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Despite the likely relevance of socio-cultural context, very few studies have examined the influence of cultural values on teachers' perceptions of gifted students' leadership development. This study chose three nations representing collectivistic to individualistic contexts and compared how 478 teachers from these countries (South Korea = 176, 36.8%, Australia = 169, 35.4%, U.S. = 133, 27.8%) differed in their beliefs about the prevalence and development of gifted students' leadership talent. Differences were found between the individualistic (Australia and the U.S.) and collectivistic (South Korea) settings in their beliefs regarding which students have leadership potential; their judgments about effective leadership styles and leader qualities; their perceptions of gifted students' qualifications as future leaders; and their preferred criteria for recommending students for a leadership education program. Although unable to identify causal relationships, this study nevertheless cautiously suggests that leadership and leaders are intertwined with culturally mediated values and practices. Future studies should continue examining these differences in cross-cultural comparative contexts.

Although leadership is widely considered an aspect of giftedness, few studies have examined gifted students' beliefs regarding their own leadership abilities and their potential to become leaders. We developed a survey and administered it to a cross-cultural sample of 440 gifted and 303 non-identified secondary age participants to elicit their perceptions regarding good leaders and leadership, aspirations to become leaders, and expectations regarding leadership development for gifted students. Students overall expressed a preference for leaders who are able to provide a vision for the future and who care about others' feelings. Responses indicate that students believed honesty, social responsibility, and morality to be the most important characteristics of future leaders. Compared to non-identified students, we found that gifted students showed greater aspirations to become leaders, and their ultimate life goals and beliefs regarding leadership as a part of their talents was associated significantly with their leadership aspirations. We suggested how salient dimensions of cultural difference may have influenced some specific results observed for gifted students from South Korea versus the U.S. cultural context.

In this study, we examined the perceptions of over 1,600 gifted and typically developing (not identified as gifted) secondary students from South Korea and the USA to identify gifted adolescents' preferred modes of social purpose, interest in and engagement with their communities, and actual commitment to societal improvement. We then examined the extent to which their social purpose varied with gifted identification status and students' cultural background. Gifted students identified actualized purpose as their preferred mode of expressing social purpose, while typically developing students favored self-oriented life goals. The gifted students also had a stronger interest in social matters and showed a greater awareness of social and civic engagement than the nonidentified students did. Among the gifted students, Korean students expressed a stronger belief in prosocial behaviors and reported a greater commitment to what they believed important for society. In contrast, the American adolescents behaved in accordance with their expressed values. Both perceived social purpose and commitment to their communities and society predicted students' life satisfaction regardless of cultural affiliation. Discussion focuses on differences in the degree of prosocial intention and engagement between the gifted and typical students, and personal and societal values that may help explain the differences we observed in social purpose among the gifted students from the two different nations.

This study examined if personality types of gifted students predicted their psychiatric symptoms and if the type of giftedness and gender moderated the relationship between the personality and psychiatric manifestations. "The Murphy-Meisgeir Type Indicator for Children" and "the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent" were used to measure the personality types and psychiatric symptoms of 232 gifted middle-school students in South Korea. Results found that introversion predicted all of the symptoms but hypomania. Intuition predicted the symptoms of psychopathic deviance and schizophrenia and feeling predicted those of depression and conversion hysteria. Other predictive relationships were found between perceiving and hypomania and between judging and depression and social introversion. Creatively gifted students with introverted and intuitive personality types exhibited several symptoms than were academically gifted students of the same personality. Regarding gender, introverted males were more vulnerable to psychiatric symptoms compared to introverted females, and perceptive females had a higher chance to show hypomania than perceptive males. This study supported that personality characteristics partly accounted for the indications of psychological distress among gifted students. Further studies need to examine causal relationships between the two and to corroborate the current results involving adolescents.

