Educators' Implicit Theories of Intelligence and Beliefs about the Identification of Gifted Students

This research study analyzed the structure of educators' implicit theories of intelligence (ITI) and explored the relationship between ITI and beliefs about the identification of gifted students. This study included a sample of 372 educators. School Teachers and professors from colleges of education favor practical, analytical, and creative attributes in their prototypes of an intelligence person. However, participants were fairly neutral about whether interpersonal and intrapersonal attributes characterized intelligent people. Educators that rated creativity as an important attribute of intelligence tend to favor multiple methods to identify gifted students. In contrast, educators who supported the use of IQ test as the primary basis of gifted identification tended to agree that analytical abilities were part of the structure of intelligence.