Paradigms of Gifted Education: A Guide for Theory-Based, Practice-Focused Research

By David Yun Dai and Fei Chen

This book highlights how to conduct research in gifted education when researchers have to choose from myriad theoretical ideas, hypotheses, claims, practical models, and strategies. It shows researchers how to build clarity, rigor, and relevance into a research agenda that combats fragmentation and contributes to enhanced theoretical and practical endeavors in the field. Specifically, the book advocates a paradigmatic approach to conducting research in gifted education, and shows how it can be done every step of the way by specifying the essential questions of What?, Why?, Who?, and How? in a coherent manner, and by selecting methods that are appropriate for the question asked and the phase of the research efforts. To facilitate the development of a research agenda, the book identifies three major paradigms of gifted education and 20 essential research questions that would help move the field forward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: Oct 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781618211705

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Chen

INTRODUCTION

The Case for a Paradigmatic Approach to Gifted Education

[A paradigm is] a framework of concepts, results, and procedures within which subsequent work is structured. Normal science proceeds within such a framework or paradigm. A paradigm does not impose a rigid or mechanical approach, but can be taken more or less creatively and flexibly.

—The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Blackburn, 2008)

This book focuses on how to conduct research in gifted education when researchers have to choose from myriad theoretical ideas, hypotheses, claims, practical models, and strategies. It is about how to build clarity, rigor, and relevance into a research agenda that combats fragmentation and anarchy and contributes to enhanced theoretical and practical endeavors in the field.

Specifically, the book advocates a more disciplined, paradigmatic approach to conducting research in gifted education and shows how it can be done every step of the way by specifying the essential questions of What, Why, Who, and How in a coherent manner, and by selecting methods that are appropriate for the question asked and the phase of particular research efforts. To facilitate the development of a research agenda, the book identifies three major paradigms of gifted education and 20 essential research questions that would help move the field forward.

The Problem

Ambrose, VanTassel-Baska, Coleman, and Cross (2010) asked whether the field of gifted education is unified, insulated, and firmly policed or fractured, porous, and contested. They proposed a four-level structure of the field: There are four kinds of professionals working on this proverbial island continent, portrayed in Figure 0.1. Practitioner-colonists till the practical soil, developing gifted programs, designing curricula, and implementing instructional strategies. At a higher level, research surveyors use their empirical methods to map out the conceptual terrain of the field in hopes of making the work of practitioner-colonists more effective and efficient. At a still higher level, theoretical expedition leaders bring groups of followers into new conceptual valleys in search of more fertile conceptual soil. Finally, at the highest level, philosophical mountain climbers ascend various philosophical peaks, trying to gain panoramic views of the island continent, hoping to discover new conceptual terrain that may include more promising theoretic valleys and more fertile practical soil.

Figure 0.1. Levels of analysis in an academic field portrayed metaphorically as exploration of an island continent. From Unified, Insular, Firmly Policed, or Fractured, Porous, Contested, Gifted Education?, by D. Ambrose, J. VanTassel-Baska, L. J. Coleman, and T. L. Cross, 2010, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 33, p. 458. Copyright 2010 by Sage Publications. Reprinted with permission.

Ambrose et al. (2010) suggested that the field will be most productive when efforts at all four levels are well coordinated. For example, research surveyors are not just familiar with what practitioner-colonists are doing, but well versed in what theoretical expedition leaders are exploring. Without the coordination and cooperation, the field will suffer from vertical fragmentation; that is, professionals at each level are doing their own things and not paying attention to what people at other levels are saying or doing. Furthermore, they suggested that within the same level, there is a need to coordinate efforts. For example, theoretical expedition leaders or research surveyors do better to share visions and insights among themselves and seek some level of consensus as to what are most promising paths to traverse. When theoretical expedition leaders go in many directions without learning from each other, or when practitioner-colonists cultivate their own territories without coordinating efforts with other practitioner-colonists, horizontal fragmentation will occur. Ambrose et al. examined the field of gifted education and concluded that it indeed suffers not only from vertical fragmentation but also from horizontal fragmentation.

This portrayal of the landscape (i.e., structure) of the field (see Figure 0.1) nicely illustrates how theorists, researchers, and practitioners should work together to create a synergistic power. In reality, however, operations of such a system are not always optimal. For example, school practitioners (including classroom teachers and gifted education specialists) often operate on the basis of everyday necessities, rather than theoretical and practical visions (Gallagher, 2011). Moreover, there are many other reasons why the field is fragmented vertically as well as horizontally. They include the contested nature of the endeavor itself, as there is no agreement on what gifted education should look like or whether it should even exist at all. Here the field is facing a dilemma: Given the diversity of conceptual and practical approaches, embracing a unified theory or approach will lead to premature foreclosure of novel and valuable ideas, thus stifling new explorations and innovations in the field; however, a laissez-faire policy would render the field so chaotic that it might degenerate into a state of anarchy and eventually lose credibility as a professional field.

The fragmentation inevitably manifests itself in research efforts and outcomes. Dai, Swanson, and Cheng (2011) surveyed a total of 1,234 empirical research studies conducted between 1998 and 2010. They concluded that this body of research lacks the kind of convergence, discipline, and coordination that can be deemed paradigmatic or quasiparadigmatic. They warned:

The consequence can be a fragmented, highly idiosyncratic body of research, with no coherent themes and issues, no conceptual clarity and methodological rigor, no agreed-upon criteria for judging the merits of a study, and no continuity of research efforts over time. (Dai et al., 2011, p. 127)

Moreover, a large proportion of studies on practice surveyed by Dai et al. (2011) are atheoretical in nature; that is, there is little theorizing about how a particular practice works and what assumptions drive the work; there is little empirical effort beyond rhetoric to investigate the underlying processes, contexts, and constraints, addressing the question of how it works. Understandably, many researchers in the field of gifted education have concerns and interests that are practical rather than theoretical in nature. To stretch the metaphor of exploration of an island continent used by Ambrose et al. (2010) further, research surveyors survey one location, write up a report, move to another location, and prepare another report; they would be satisfied if the report is factual and to the point. There is no perceived need to listen to what theoretical expedition leaders have to say or to talk to theoretical expedition leaders about the potential broader impact and implications of their research findings. Of course, the end result is that the significance of what is found fertile remains local. A paradigmatic approach to gifted education dictates that any practical endeavor should have a bearing in the fabric of gifted education as a whole. Where there is no theorizing, there is no generalization.

Rationale for a Paradigmatic Approach to Gifted Education

Definitional issues lie in the heart of a paradigmatic approach to gifted education. Without an agreed-upon definition, there is no way to compare research studies (Ziegler & Raul, 2000). It is no wonder that 60 out of 64 experts in gifted education endorsed Lack of Consensus on How to Conceptualize or Define the Gifted and Talented as one of major challenges facing the field (Pfeiffer, 2003, p. 163). Ambrose et al. (2010) suggested two strategies to deal with the problem of fragmentation: (a) It can attempt to emulate the unified disciplines, such as analytic philosophy or economics, by adopting a single, overarching, dominant theory that brings researchers and practitioners into conformity; or (b) alternatively, it can build a number of solidly grounded theories that don’t generalize well but can complement one another. As Ambrose et al. pointed out, it may be counterproductive to adopt a grand theory because it could push the field toward the dangers of excessive homogeneity and insularity. Apparently, the second option, although still at the risk of fragmentation, may be more viable because the complementary models it affords may help capture the mosaic-like complexity of giftedness in a way that a grand theory cannot. The solution we propose in this book is that we identify theoretically well-grounded practices and approaches and make their conceptual grounding explicit enough for comparison and evaluation, in the hope that eventually a common vision can be reached by the community of scholars, researchers, and practitioners in gifted education. We label this as a paradigmatic approach to gifted education.

What Is a Paradigmatic Approach?

The term paradigm implies standards and norms of a field according to which we conduct business and are acknowledged as such. A paradigmatic approach to gifted education means that our programming efforts in gifted education are fully theory-driven and research-supported and have generality and robust applicability. More specifically, it:

 fully articulates the questions of What, Why, Who, and How in a coherent manner that drives a particular programming effort (the Coherence Criterion);

 indicates conceptual distinction by addressing perceived problems on theoretical and/or practical fronts in a distinctly different manner compared to other approaches (the Conceptual Distinction Criterion); and

 is fully grounded in practice, engaging systematic, rigorous research that serves the function of improving practice (the Practical and Empirical Grounding Criterion).

What a Paradigmatic Approach to Gifted Education Is Not

A purely empirical approach to gifted education without a theoretical framework guiding programming is nonparadigmatic or preparadigmatic. An approach to gifted education that provides an inconsistent or incoherent conceptualization of What, Why, Who, and How also falls short of a paradigmatic approach.

Significance

Pursuing a paradigmatic approach to gifted education, which involves highly coordinated theoretical, practical, and research efforts, will ultimately help us achieve vertical coherence (i.e., across theory, research, and practice) while facilitating horizontal communication—even integration—across models and paradigms. Even though we may not achieve a unified vision of what gifted education ought to be as a field, we will develop a better sense of what kind of niches each paradigm or approach cultivates in a larger scheme of things we call gifted education.

This Book’s Plan

This book centers on how to conceptualize a research project that is theory-driven and practice-oriented and that has a distinct paradigmatic quality. Chapter 1 delineates general conceptual grounding of gifted education in terms of the nature of giftedness (What), purposes of gifted education (Why), targeted students (Who), and strategies and tools to support their learning and development (How). The emphasis is on how the four elements inform a coherent, distinct gifted programming effort in the midst of other competing approaches and arguments. Chapter 2 discusses the methodological grounding of gifted education in terms of moving from technical rationality, characteristic of the positivist tradition, to reflective rationality, characteristic of a postpositivist epistemology with respect to fashioning products and effecting desirable changes in learners and in society (including education). The focus is on how theoretical expedition leaders, practitioner-colonists, and research surveyors, to use Ambrose et al.’s (2010) metaphor, work together in a reciprocal manner.

With the groundwork laid out by Chapters 1 and 2, Chapter 3 introduces a three-paradigm framework wherein the history of gifted education is characterized as starting with the Gifted Child Paradigm, with the Talent Development Paradigm and the Differentiation Paradigm as competing paradigms. This chapter serves as a pivotal one, as the next seven chapters provide respective research agendas under each of the three paradigms.

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are devoted to the Gifted Child Paradigm. Chapter 4 focuses on the questions of What, Why, and Who, respectively. Given the distinct categorical approach to gifted education adopted by the Gifted Child Paradigm, Chapter 5 deals with three distinct subgroups of gifted populations: underrepresented groups, underachievers, and twice-exceptional and extremely gifted children, respectively. Chapter 6 focuses on three How questions concerning whether there is a distinct gifted curriculum uniquely suited to the gifted, how ability grouping and gifted programs demonstrate their effectiveness, and whether the methodologies used by the Gifted Child Paradigm have inherent limits.

Chapter 7 deals with the questions of What, Why, and Who under the Talent Development Paradigm. Given that the paradigm is still in the process of formation and development, the discussion is programmatic and illustrative. Chapter 8 continues this discussion by tapping into three How questions concerning pedagogical features of talent development approaches, an agenda of affective growth, and implications of using a more nomothetic or more idiographic approach to informing programming for talent development.

Chapter 9 focuses on the questions of What, Why, and Who under the Differentiation Paradigm. Chapter 10 focuses on two How questions concerning strategies that are explored for differentiation and practical constraints that exist that might limit the use of the differentiation approach.

For Chapters 4–10, in which we discuss the three paradigms, to enhance an understanding of each research question raised and demonstrate how the question can be investigated, whenever applicable, we include a section entitled Demo Studies, which briefly describes one or two exemplary studies and points out the strengths of these studies in addressing the question involved.

The last two chapters attempt to put it all together and point out gifted education’s future directions. Chapter 11 casts the three paradigms in the same conceptual space to see future possibilities for dialogue, integration, and expansion of gifted education. Chapter 12 provides a four-level analytic framework that helps guide practice of gifted education, research, and assessment methodologies appropriate with for a particular level of analysis. Together, the two concluding chapters provide a road map of how gifted programming can be conceptualized within a unified conceptual space and how research can be conducted to enhance programming efforts.

CHAPTER 1

Conceptual Grounding of Gifted Education

The Essential Questions of What, Why, Who, and How

[The] aim of science is to secure theories with a high problem-solving effectiveness.

—Larry Laudan (1981, p. 145)

The field of gifted studies has theoretical and practical wings. Theoretically, it is an interdisciplinary endeavor that seeks cumulative knowledge, under the umbrella concept of giftedness, of origins and processes of human excellence in all its manifestations on all fronts of human activity, from arts to sciences, from technology innovations to entrepreneurship, from early precocious achievement to adult eminent contributions, and from high-level expertise to creative productivity. The first six parts of the recently published International Handbook on Giftedness (Shavinina, 2009), the nature of giftedness, neuropsychology of giftedness, developmental and cognitive foundations of giftedness, types of giftedness, domain-specific and multiple giftedness, and giftedness, society, and economy, can be considered our foundational knowledge, incorporating a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary understandings of the nature, processes, and consequences of human excellence.

Practically, the field is mainly concerned with educational issues related to identifying and developing giftedness in various forms. The last three parts of the International Handbook, assessment and identification of giftedness, recent advances in gifted education, and policy implications and legal issues in gifted education, represent the field’s practical wing (including, for example, promoting advanced learning and development in formal and informal settings and providing psychological counseling and guidance). Gifted education, which mainly concerns itself with the practical issue of effecting desirable changes, has the following properties:

 It is based on our understanding of what a child can be, if properly nurtured based on his or her aptitudes; therefore, it involves the nature and current state of the child, which we know to some extent, and future developmental states we deem desirable for the child, which are never specified or preordained in the nature of the child, but are appropriate given his or her demonstrated potentials or aptitudes.

 It involves social and ethical considerations; for example, we view gifted children as precious resources that need to be protected and cultivated for the vitality of the society as well as the self-actualization of individuals involved. In the meantime, why some children warrant such services and other do not raises the issue of equity and why some groups are underrepresented and others overrepresented in gifted education raises the issue of social equality.

 It involves pragmatic considerations, such as time, money, expertise, and how available resources can be used most effectively and efficiently as well as equitably. Thus, the issues of educational productivity and cost-effectiveness need to be reckoned with.

Integrating Theory and Practice in Conceptual Grounding of Gifted Education

Conceptual grounding of gifted education entails both the foundational knowledge regarding the nature and development of giftedness and the practical knowledge of gifted education. Historically, a lot of work has been done since Terman to provide such conceptual grounding. For example, with respect to the nature and development of giftedness, numerous definitions and conceptions have been developed; indeed two volumes were edited on the topic (Sternberg & Davidson, 1986, 2005), which lays the foundation for identification, and to a lesser extent, how to educate the gifted. With respect to the means and ends of gifted education, there are various arguments and approaches (see Dai, 2010). Overall, however, theories of giftedness tend to be only loosely connected with practices of gifted education, so much so that the two are typically researched as separate issues (see Dai et al., 2011). One important reason is that rigorous research in gifted education was a relatively recent event. It was not until the 1980s that educational research weighed in heavily in the then-emergent field of gifted studies (Friedman-Nimz, O’Brien, & Frey, 2004). About the same time, the editors of Gifted Child Quarterly (GCQ), Donald Treffinger, and later John Feldhusen, were determined to turn GCQ into a rigorous peer-reviewed research journal (A. J. Tannenbaum, 2010, personal communication). The thrust of rigorous research gave the burgeoning field hopes of bridging the gap between the theories of giftedness and practices of gifted education. However, it has yet to be materialized. A survey of the recent literature (1998–2010; Dai et al., 2011) found that the categories of psychosocial and educational research by and large are still separate. The separation is largely due to the fact that the field is mainly occupied by two groups of researchers: one trained as psychological researchers and the other as educational researchers; the two groups have limited communication with each other.