The need for quality service-learning programs has increased according to greater interest in service-learning and civic engagement for academically gifted students. The Civic Leadership Institute (CLI), a 3-week residential program for gifted adolescents, is a service-learning program created to help academically talented students explore complex social issues that are faced by communities and society today. Class activities are comprised of rigorous academic coursework, community volunteer service, meetings with top community leaders, seminars on specific topics of interest, and rich residential and recreational experiences. This study examined how students perceive and evaluate their service-learning experiences with the CLI program using surveys from program evaluations and narrative comments from 230 gifted high school students who participated in CLI at two different sites in its first 2 years. Overall, the students indicated positive perceptions of the CLI program and were satisfied with its components, particularly the service projects and various field experiences. Overwhelmingly, they perceived that the coursework combined with hands-on experiences enhanced their awareness of civic issues, increased their motivation to engage in social issues in their communities, and allowed them to gain a new understanding and respect for diversity. Suggestions from students included more frequent field experiences, service projects tightly linked with academic content, and meetings with local community leaders. Because this study is the first evaluation of the CLI program, a longer term follow-up study with students who have participated in CLI and comparisons between students who have participated and students who have not participated in the program are needed to corroborate the positive perceptions found among this first cohort of student participants. (Contains 2 tables.)

This study examined the effects of a service-learning program on the development of civic attitudes and behaviors of 230 high school students who were identified as academically gifted and participated in either a service-learning program or an accelerated academic program during the summer. Students' responses to 3 surveys measuring civic responsibility, civic behavior, and leadership skills showed that enhanced civic responsibility, particularly a greater awareness of civic issues and a stronger connection and commitment to the community, was found among the students who participated in the service-learning program. Significant differences were not found for civic behaviors and leadership skills as a result of participation in the service-learning program. Longer term studies with students and examination of the type of service-learning activities students choose to get involved in are suggested to corroborate the positive outcomes of the service-learning program. (Contains 2 tables.)

Using 3 psychological scales, this study examined the level of emotional intelligence, moral judgment, and leadership of more than 200 gifted high school students who participated in an accelerative academic program or an enrichment leadership program through a university-based gifted institute. Major findings include that on emotional intelligence, gifted males were comparable to students in the age normative sample, while gifted females lagged behind the norm group. Regardless of gender, gifted students had higher scores on adaptability but lower scores on stress management and impulse control ability compared to the normative sample. On moral judgment, gifted students were comparable to the level of individuals with master's or professional degrees, and they showed an above-average level of leadership compared to the normative sample. No differences were found in students' scores on the 3 scales by the type of program (academic versus leadership). (Contains 5 tables and 2 endnotes.)

Based on survey responses from 230 students enrolled in a summer gifted program at a university, this study gives a description of gifted students? participation in extracurricular activities in and outside of school. Findings show that gifted students were more involved in competitions, clubs, or other extracurricular activities in mathematics than in other subject areas and were the least involved in computer science activities. Sports were the most frequent extracurricular and outside-of-school activities, as well as playing and working with computers. The data reveal some gender-stereotypical tendencies regarding participation in and outside-of-school activities and gender-typical patterns of support from parents. Grade and course differences were also found. Contributions this study makes to the existing literature are to assess the consonance of children's participation in outside-of-school and extracurricular activities with their talent area and to document empirically parental involvement and independent home study for gifted adolescents.

This study involved 99 students who took honors-level courses and 87 students who took Advanced Placement courses through a gifted distance-learning program. Data showed that students' interests in the subject areas, the desire for enriching and accelerating themselves, and the unavailability of the courses in their home schools were the major reasons for enrolling in the distance-learning program. Overall, students were satisfied with the quality of communications with instructors or classmates, but the lack of interactions with teachers was a source of dissatisfaction for some students. Students reported that the classes prepared them well for their AP examinations and that challenge and enjoyment were the most important and beneficial aspects of the courses. Findings also showed that most students wanted to use computer technologies that grant them easy access to teachers, other students, and course information, but still desired to have traditional textbooks and written course materials.

Project EXCITE is a collaborative program of a university-based gifted center and local school districts designed to prepare gifted minority elementary and middle school students for advanced tracks in math and science in high school. This paper describes the characteristics and components of the EXCITE program and gives data regarding the academic and school achievement of participating students over the past 3 years. Results showed that most of the students were retained in the program, earned high grades in math and science in school, and performed well on state criterion-referenced tests in math and science. There was a 300% increase of minority children qualifying for an advanced math class in grade 6 after 2 years of involvement in the program.

This study has identified factors stimulating creative ideas, transforming creative ideas to products, and continuing creative performance in the field of architecture based on interviews with 10 creative and successful architects. Having a penchant for liberal arts and reading books on a broad range of topics on arts, humanities, social sciences, and engineering were two major sources of creative inspirations for these architects. The interview data showed that creative inspirations occurred with a variety of artistic and cultural experiences outside the field of architecture, while it got blossomed in forms of creative architecture by means of architectural knowledge and skills, commitment with efficient problem solving and interpersonal skills, and great mentors in the field. Constraints imposed on by architectural regulations and other people, including clients, had a positive impact on creative productivity. Despite constant challenges and difficulties, the architects showed psychological strengths and positivity that enabled them to stay and survive in the field.

Using 5 divergent thinking indices of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, this study examined the creative profiles of 236 adult professionals and relationships between their creative characteristics and personality types. All these adults were in their middle or late stage of professional development in business, public service, journalism, or a similar profession. Distinctive profiles of creative and personality characteristics were found as a function of the domain. For example, the adults in business, journalism, and law had strength in fluency and a weakness in resistance to premature closure; those in medicine, and research and education showed strength in originality and a weakness in abstractness of titles. Those in business were mostly either an ESTJ or ISTJ type had lower levels of creativity than other professionals. Across the domains, the adults preferring intuition in perceiving information had higher creative potential than those preferring sensing. Domains were significant predictors of most of the tested creativity, even over and above the personality types. Overall, this study supported that creative potential, personality types, and domains are intertwined although further explorations are needed to identify causality among them.

Using survey responses from students who participated in the summer programs at two university-based gifted education institutions, this study examined changes in gifted students' perceptions of their learning environments, accelerated summer programs and regular schools, and social support in lives after participation in the summer programs. Our sample of gifted students was generally favorable about their classroom experiences and interactions with their teachers both in the gifted programs and regular school classes. Some noticeable differences were greater acceptance and support for giftedness, a stronger connection to peers, and greater ease in peer relationships reported during the programs, and enhanced maturity and orientation toward future after the programs. While all students relied on family and peers as sources of social support before, during and after the summer programs, older students also endorsed being able to rely more on themselves. Perceptions of greater social support seemed to be related to more positive assessment of students' summer and school classes, although causality can go in either direction. Overall, this study suggests that gifted students' summer program experiences may be instrumental in receiving affirmation about their giftedness from peers, enhancing independence and maturity for academic life, and building stronger belief in themselves.

This study examined the need for civic education as a mode of talent dissemination among gifted students. Based on a comprehensive review of literature, civic education was found to be instrumental for gifted students in developing academic, psychological, and social abilities; enhancing civic awareness, responsibility, and commitment; and taking the leading role to make a difference for local communities and the society. While there are only a few gifted programs for civic education, research evidence suggested that civic education programs such as Civic Education Institute consisting of rigorous academic content, hands-on activities, and ongoing reflections and evaluations enabled gifted students to get engaged with community, society, and world issues. This study concluded that civic education would be an effective means of talent dissemination as well as talent development for gifted students. Talent dissemination coupled with talent development should be the major task and ultimate goal of gifted education by the help of high-quality civic education programs.

