To all who have participated in this discussion regarding talent search and the �survey�
My name is Susan Assouline and I am the associate director of The University of Iowa Belin-Blank Center. Ann Shoplik (C-MITES Director) and I were the first to use EXPLORE as a talent search instrument, thus were one of the original founders of the Elementary Student Talent Search (ESTS). Because the Belin-Blank Center and ACT are both in Iowa City � and also share a history � I�ve worked closely with them over the past 20 years, and �d like to provide a bit of history and also clear up some misconceptions.
History: The very first elementary student talent search (ESTS) was conducted in Jan 1993. At that time, ACT informed the Belin-Blank Center that each answer sheet for EXPLORE had 12 blank items � called Local Items, because they are developed locally � and that the Belin-Blank Center could develop 12 short-item questions, which would be administered prior to the actual 4 EXPLORE tests. We did so. Now, this was in 1993, and the information about human subjects, IRB, etc., was much less formal than it is now. However, I assure you, this was not a personality test. The original items were along the lines of: How much do you like school; how much do you like math; how much do you like Language Arts, etc., etc., etc. What do we learn:
In general, bright children love school, but their �love� diminishes a bit as their grade level increases. Children love math and science . . . they do not like language arts.
We found this information to be very useful in program planning.
Shortly after 1993, other talent search organizations opted to also use EXPLORE. Those directors can give you additional history about their organizations. Over the years, those 12 local items have changed � perhaps 4 or 5 times. The changes have been based upon the interests of the various talent search organizations and involve many compromises. A few years back, we wanted to know the most common ways in which students studied various subjects. My colleague, Ann Shoplik, and I obtained permission from the other talent search organizations to have ACT generate the frequency distribution of the one local item that asked about the ways in which students study math because we used that information in our book, Developing Math Talent, relative to information about programming. BTW � 50% of talent search participants study math in the regular classroom setting. Think about the implications of students at the 95th percentile � or above � on grade-level tests studying math in the regular classroom. However, other than reporting this percentage as it pertains to programming (you don�t need IRB approval for collecting data related to programming), we have not reported any other statistics, because we do not have IRB permission.
You may be wondering why we haven�t published anything about the local items recently .. . in fact one parent said, � It seems to me that our kids were used as part of someone's psych experiment . . . .
However, that is not the case; primarily, we have not � because no one has permission from their respective IRBs -- analyzed or published any analyses. The University of Iowa is working on getting IRB approval for the students who register for ESTS through the UI. But we do not have permission. Until we get permission, we cannot even look at the frequencies of responses . . . let alone write it up . . .
Speaking of IRB, I want to share the reality of university IRB system. I have been working with the research dept at ACT to �hopefully � conduct a small study with 200 students who will be part of a special testing in Iowa in March. I submitted the IRB proposal on Jan 21. Preparing the IRB is no small task. After receiving the IRB proposal, I received 23 questions that required responses. I responded. After responding to those 23, I received 14 more queries. After responding to those � keep in mind that there are usually several days between queries and response � I received 6 more. Finally, I got permission � two months after submitting the proposal, only to be told by ACT, that the proposed study could not be conducted using the procedure. That means that the original consent form, which had specified a specific procedure for distribution of the survey,will need modification. So, it's back to IRB . . .
Now, given all of the above information, I want to say that we really do respect all of the concerns and fully recognize that times have changed and there needs to be more transparency. We will be working towards this. I regret that the time it takes for universities to �act� is so unbelievably long.
This message is already too long, so I will post another response regarding some of the other concerns mentioned in this discussion.
For those of you who read this entire message, thank you.
This is my thinking and I do not have the endorsement of any of the other talent search organizations for any of the content above.
