Wilma Vialle

University of Wollongong | UOW · Faculty of Education

In gifted education, the relationship between policy and practice can be greatly influenced by individuals within school contexts. The perspectives of school leaders and teachers influence both the interpretation and execution of gifted policies. The New South Wales Department of Education’s High Potential and Gifted Education (HPGE) Policy is mand...

Influential meta-analyses have concluded that only a small to medium proportion of variance in performance can be explained by deliberate practice. We argue that the authors have neglected the most important characteristic of deliberate practice: individualization of practice. Many of the analyzed effect sizes derived from measures that did not ass...

This issue on advanced learning focuses on the educational and developmental needs of advanced learners as they develop towards excellence. We speculated that those needs could be observed in at least three ways. The first is that the advanced learner requires educational interventions that are more closely aligned to the “deliberate practice” appr...

Feedback is highly recommended in educational settings and can deliver valuable information to guide one’s learning efforts. However, it can—but does not need to—lead to detrimental effects on learners’ motivation and emotions. The response should be moderated by the individual’s attitudes, experiences, abilities and many other aspects which can be...

Gifted education has followed a paradigm that implies that giftedness is characterized by superior cognitive abilities emanating from the human brain. This view contrasts with a new concept of the human mind: embodiment. Its core message maintains that cognitive processes extend throughout the entire body. This approach is an already highly influen...

This study builds from the implicit theory of creative individuals to an understanding of the social perceptions of creative individuals. Stereotypes and prejudice about creative students were examined utilizing the self-developed stereotype and prejudice scales among German adolescents. The results indicate that German adolescents hold positive im...

The Education and Learning Capital Approach (ELCA) has been widely used to investigate talent development. A research gap is the implicit consideration of the domain specificity of educational and learning capital. In an empirical study with 365 school students we investigated the domain specificity of the approach for the domains of school learnin...

In the emergent field of positive education, studies have investigated the characteristics of successful positive education interventions (Waters Australian Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 28(2), 75–90, 2011). These characteristics include following a whole school approach, integrating positive psychology into traditional subjects, and...

This literature review investigated studies that explored the underachievement and reversal of underachievement in gifted students. Underachievement in gifted students is of concern to parents and educators yet only a small number of studies have investigated this phenomenon through the lens of the gifted underachieving student. The role of teacher...

This paper investigates the transition experiences of students with intellectual disability, as they move from primary to secondary school in New South Wales, Australia. Employing a multiple case study approach, the authors investigated the transition from the perspective of the students experiencing it. During the study, ten students with mild to...

Based on the Actiotope Model of Giftedness, this article introduces a learning-resource-oriented approach for gifted education. It provides a comprehensive categorization of learning resources, including five exogenous learning resources termed educational capital and five endogenous learning resources termed learning capital. Evidence from the lit...

There is ample evidence that families are important in supporting the development of giftedness in children. Although there has been a great deal of research addressing individual and school factors in promoting giftedness, the role of parents and caregivers is comparatively underresearched, particularly in Australia. This study investigated the wa...

Implicit theories can influence learning behavior, the approaches individuals take to learning and performance situations, and the learning goals individuals set, as well as, indirectly, their accomplishments, intelligence, and creativity. For this cross-cultural study, Kenyan and German students were asked to draw a creative person and rate it on...

Two learning resource-oriented motivational strategies for gifted educators are introduced: a homeostatic orientation that aims for balance and an allostatic orientation that aims at growth. In order to establish the empirical basis of these motivational strategies, two studies were conducted with samples of students from a specialized post-seconda...

THIS PAPER REPORTS ON findings from research (Warren, 2013) which sought to understand, in the New South Wales (NSW) context, the factors impacting on the transition into early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres for children with disabilities from the perspective of both parents of children with disabilities and educators in ECEC centres....

One of the most important factors in the successful inclusion of students with specific learning difficulties in mainstream classrooms is the teacher. Despite strong support for inclusion, mainstream teachers still demonstrate mixed responses to the inclusion of certain students in the classrooms. Further, their attitudes towards inclusion seem to...

Research plays a powerful role in shaping effective teaching and learning experiences. By demystifying the research process, Research for Educators assists readers to develop and use research skills in a range of educational contexts. This introductory text steps the reader through the research process from identifying an initial question for resea...

Despite being unable to dress himself, sit still on a chair, or write a legible sentence, Scott was, from a very early age, able to build whole cities from construction blocks, able to complete complex puzzles, and verbally precocious. Even with his disabilities and their contrast with his academic talent, he completed K–12 school and went on to ex...

This study introduces the Nuremberg Parental Goal Orientation Scales (NuPaGOS) which were designed to measure kindergarten children’s parents’ goal orientations for their children. The postulated four goal orientations are learning goal orientation, performance goal orientation, well-being goal orientation and fear of over-demanding orientation. We...

Gifted adolescent rural girls live in a world where popular culture is a key source of information about their present and future lives. This study asked whether, as a key influence, popular culture supported or disrupted the talent development process of gifted adolescent girls in rural settings. Through an embedded case study approach this resear...