Involving more than 1,500 academically gifted students and their parents, this study examined relationships between family environment and social competence of gifted students. Results from an online survey revealed that our gifted students rated their families as cohesive and flexible with high levels of satisfaction and communication among family members. Compared with students, parents identified their families as more intimate, cohesive, and flexible and felt more positively about communication among their family members. Students' ratings of their family were found to be good predictors of their interpersonal ability and peer relationships, and positive correlations were found between the students' social competence and their ratings of functional aspects of the family. Differences were also found by students' level of social competence, with students with higher levels of social competence rating their families more positively. Unlike the norming sample, rigidity was not endorsed as a negative family variable. The results of this study are consistent with previous research in that affectionate, supportive, and respectful family environments appear to be important to the development of interpersonal skills and competency and peer relationships for gifted individuals.

Big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) research (e.g., Marsh & Parker, 1984) has found that perceptions of academic ability are generally positively related to individual ability and negatively related to classroom and school average ability. However, BFLPE research typically relies on environmental differences as a between-subjects factor. Unlike most previous BFLPE research, the current study used group average ability as a within-subject variable by measuring student self-concept before and after high-ability students left their regular school environment to participate in a supplemental academic summer program. Results revealed that academic self-concept (ASC) and educational aspirations did not undergo significant declines when students were in the relatively higher ability environment. Even with ceiling effects limiting potential increases in ASC, participants were more than 2 times as likely to increase or maintain their ASC as they were to report declines in ASC. Further, several boosts were found in nonacademic self-concepts. Such findings indicate that BFLPEs are not necessarily associated with supplemental educational environments. (Contains 2 tables, 3 figures and 3 footnotes.)

Involving 740 highly gifted math and science students from two different countries, Korea and the United States, this study examined how these gifted adolescents perceived their interpersonal ability and peer relationships and whether there were differences between these two groups by demographic variables. Based on the survey data, results showed that our gifted students perceived their interpersonal ability and peer relationships at levels comparable to or higher than those of their non-gifted counterparts. They were satisfied and confident with their peer relationships and did not identify negative effects of being gifted when forming and maintaining friendships. Differences were found between Korean and American students by gender in their profiles of interpersonal ability and peer relationships. Positive self-portrayal of social competence found for our sample disputed previous studies suggesting that highly gifted students tend to struggle with social relationships. Given that each group of students had different educational, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds, the results should also be interpreted with caution.

Perceptions of the interpersonal competence and peer relationships of 1,526 gifted adolescents who had previously participated in academic gifted programs at the Center for Talent Development were examined, using an online survey. Major findings included that the gifted students had generally positive perceptions of their abilities to initiate, form, and maintain relationships with other people, including same-age nongifted peers, and demonstrated levels of interpersonal ability and peer relationships, comparable to that of grade equivalent students in the norming group. The students did not perceive their giftedness as a negative factor affecting their peer relationships but rated their academic self-concept more positively than their social self-concept. Differences were found by gender and experience with subject acceleration in school, favoring female students over male students and favoring students who were accelerated in a subject in school over students who were not. The results also suggested that gifted students whose academic strength was in the verbal area over other areas were more likely to face difficulties with peer relationships. (Contains 5 notes and 5 tables.)

Using the off-level test scores of more than 250,000 students who participated in talent search testing from 2000 to 2008, this study examined if previously reported gender differences in students' performances in math versus verbal areas as well as the reported ratios of males and females for specific scoring levels still existed across years. Results showed that for the sample of gifted students used in this study, regardless of age, males outperformed females on the math and science subtests with the most pronounced differences on the math subtests, whereas females outperformed males on the verbal subtests. All these differences between genders did not diminish over the 9-year period but were steady with small or negligible effect sizes. The ratios of males to females in specific score ranges on the off-level tests were also steady and consistent, favoring males at the highest end in math and science with the maximum ratio of 3:1 and females at the highest end in verbal areas with the maximum ratio of 2:1. Performance differences by ethnicity and annual household income levels were also found throughout the years. (Contains 3 notes and 6 tables.)