An evaluation of alternative screening procedures

Disproportional minority membership in special programs has become a major issue in gifted education programs, identifying students who are gifted has traditionally been grounded in criteria emphasizing unitary measures of in tellectual ability. An alternative perspective with promise for addressing concerns related to disproportion and bias in placement practices has emerg ed from the theory of multiple intelligences (MI; Gardner, 1983, 1993). Whi le perspectives and opinions regarding multiple intelligences are plentiful , research on the effectiveness of assessment and instructional practices g rounded in MI theory has been sparse. This research was designed to shed li ght on the problem-solving assessment (PSA) procedure, an application of MI theory focused on identification of students for gifted education programs . Scores and decisions grounded in PSA and more traditional criteria were d escribed, compared, and analyzed. As in previous research, positive correla tions were evident among scores for different types of intelligences and ap plications of another idensification criterion. More important, different g roups of students were identified when using each approach; a more diverse population was identified with the problem-solving-assessment procedure.