ARE TEACHERS REALLY POOR TALENT DETECTORS - COMMENTS ON PEGNATO AND BIRCH (1959) STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY OF VARIOUS IDENTIFICATION TECHNIQUES

This article reanalyses Pegnato and Birch's data in their often cited 1959 article. especially their measures of effectiveness and efficienc y. The author shows that these two concepts are not independent, as us ually assumed in studies examining the criterion-related validity of v arious identification techniques for the gifted and talented. Rather, both are related to the number of subjects singled out as a result of the cutoff value chosen to implement the method. Consequently, most co mparisons made between and within methods become invalid. A simple alt ernative is presented: compare the correlation coefficients of the pre dictors with the criterion. It is concluded that this methodological f law, as well as some other technical limitations, invalidates the most often cited observation from that study, namely, that teacher nominat ions should not be relied upon as an identification technique for the gifted and talented.