Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research please help:researching GT kids & extracurriculars

Wren i just saw your last post. a tree would be too complicated and people wouldnt finish the survey.

Wren--I see your point (although I haven't actually looked at the survey itself) because our DD8's experience with different extracurriculars has been all over the map (e.g., getting kicked out of dance (almost literally!); learning about but not really caring about chess; milling about aimlessly in soccer; loving IMACS). But maybe the study is a first step and not intended to be a comprehensive review--but perhaps also the person running the study doesn't understand how off the mark it might be. It might actually be helpful to them if you emailed the tree you suggest based on your personal experience to give them the opportunity to understand that. (DH is a statistician and is always going on about various biases, so it's a topic I hear a lot about

Best,
Dbat

First, answer the questions on extracurriculars using a line graph. What age started, finished, or still continuing.
Then ask questions on a sport extracurricular activity that was done the longest, then an artistic extracurricular, like music or art etc. And answer the questions on the longest activity or continuing one again. That way you have a sample of different types of activities and the answers for them.

If you opened up the survey, you would see what I mean. Othwerwise, the data seems rather useless. And what use would the end product be, if the data was useless?

Looking at the survey she is not interested in non-academic extracurricular programs.
From her survey the statements below show this.

"nurturing giftedness in alternative learning environments"
One paper involves a survey on gifted children's experience of academic extracurricular programs.

The questions are geared towards the quality and effectiveness of extracurricular academic programs.
Which in my opinion are quite lacking for the younger students in science in general and even more so for technology (especially computer programming topics).
There are plenty of math programs for elementary students to be working ahead in/greater depth.
This survey may begin to quantify the short comings of many of these after-school, weekend "enrichment classes"

I do not see how responding to one activity effects the results of her survey. She is asking some general questions on the benefits of academic programs that your child has taken. The survey is not asking about the details of a given program or on how many programs your child has taken. The questions are related to, Do you see any real value in these enrichment programs?
(For example, the quality of the program, some important reasons for participating in the classes etc.)
For most people there are probably some good and some bad experiences. It is possible that maybe the question that states to choose an activity, could be further explained as to choose an effective experience or not so positive of an experience.

But I have to ask, What is it about this survey that you find so flawed. It appears that it is asking a topic that is different that what you wanted asked?

Well, obviously my reading of it was flawed. I did not pick up on quality and effectiveness of extracurricular academic programs. In fact, I didn't even list her CTY math online. Hence, my bad.

OK, I went back and did the survey and this time, there was a slot for the activity you chose. Not the case when I first tried it. And it seemed some other questions were changed.

I think when I took this, I wondered why there weren't more quesitons about whether you felt the program your child was currently in was adequate. The questions were asking me to compare the extracurricular offerings to what my child gets in his school, but since I happen to have a kid in a great HG program, he does in fact get very good education during the school day. It would be nice to know if the responders feel their child is in a good school situation or a bad one when doing any sort of comparison.

Wren,

I agree with your original statement about the survey having serious flaws:

1. The survey asks for a list of non-sports activities and then wants you to write about one. People will have completely different activities and different reasons for picking them.
For example, my kid goes to French. Someone else's kid might play guitar. I like French because my son learns French and will easily be able to live in the French-speaking country his father is from. My son likes it because he sees his good friend. The reasons for playing guitar could be completely different: say, improve manual dexterity. What about the Girl Scouts? Or art class?

If I had written details about guitar lessons instead of French, the reasons I would have listed would have been completely different.

My point is that it all seems kind of random and I don't see how the results will tell us something meaningful and/or generalizable.

2. There seems to be no control group (reasons for non-gifted kids enrolling in these types of activities). Lots of non-gifted kids go to after school classes, take music lessons, art, or join the scouts.

Even if we overlook the problems in #1, how does the author know that the reasons chosen by parents of gifted kids are different from those of ND kids? She didn't ask, so it's all speculation.

She never said it was some serious intellectual endeavor, it could be marketing report. The questions sound like a marketing study.

She said it was for the Asia Pacific Conference on Giftedness, which seems to be an academic conference: