A Four-Month Gain, But No Control Group

What the research found

The study set out to design and test a single joined-up system for teaching gifted and motivated children. Its authors, working in the Republic of Kazakhstan, took 1,200 students (612 boys, 588 girls) drawn from 25 special schools for gifted children. The children sat in three age bands: grade 3, grade 7 and grade 10, spanning roughly ages eight to seventeen. Over four months they were taught through the new method, and their scores were measured before and after.

The method had three parts. Lessons used interactive whiteboards, and in each lesson one child prepared and delivered a short presentation on the topic. Once a week, in homeroom, five children presented research projects on subjects of their own choosing, having first consulted their teacher during the week. Twice a week, after school, children could attend two-hour electives in the sciences, the humanities, natural sciences and the creative arts, taught by visiting university lecturers. The common thread is active work: children explaining, researching and choosing, rather than only receiving.

To measure change, the researchers used three established instruments: a Guilford creativity test, a Stanford logical-reasoning test, and a Mehrabian motivation questionnaire. Four qualities were scored on a ten-point scale, where 0 to 4 meant a weak showing, 5 to 7 an average one, and 8 to 10 marked what the authors call superior giftedness. The reported figures are gains, meaning the number of points a group climbed between the first test and the second.

The gains were consistent and pointed the same way. Academic giftedness rose by 1.55, 1.30 and 1.77 points in grades 3, 7 and 10, moving the groups into above-average territory. In grade 3 that meant a shift from 6.52 to 8.07. Motivation improved by 1.71, 1.72 and 1.54 points across the three grades. A measure the authors call social giftedness rose by between 1.24 and 1.52 points. In every case the group averages ended above where they began, and in the above-average band.

Two things about the design matter more than any single number. There was no control group. Every one of the 1,200 children received the method, and no comparable group was left untaught to serve as a benchmark. And the results are group averages across the whole sample, not individual outcomes. The authors are candid on both counts. They note that the sample used simple random sampling, so not all children had superior giftedness to begin with, and that because everything is reported as an average, it is impossible to say how the method would affect any particular child. They add that the electives were entirely voluntary, so that part of the method cannot be properly assessed.

What it means for you and your child

The honest reading of this study is that it is promising but not conclusive. Scores rose over four months, and they rose across three age groups and several measures at once. That is worth noticing. But a rise is not the same as proof that the teaching caused it. Without a control group, we cannot rule out the ordinary explanations: children improve as the school year goes on, they get better at tests they have sat before, and simply being part of a studied, well-resourced programme can lift results. A single pre-and-post measurement, however large the sample, cannot separate the method from these background effects.

So treat the specific numbers with care. A gain of 1.55 points on a bespoke ten-point scale, in special schools in one country, does not translate into a promise for your own child in a different system. The scales here were built for this study, the children were already selected as gifted, and the setting was 25 Kazakh schools designed for them. None of that is a flaw in the research. It is simply the boundary of what one study in one place can tell you.

What does travel well is the shape of the teaching, not the size of the effect. The three ingredients here are unglamorous and widely supported elsewhere: children explaining material to others, pursuing self-chosen research with a teacher’s guidance, and having access to enrichment beyond the standard timetable. If your child is bright and under-stretched, these are sensible things to look for in a school or to build at home, and you can do so without leaning on this study’s figures.

There is also a quieter lesson in the authors’ own honesty about the voluntary electives. The children who chose to attend extra classes may well have been the more motivated ones already. That makes it hard to know whether the electives raised motivation or whether motivated children simply sought them out. The same caution applies to any enrichment you offer: a child who leaps at an opportunity and a child who is placed in one are not in the same situation, and the results can look similar while meaning different things.

If you take one thing from this paper, let it be a way of reading such research rather than a result. Ask whether there was a comparison group. Ask whether the gain is for a named child or an average. Ask whether the children were already selected. Those three questions will tell you more about what a study can bear than any headline figure, and they apply well beyond this one.