nomination stages. Their tendency to more accurately nominate such children is enhanced if they are trained and a multiple criteria nomination approach is used.

* The earlier the three-stage (nomination, assessment, and evaluation) identification plan, as well as early identification(from early childhood) are put in place in Nigeria's gifted education program, the better for the efficacy and success of the system. As it is now, many gifted kindergartners will pass through their lives and educational career unidentified, and this will remain an indelible waste of human resources for the country.

Conclusion

The increased intent to place emphasis on early childhood gifted education is a desirable development not for the developed countries alone, but of a high priority in countries such as Nigeria where gifted education appears to have started on the wrong foot. No doubt, the modest efforts of Nigerian researchers to develop instruments for identifying gifted children relied largely on the American experience. Unlike instruments utilized at the later stages of identification which require more technical finesse and cultural relevance, the instruments at the initial stage (i.e. nomination) can be more easily adapted and made culturally relevant when identifying gifted children. Indeed, making an instrument more culturally relevant (for example by deriving examples of item descriptors from a given socio-cultural background) is a first step towards adaptation which entails changing whole item descriptors, inserting some more items, or even deleting others on an already developed instrument.

As demonstrated by the results of this study, American developed instruments like the Checklist for First Grade Pupils, Richert Early Childhood Teacher Inventory, and the Renzulli-Smith Early Childhood Checklist have a higher demonstrable level of effectiveness for nominating kindergarten children significantly evidencing traits of giftedness than even the Nigerian developed instruments like the Adapted Scales for Rating Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students, Scales for Identification of Major Special Education Categories, and the Scales for Rating Abilities of Children and Youths.

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Ibrahim A. Kolo is Senior Lecturer in special Education and Counseling Psychology, as well as Head of the Special Education Unit, Bayero University, Kano Nigeria.

Manuscript submitted June, 1997.

Revision accepted September, 1998.