In many domains, it is estimated that approximately 10,000 hours of planned learning activities are required to reach an expert level of performance. However, this poses a challenge for learners to balance such extensive learning times with the demands of everyday life. In our study we focused on activities in the domain of chess. We hypothesized t...

An academically child who is gifted with learning disabilities is not readily recognised within the education system as demonstrating such contradictory traits. While there is a growing body of literature on such twice-exceptional children, effective means of identification and educational interventions still lags behind. To understand how this sit...

Recent handbooks of giftedness or expertise propose a plethora of conceptions on the development of excellent performance but, to our knowledge, there are no comparative studies that provide empirical evidence of their validity to guide researchers and practitioners in their adoption of a particular conception. This study sought to close that gap b...

The reported study investigated students’ perceptions of their high-performing classmates in terms of intelligence, social skills, and conscientiousness in different school subjects. The school subjects for study were examined with regard to cognitive, physical, and gender-specific issues. The results show that high academic achievements in particu...

Unlike traditional person-centered models of giftedness, the Actiotope Model of Giftedness focuses on the person-environment interactions. It postulates that successful learning requires necessary resources, termed educational and learning capital, located both in the environment and the individ-ual. The Questionnaire of Educational and Learning Ca...

This study investigated the daily lives of obese children and their families to better understand factors influencing weight-related behaviors. A multiple case study design was implemented with 6 obese children and their families. Participant observations occurred in different settings from when the children woke until they went to bed, yielding ap...

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than an unsuccessful man with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

This commentary addresses Subotnik et al.’s target article from the perspective of researchers active in the field of giftedness. First, we self-critically examine the current standing of giftedness research within the scientific community. Second, the authors’ critique of gifted education is sharpened in three respects: (a) gifted identification,...

This phenomenological study explored the lifeworlds of 27 academically advanced elementary students in three very different schools that endeavored to meet their diverse needs. Schools that had established formal social and emotional structures were found to have student populations far more accepting of diversity. As a result, academically advance...

While claims of the importance of attribution theory and teachers' expectations of students for student performance are repeatedly made, there is little comprehensive research identifying the perceptions preservice teachers have of students with learning disabilities (LD). Accordingly, 444 Australian preservice primary school teachers were surveyed...

The attainment of exceptional accomplishments requires extremely long periods of time. It has yet to be explained, though, how individuals find the motivation for such protracted learning. Carol Dweck proposed that an incremental theory of an individual’s abilities is an important factor in this process since it would account for the optimism neede...

Over recent years, moves toward the inclusion of students with special needs in mainstream classrooms has brought about increasing attention to the way general education teachers perceive these students. Commensurate with this has been a growing interest in what may constitute educational success for children with special needs in mainstream classr...

This study provided a voice to gifted elementary children attending three very different schools that endeavored to meet their atypical academic needs. Although educators have theorized that special programs for gifted students benefit gifted children academically and contribute positively to their social and emotional development, there is limited...

Objective: To investigate the barriers to increasing physical activity and limiting small screen recreation time among obese children. Design: Qualitative study using a case study design incorporating focus groups and interviews with parents and pair interviews with children. Participants: Nine obese children (age range 5-12 years) and their p...

While claims of the importance of attribution theory and teachers' expectations of students in regards to performance are repeatedly made, there is little comprehensive research identifying the perceptions preservice teachers have of students with learning disabilities (LD). Accordingly, this study examined 154 Australian preservice secondary schoo...

Lectures are a central element of traditional university learning, but Australian lecturers increasingly face very low levels of lecture attendance. A significant amount of research exists that investigates the drivers of lecture attendance. However, those studies typically study single factors in an isolated manner, thus overestimating the importa...

International educational statistics have reported a gender gap in educational outcomes, with boys falling behind girls in regard to grades, high school graduation and university enrollment and retention. This study involved pre-service teachers and school counsellors in Colleges of Education at three universities on three continents carrying out f...

We assessed the extent to which identification with peer crowds in the first year of high school predicted scholastic achievement, teacher-rated adjustment, and self-reported emotional experience in the third year of high school. Unlike previous studies, we controlled for initial levels of our criterion variables. Crowds were found to predict most...

This research examined the relationships among personality factors, social support, emotional well¬being, and academic achievement in 65 gifted secondary students, a sample drawn from a longitudinal study of over 950 students. The research demonstrated that, compared to their nongifted peers, gifted students had significantly higher academic outcome...

Using data from the Wollongong Youth Study, we assessed the extent to which psychoticism (P) and conscientiousness (C) (both Time 1) predict academic performance one year later. Participants were in their first year of high school at Time 1 (N = 784; 382 males and 394 females; 8 did not indicate their gender). The mean age was 12.30 yrs. (SD = 0.49...

This paper examines the relationships between self-identified crowd membership, attributional characteristics, and perceptions of parental style among students in their first year of high school (N = 893). The aim was to assess the extent to which group identity is reflected in self-reported characteristics. Most students self-identified either as...

The relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement is one that is regarded by many educators as a well-established fact. This belief has been often invoked in order to argue against the provision of ability grouping for gifted students. Refuting that commonly-held belief, this research examined the relationship between self-esteem and ac...