One consequence of this separation is that unless the researcher is both a theorist and practitioner (e.g., in the case of Renzulli, 1978, with his Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness and Enrichment Triad Model), new theoretical ideas rarely have the opportunity to be implemented and tried in cutting-edge research on practical innovations in gifted education. To use Ambrose et al.’s (2010) metaphor, research surveyors do not carry out the essential responsibility of bringing together theoretical expedition leaders and practitioner-colonists. A field will never rise to a status of mature profession if it lacks theory-practice coherence and integration (vertically) and intertheoretical communication and coordination (horizontally) in its theoretical and practical efforts. In other words, although hasty consensus seeking and unification may not be desirable in the field, neither is the vertical and horizontal fragmentation evident in the field (Ambrose et al., 2010).

What Makes Gifted Education Paradigmatic

A solution we propose in this book is to make our research more disciplined and paradigmatic. What we mean by paradigmatic is to make our conceptual grounding clearly spelled out so that how theoretical ideas get embodied in practice becomes explicit and subject to empirical investigation (Sternberg & Davidson, 1986). The term paradigm implies common norms and standards in practice. We consider any human practice as paradigmatic to the extent that it has a coherent set of assumptions, goals, and procedures agreed upon by a group or community of practitioners as standards of practice. Specific to gifted education, conceptual grounding involves the following four main interrelated elements, which together define the nature of a paradigm in gifted education:

 A clear assumption of the nature of giftedness and what educational needs it presents (the question of What). The question goes beyond definition issues to reflect one’s understanding of the nature, constituents, and development of the so-called gifted quality.

 A clear purpose of educational provisions and services and consequently what criteria determine the success of such services or programs (the question of Why). It is not sufficient to say that a program is effective. The question is: effective for what? Does it effectively promote excellence and realization of high potential, or does it effectively provide equitable access to opportunities for advanced learning?

 A clear delineation of the means and ends of identification (the question of Who) that is consistent with the assumption (the question of What), serves the purpose (the question of Why) of identification, and meets the criterion of predictive validity, among other considerations.

 A clear articulation of educational provisions, adaptations, or interventions to achieve the set goals (purpose) as well as assessment systems to keep track of their progress and success (the question of How).

A paradigm of practice defined by this 4W framework (What, Why, Who, and hoW [although it will appear as How throughout the book for consistency]) distinguishes itself from a scientific paradigm (Kuhn, 1962). A paradigm of research on natural phenomena is only concerned with the questions of What (ontology) and How (epistemology) and is often claimed to be universally valid. In contrast, a paradigm of educational practice goes beyond the question of What regarding the nature of learning and development involved; it addresses the normative question of why certain changes or outcomes are desirable, how these changes can be effected through education, and who will benefit from specific provisions or interventions. A paradigm of gifted education so defined needs to be representative of the canons of gifted education, but is by no means universally viable. A paradigm that specifies What, Why, Who, and How operates at a programming level (Moon & Rosselli, 2000). Figure 1.1 shows how the four components relate to one another, what we might call rhetorical structure, or simply, the logic.

Figure 1.1. Components and relationships of a paradigmatic approach to gifted education.

