The role of insider knowledge in the trajectories of highly accomplished scientists.

Insider knowledge is critical information about how to achieve success that is not available to the general public but is relatively well-known to individuals within the domain and to those who have access to those individuals. The goal of this study was to examine the perceived role of insider knowledge in a sample of highly accomplished American professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We asked participants explicitly if insider knowledge had played a role in their talent development trajectory from K-12 education to their current creative work, with questions related to experiences at the undergraduate and graduate level and during their careers. The study was exploratory, so no formal hypotheses were put forward. Given the lack of research on the topic of insider knowledge as defined in this paper, we conducted semi-structured interviews with a select group of individuals who had successful careers in STEM fields, both to see if insider knowledge was something that they considered important and to see if they felt that insider knowledge had played a role in their educational and career trajectories. Our hope is that the results of this paper will inform future in-depth studies on the topic of insider knowledge.

A developmental view of mentoring talented students in academic and nonacademic domains.

The role of mentors for talented students varies according to developmental level and domain. Domains differ as to when they begin, peak, and end. Therefore, mentoring at the beginning of a talent trajectory may take place in middle school for a science student and in elementary school for a violinist. In the later stages of talent development, mentors are more likely to select their protégés than to be organizationally matched with mentees. As mentees gain the requisite skills and knowledge, mentors place more emphasis on modeling and coaching for psychosocial skills and insider knowledge (access to networks of information, attitudes, and behaviors rewarded by gatekeepers) that allow their mentees to stand out and, if necessary, endure pushback derived from proposing creative ideas or performances that challenge the status quo. The conclusions reported here are derived from studies of mentoring talented students, with an emphasis on identifying similarities across domains, and recognition that mentors' provision of insider knowledge is particularly important for low-income children and youth.

Talent Development in Achievement Domains: A Psychological Framework for Within- and Cross-Domain Research.

Achievement in different domains, such as academics, music, or visual arts, plays a central role in all modern societies. Different psychological models aim to describe and explain achievement and its development in different domains. However, there remains a need for a framework that guides empirical research within and across different domains. With the talent-development-in-achievement-domains (TAD) framework, we provide a general talent-development framework applicable to a wide range of achievement domains. The overarching aim of this framework is to support empirical research by focusing on measurable psychological constructs and their meaning at different levels of talent development. Furthermore, the TAD framework can be used for constructing domain-specific talent-development models. With examples for the application of the TAD framework to the domains of mathematics, music, and visual arts, the review provided supports the suitability of the TAD framework for domain-specific model construction and indicates numerous research gaps and open questions that should be addressed in future research.

An Introduction to the Special Issue: A Review of European and American Perspectives and Research on Talent Development.

After a century during which the psychology of high ability focused largely on innate cognitive abilities, the twenty-first century ushered in a transformative period in which views of talent broadened to include recognition that talent development is a much more complex process that begins with uncovering potential but does not stop there. Current approaches consider the whole process of talent development and include both individual and environmental aspects as well as their systemic interplay. Therefore, we can now document contributions of environmental, personal, psychosocial, educational, and chance factors to the cumulative conversion of potential abilities into high level performance or creativity. The eight contributions to this special issue flesh out various factors in the complex equation of talent development as it applies to different populations, contexts, and domains. One article addresses individual differences in abilities and how they can be measured and recognized. Another two focus on the peer group and how peers can influence creativity and acceptance. Three articles address factors of education and opportunity and how they affect the positive development of talent. One article identifies and categorizes the psychosocial skills needed for transforming potential into creative, productive achievement. A final paper addresses the place of talent development in the general developmental psychology literature.

Exploring Compensations for Demographic Disadvantage in Science Talent Development.

This study explores factors enhancing the likelihood that three demographically disadvantaged groups of selective science high school graduates would complete a university STEM degree 4-6 years later. The target groups are labeled as disadvantaged in terms of STEM pipeline persistence compared to school peers, and include: (1) women, (2) those without a parent in a STEM field, and (3) those whose parents were not educated beyond high school. Employing Social Cognitive Career Theory as a conceptual framework, we focus on two categories of factors. Individual factors incorporate motivation and career intention brought to the high school experience. Environmental factors include graduates' high school experiences related to their STEM interest and capacity development. The individual variables include: STEM career intentions prior to high school, motivation for attending a specialized science high school, and motivation for pursuing advanced science courses in high school. Environmental factors include whether participants partook in an authentic research experience, had a mentor, felt they belonged at the school, maintained their interest in STEM as well as perceived intellectual capacity for STEM throughout high school. The results have promising implications for educational policy associated with STEM talented students.

Benchmarking Psychosocial Skills Important for Talent Development.

How can high potential in childhood be transformed into outstanding adult accomplishment? Research indicates that individuals who become outstanding performers and producers have more than just raw talent in the domain or opportunities to develop their talent-they have the will, drive, and focus to take advantage of the opportunities with which they are presented, and the capacity to persist through failures even as the bar for success gets higher. Despite the importance of these psychosocial facilitators, they are among the least well understood in the field of gifted and talented research. In this study, we reviewed existing literature in order to build comprehensive list of the psychosocial variables associated with talent development across domains (visual art, dance, sports, academics, music, acting, medicine, and software engineering). With the help of psychologists with expertise in these domains, we completed an initial categorization of these skills and asked the experts to indicate at which of the three stages in talent development-the transition of abilities into competencies, competencies into expertise, and expertise to creative productivity or eminence-each psychosocial skill was important. We found promising general patterns of commonality as well as variation by domain and stage of talent development, and discuss the implications of this study on future research into psychosocial skill development.

Environmental Factors and Personal Characteristics Interact to Yield High Performance in Domains.

Outstanding human performance continues to intrigue experts and the public; however, the focus is often on the individual performer or producer with scant attention given to the additive part played by circumstances and contexts. Using general theories of development (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1986, 2005;Sameroff, 2010) and talent development paradigms (e.g., Ziegler, 2005;Dai, 2010;Subotnik et al., 2011), we examined the interaction of environmental and individual factors on trajectories of high performance within and across varied domains. Public and scholarly awareness of the role played by environments places greater responsibility on education and other societal systems to support talents in varied domains, and to promote evidence of talents' malleability and potential for development.

Gifted Students.

Gifted students are individuals who are recognized for performance that is superior to that of their peers. Although giftedness is typically associated with schooling, gifted individuals exist across academic and nonacademic domains. In this review, we begin by acknowledging some of the larger debates in the field of gifted education and provide brief summaries of major conceptual frameworks applied to gifted education, dividing them into three categories: frameworks focused on ability, frameworks focused on talent development, and integrative frameworks. We then discuss common practices used to identify gifted students, giving specific attention to the identification of those in underrepresented groups, followed by brief overviews of the numbers of students who are classified as gifted, programming options for gifted students, and social and emotional issues associated with being gifted. We conclude with a discussion of several unresolved issues in the field.

Beyond perceived ability: the contribution of psychosocial factors to academic performance.

In this study, we examined the contributions of grit, hope, and academic self-efficacy to academic achievement in a sample of 609 academically talented students ranging in age from 10 to 18 years. Our hypothesis was that these variables would predict academic achievement above and beyond the contributions of demographic variables and perceived ability. After establishing the reliability and structural validity of scores for the three constructs in this sample, regression analyses indicated that hope and academic self-efficacy were predictors of perceived ability and that academic self-efficacy was the most robust predictor of academic achievement. Grit was not a meaningful predictor of either perceived ability or academic achievement. We concluded that psychosocial variables can contribute to performance in talented students, but research is needed to establish which psychosocial variables are the most useful.

Rethinking Giftedness and Gifted Education: A Proposed Direction Forward Based on Psychological Science.