What characteristics of teachers are most appreciated by their gifted students? The current study sought the views of gifted adolescents through the administration of a questionnaire, the Preferred Instructor Characteristics Scale (Krumboltz & Farquhar, 1957). The scale required students to select between a personal characteristic and an intellectu...

The scene is a primary school in regional Australia that has a large proportion of students from non-English-speaking backgrounds (NESB). In one of these culturally diverse classrooms, I observed the following exchange at the beginning of a blustery Thursday with the students gathered together on the front mat. The teacher was quizzing her Grade 1...

An automatic word recognition system is described which assists orally proficient literacy inefficient people to become literate within a minimum possible timeframe. The system enables people with a strong oral tradition to impart their stories rather than textual cues. Results obtained to date using this system are reported.

This paper reports on the first phase of a study investigating the qualities of effective teachers from the perspective of gifted students. A questionnaire was administered to students in Years 7, 9 and 11 at an academically selective high school in New South Wales, Australia. The data demonstrated that the personal-social qualities of the teachers...

Twenty-one research articles originally published in the "Australasian Journal of Gifted Education" over the past decade are collected in this book and address aspects of gifted education including pedagogy and curriculum, policy and practice, social and emotional needs, school and family, neuropsychology and cognition, and special populations. Tit...

The word “acceleration” continues to generate controversy. Although the literature makes it clear that acceleration in its various guises is a positive intervention for many gifted students, educational practitioners in Australia continue to resist the evidence and campaign actively against allowing students to take this option. This article synthe...

The commercialisation of higher education, an increasingly diverse student population, the emphasis on educational technology and flexible delivery, the need to be internationally competitive and the increased regulation on quality standards, just to name a few factors, has seen a rapid transformation of the university system and the demands placed...

The literature in gifted education emphasises the importance of early identification and nurturance of children's gifts. However, the means for ready identification of children in early childhood, other than formal testing, have not always been as clearly developed. The problem of identification is exacerbated when the children are from culturally...

Educational intervention for deaf people has a long history but it is a history that is dominated by the notion of deficit. The growing trend in the literature on deaf people is to recognise that they are not deficient but form a cultural and linguistic minority group that deserves appropriate educational programs. Deaf people report great frustrat...

The study examined the relationships among self-efficacy, learning strategies and academic performance. Specifically, it reports a study of students' academic and science self-efficacy, self-regulatory learning strategies and academic performance in first year science courses of undergraduate nursing programs. Students from several universities wer...

Teacher training institutions continue to evaluate their pre‐service programs to ensure that subject offerings and approaches produce the desired characteristics of quality in graduating teachers. A recent trend in the research and policy literature has been the call for the development of the teacher as a reflective practitioner with a concomitant...

In Australia, Gardner's multiple-intelligences theory has strongly influenced primary, preschool, and special education. A survey of 30 schools revealed that teachers use two basic approaches: teaching to, and teaching through, multiple intelligences. The first approach might develop children's music skills via playing an instrument. The second mig...

Despite a wealth of literature that argues for multiple measures to be used in the identification of gifted students, problems continue to arise when the tests are not used appropriately or when the results of such testing are ignored by teachers. This paper describes case studies of three children and the problems that have arisen for them and the...

The early admission of young gifted children to schools is a contentious issue. Although NSW has instituted a policy to enable early entry to school, it is rarely implemented. The focus of this pilot study was to identify the attitudes of principals to the policy on early entry and impediments to its implementation. A survey was conducted of 63 pri...

Lewis Terman has been one of the most significant pioneers in gifted education with his extensive work in intelligence testing and his longitudinal studies of gifted children, the latter study being unparallelled in education generally. Nevertheless, recent criticism of Terman's work has focused on the shortcomings of his work, particularly its bia...

The commercialisation of higher education, an increasingly diverse student population, the emphasis on educational technology and flexible delivery, the need to be internationally competitive and the increased regulation on quality standards, just to name a few factors, has seen a rapid transformation of the university system and the demands placed...

Introduction This paper reports on the gender patterns in the initial data gathered as part of the Illawarra Social, Emotional and Academic Longitudinal Study (ISEALS). The aim of this longitudinal study is to identify the factors that put adolescents at risk for academic and emotional problems. In particular, we are seeking to establish which soci...

This research examines the ways that highly ranked, competitive Scrabble players develop their skills and expertise. It focuses on the role of social interactions in the development of their expertise as members of the community of practice of Scrabble players. Using nine case studies and semi-structured interviews as a primary source of data, the...

Learning and the learner: Exploring learning for new times is a collaboration emerging from the Faculty of Education in the University of Wollongong. It is the outcome of an international workshop held in September 2004 involving researchers from Australia and overseas. The workshop was funded and staged by the Faculty of Education as part of the a...

As the twenty-first century unfolds with its emphasis on global concerns and typified by technology that is obsolete before it is out of its packaging, we need to reconsider what we understand by thinking and learning. Such reframing is essential if we are to adequately educate the twenty-first century learner. In the past, we neatly separated the...