As indicated in Figure 1.1, the assumption of the nature of giftedness constrains, but does not dictate, purposes of gifted education. In other words, the conceptualization of purposes of gifted education has to be compatible with how giftedness is understood; however, given the same understanding of the nature of giftedness, there can be multiple ways to justify gifted education provisions, which are normative and value-laden by nature. By the same token, answers to the What, Why, and Who questions will collectively constrain answers to the How question, but there will always be multiple ways to tackle a problem, from which optimal solutions or best practice might emerge. The arrows in Figure 1.1 that form feedback loops from Who and How to What indicate that empirically practice can reciprocally inform theory, typically through reflection and research (see Chapter 2 for further discussion). The logic of a paradigm, which consists of a chain of reasoning connecting the four components, is judged by its coherence. The paradigmatic nature of programming dictates that the four elements form a coherent argument.

Another criterion for a paradigm of practice is its conceptual distinction, which means that assumptions, purposes, and strategies and tools fashioned in gifted programming have a distinct identity, thus they are distinguishable from other approaches. Therefore, a talent development approach can be easily identified as different from a gifted child approach, and so forth. The conceptual distinction of a particular paradigm can be mapped out in a conceptual space, as we will demonstrate in this book, and its strengths and weaknesses compared to other paradigms can be evaluated accordingly.

In addition to logical coherence and conceptual distinction, there is a third property that defines a paradigm of practice: its practical and empirical grounding, meaning that a paradigm of practice needs to be realized in particular social-cultural settings and be practically and empirically viable. This pragmatic feature makes a paradigm of practice contextually bounded rather than universal, as a scientific paradigm typically aspires to (Kuhn, 1962).

Here a distinction needs to be made between the theoretical validity of a paradigm and its practical viability under a specific social-cultural condition. It is one thing to say that a paradigm suffers from logical flaws (e.g., incoherence) and is theoretically untenable, but another to argue that a paradigm, albeit theoretically sound, is not feasible in a particular social-cultural context. For instance, we may criticize differentiated curriculum and instruction for highly able students in the regular classroom as unrealistic due to the lack of proper training for classroom teachers or lack of incentives for regular classroom teachers to practice differentiation for highly able students. But this is not the reason for discrediting it as theoretically invalid. It could be a viable option if certain practical conditions are met (e.g., well-trained classroom teachers and individualized instruction). We call the latter conditions of satisfaction, or simply, practical constraints for implementation of a paradigm.

The practical success or failure of a paradigm may depend on, among others, the following factors (from macro to micro levels):

 general sociocultural context (e.g., values held by a culture);

 local, state, and national policy (e.g., whether high-level excellence is a priority);

 institutional mission and leadership (e.g., whether there is strong leadership);

 social organization of learning (e.g., whether the system is flexible enough);

 curricular and pedagogical adaptations (e.g., effective and creative implementations);

 supporting tools and resources for particular learning activities and goals;

 professional development, particularly for teachers; and

 psychosocial dynamics of learning (micro-level optimal person-context fit).

A paradigm may be successful in one cultural or institutional context but failing in another, mainly because one or more of the above components may not be present or strong enough. Whether support or criticism is based on theoretical and scientific (the logic) or on practical (condition of satisfaction) grounds is an important one. Conditions of satisfaction lead to pragmatic considerations of a paradigm of practice: No matter how theoretically ideal it may be, a paradigm of practice has to be tested in practical contexts, prove applicable to a range of educational and cultural settings, and show robustness when conditions for implementation are not optimal.

Defined as such, a paradigm of practice should be distinguished from a theoretical model. A theoretical model specifies a set of causal relationships among relevant components, but does not necessarily explicate how they can be implemented in practical settings. In a sense, they remain theoretical. A case in point is Ziegler’s (2005; Ziegler & Phillipson, 2012) Actiotope Model of Giftedness. We believe that the Actiotope Model is a theoretical model, rather than a paradigm of practice. In other words, it still seems to be a theoretical model of What, with Why, Who, and How yet to be mapped out in a way grounded in practice and empirical research. A recent volume devoted to application of the Actiotope Model in Asian educational contexts (Phillipson, Stoeger, & Ziegler, 2013) provides hopes that eventually it can be practically grounded and may even become an alternative paradigm of practice in gifted education that meets the three criteria specified here: logical coherence, conceptual distinction, and practical and empirical grounding.

