ACTION RESEARCH AND PRACTICAL INQUIRY - USING A WHOLE CLASS TRYOUT PROCEDURE FOR IDENTIFYING ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED-STUDENTS IN 3 SOCIOECONOMICALLY DIVERSE SCHOOLS

The identification of children from low-income populations for partici pation in talented and gifted programs has been problematic for the fi eld of gifted education. An action research approach was used to evalu ate the effectiveness of a nontraditional identification technique for economically disadvantaged students known as the ''whole classroom tr yout technique.'' Fourth-grade students from three socioeconomically d iverse schools were selected for participation in Future Problem Solvi ng (FPS), one component of this teacher's talented and gifted curricul um. The students selected by the tryout technique competed in Future P roblem Solving against students selected by traditional means. Data we re collected: (a) to chart the progress of individual teams, (b) to co mpare the performance of teams within each school based on the mode of selection, and (c) to compare the teams as a competitive sample. The analysis showed that the whole classroom tryout can be an effective me ans to identify economically disadvantaged students for a talented and gifted program and could be used in combination with traditional tech niques.