For nearly a century, scholars have sought to understand, measure, and explain giftedness. Succeeding theories and empirical investigations have often built on earlier work, complementing or sometimes clashing over conceptions of talent or contesting the mechanisms of talent development. Some have even suggested that giftedness itself is a misnomer, mistaken for the results of endless practice or social advantage. In surveying the landscape of current knowledge about giftedness and gifted education, this monograph will advance a set of interrelated arguments: The abilities of individuals do matter, particularly their abilities in specific talent domains; different talent domains have different developmental trajectories that vary as to when they start, peak, and end; and opportunities provided by society are crucial at every point in the talent-development process. We argue that society must strive to promote these opportunities but that individuals with talent also have some responsibility for their own growth and development. Furthermore, the research knowledge base indicates that psychosocial variables are determining influences in the successful development of talent. Finally, outstanding achievement or eminence ought to be the chief goal of gifted education. We assert that aspiring to fulfill one's talents and abilities in the form of transcendent creative contributions will lead to high levels of personal satisfaction and self-actualization as well as produce yet unimaginable scientific, aesthetic, and practical benefits to society. To frame our discussion, we propose a definition of giftedness that we intend to be comprehensive. Giftedness is the manifestation of performance that is clearly at the upper end of the distribution in a talent domain even relative to other high-functioning individuals in that domain. Further, giftedness can be viewed as developmental in that in the beginning stages, potential is the key variable; in later stages, achievement is the measure of giftedness; and in fully developed talents, eminence is the basis on which this label is granted. Psychosocial variables play an essential role in the manifestation of giftedness at every developmental stage. Both cognitive and psychosocial variables are malleable and need to be deliberately cultivated. Our goal here is to provide a definition that is useful across all domains of endeavor and acknowledges several perspectives about giftedness on which there is a fairly broad scientific consensus. Giftedness (a) reflects the values of society; (b) is typically manifested in actual outcomes, especially in adulthood; (c) is specific to domains of endeavor; (d) is the result of the coalescing of biological, pedagogical, psychological, and psychosocial factors; and (e) is relative not just to the ordinary (e.g., a child with exceptional art ability compared to peers) but to the extraordinary (e.g., an artist who revolutionizes a field of art). In this monograph, our goal is to review and summarize what we have learned about giftedness from the literature in psychological science and suggest some directions for the field of gifted education. We begin with a discussion of how giftedness is defined (see above). In the second section, we review the reasons why giftedness is often excluded from major conversations on educational policy, and then offer rebuttals to these arguments. In spite of concerns for the future of innovation in the United States, the education research and policy communities have been generally resistant to addressing academic giftedness in research, policy, and practice. The resistance is derived from the assumption that academically gifted children will be successful no matter what educational environment they are placed in, and because their families are believed to be more highly educated and hold above-average access to human capital wealth. These arguments run counter to psychological science indicating the need for all students to be challenged in their schoolwork and that effort and appropriate educational programing, training and support are required to develop a student's talents and abilities. In fact, high-ability students in the United States are not faring well on international comparisons. The scores of advanced students in the United States with at least one college-educated parent were lower than the scores of students in 16 other developed countries regardless of parental education level. In the third section, we summarize areas of consensus and controversy in gifted education, using the extant psychological literature to evaluate these positions. Psychological science points to several variables associated with outstanding achievement. The most important of these include general and domain-specific ability, creativity, motivation and mindset, task commitment, passion, interest, opportunity, and chance. Consensus has not been achieved in the field however in four main areas: What are the most important factors that contribute to the acuities or propensities that can serve as signs of potential talent? What are potential barriers to acquiring the "gifted" label? What are the expected outcomes of gifted education? And how should gifted students be educated? In the fourth section, we provide an overview of the major models of giftedness from the giftedness literature. Four models have served as the foundation for programs used in schools in the United States and in other countries. Most of the research associated with these models focuses on the precollegiate and early university years. Other talent-development models described are designed to explain the evolution of talent over time, going beyond the school years into adult eminence (but these have been applied only by out-of-school programs as the basis for educating gifted students). In the fifth section we present methodological challenges to conducting research on gifted populations, including definitions of giftedness and talent that are not standardized, test ceilings that are too low to measure progress or growth, comparison groups that are hard to find for extraordinary individuals, and insufficient training in the use of statistical methods that can address some of these challenges. In the sixth section, we propose a comprehensive model of trajectories of gifted performance from novice to eminence using examples from several domains. This model takes into account when a domain can first be expressed meaningfully-whether in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. It also takes into account what we currently know about the acuities or propensities that can serve as signs of potential talent. Budding talents are usually recognized, developed, and supported by parents, teachers, and mentors. Those individuals may or may not offer guidance for the talented individual in the psychological strengths and social skills needed to move from one stage of development to the next. We developed the model with the following principles in mind: Abilities matter, domains of talent have varying developmental trajectories, opportunities need to be provided to young people and taken by them as well, psychosocial variables are determining factors in the successful development of talent, and eminence is the aspired outcome of gifted education. In the seventh section, we outline a research agenda for the field. This agenda, presented in the form of research questions, focuses on two central variables associated with the development of talent-opportunity and motivation-and is organized according to the degree to which access to talent development is high or low and whether an individual is highly motivated or not. Finally, in the eighth section, we summarize implications for the field in undertaking our proposed perspectives. These include a shift toward identification of talent within domains, the creation of identification processes based on the developmental trajectories of talent domains, the provision of opportunities along with monitoring for response and commitment on the part of participants, provision of coaching in psychosocial skills, and organization of programs around the tools needed to reach the highest possible levels of creative performance or productivity.