A paradigm of practice should also be distinguished from a practical model. A paradigm operates at a more general, theoretical level, from which specific implementations or models can be derived. For example, Talent Search programs or schools specialized in arts or science are practical models that instantiate a Talent Development Paradigm. Because a paradigm operates at a more general level, multiple practical models under the same paradigm should be common: While holding their paradigmatic integrity, specific models are adaptive to available local resources, conditions, and constraints, creating variations under the same paradigm.

An Anatomy of What, Why, Who, and How, Respectively

In the following section, we will discuss each aspect of the What, Why, Who, and How in more detail so as to make clear how these dimensions can be fully articulated when planning to conduct research on particular gifted programming efforts.

Theoretical Assumptions of Giftedness and Gifted Education: The Question of What

The basic assumption of giftedness and gifted education is that some children of high ability have educational needs that cannot be met easily in the regular classroom and thus need special educational attention, including curricular and instructional adaptations and counseling services. However, opinions abound regarding the nature of demonstrated high ability. A paradigmatic approach to gifted education has to rely on credible sources of information as a solid basis for programming efforts. We can roughly identify three sources: (a) theoretical arguments advanced by credible scholars and experts in the field, (b) research evidence from the general learning and development literature as well as the gifted studies literature, and (c) practitioners’ clinical observations and insights regarding the nature of specific gifted manifestations and treatment effects.

Assumptions based on theoretical arguments and reasoning. All conceptions of giftedness are social constructions created to serve particular practical purposes, for good or ill (Borland, 2003). Therefore, different conceptions may reflect different foci, and indeed may serve diverse constituents when gifted children are fundamentally heterogeneous rather than homogeneous. However, to make gifted education paradigmatic, it is imperative to identify dimensions and parameters along which various conceptions of giftedness differ. For example, Dai (2010) identified three ontological tensions surrounding conceptions of giftedness:

 Monolithic conceptions versus pluralistic conceptions. Whether giftedness is one thing or many things has profound implications for gifted programming. Traditionally, psychometrically defined general intelligence is the backbone of monolithic conceptions of giftedness. Recent decades have witnessed the surge of pluralistic conceptions to include many forms of talent.

 Constitutional versus dynamic conceptions. A constitutional view would see giftedness as innate and permanent, whereas a dynamic view would treat giftedness as changing and evolving, open to environmental influences. Construal of giftedness as constitutional or natural endowment is still popular (Gagné, 2005a; Gallagher, 2000), but more dynamic conceptions have gained momentum (Dai & Renzulli, 2008; Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius, & Worrell, 2011).

 Qualitative versus quantitative differences. Linguistically, the term gifted implicates a qualitative difference, a category of people as gifted and the rest by default nongifted; however, scientifically, it is not always justifiable to assign the label in a qualitative, categorical manner. Determination of a difference as quantitative versus qualitative (a matter of degree vs. kind) is a subtle one, defying any sweeping generations (see Dai, 2010).

Assumptions based on research evidence from the learning and development literature. Dai (2010) suggested several sources of research as evidence to support a particular programming philosophy or policy. They included evidence for the nature argument, such as evidence for biological constitution, for ease of learning, and for asymptotic competence, as well as for the nurture argument, such as effects of training and long-term development, of motivation, and of technological support. It is unlikely that research itself can settle the theoretical arguments in a once-and-for-all fashion, largely because the phenomena of gifted manifestations are more likely multiply determined. It is also because methodologies and epistemological lenses bias one’s view in a nontrivial way. For example, most current theories of