456’S GOT TALENT!

Mieke Goos *, Jessica Gabbano **, Anna Martens **** PhD, teacher educator, University College Leuven-Limburg, Hertogstraat 178, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium, mieke.goos@ucll.be, ** student special needs teaching, University

College Leuven-Limburg, Hertogstraat 178, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium, jessica.gabbano@student.ucll.be, *** primary school teacher, Basisschool Viejool,

Schoolstraat 18, 3941 Hechtel-Eksel, Belgium, annamartens5@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

This study was set up within the context of the current reform of Flemish secondary education, a reform of a system with four tracks with an academic, technical, artistic, resp. vocational orientation and over 300 study programs, to a system with five interest domains and a reduced amount of study programs, to be chosen from Grade 9 onwards. According to matching theory, decision-making theory, social-cognitivism, contextual developmental theory, and sociology, many factors predict students' educational/vocational choice, the most influential being their abilities and interests. According to vocational developmental research, choosing an education/vocation starts in early childhood, with choice alternatives conflicting with the self-concept progressively eliminated with time, due to improvements in self-reflection skills. The aim of this study was to offer students of Grade 4, 5, and 6 of two Flemish primary schools a series of talent-oriented workshops, in order to help them develop a more accurate self-concept and thus to smoothen their transition to secondary school. Results show that, after the 16-week period of the study, (a) Grade 5 and 6 students (as compared to Grade 4 students) became pretty accurate in their self-perceptions, as shown by high student-teacher consistency in student ability ratings and a high percentage of correctly student-detected new abilities, (b) students and teachers disagreed most regarding students’ linguistic abilities, creativity, bodily-kinaesthetic abilities, and philosophical skills, and (c) students rated themselves increasingly higher in terms of well-being. This seems to suggest that a talent-oriented approach might enhance students’ ability awareness and well-being in school.

INTRODUCTION

Throughout their school career, students have to make many educational/vocational choices. In Flanders (i.e., the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), many of these choices are transition-related, as our educational structure forces students to choose (a) a limited package of optional subjects in Grade 7 and 8 (next to the common core curriculum), (b) a track from Grade 9 onwards, with the four track possibilities being the academic track (offering a broad general/theoretical education), the technical track (offering technical/theoretical education), the artistic track (offering broad general education with active arts practice), and the vocational track (offering practice-oriented education aimed at a specific profession), and (c) a study program within their chosen track, from Grade 9 onwards, with over 300 study programs to choose from.

About 30% of Flemish children question their choice made when switching from Grade 6 (primary school) to Grade 7 (secondary school; Vandenberghe, Cortois, de Bilde, Verschueren, & Van Damme, 2011). Once in secondary school, about 26% of Flemish students repeat (at least) one grade (Vlaams Ministerie van Onderwijs en Vorming, 2016) and about 20% of Flemish students switch from the ‘more difficult’ and ‘more socially desirable’ academic track towards the technical, artistic, or vocational track (Duquet, Glorieux, Laurijssen, & Van Dorsselaer, 2005). This seems to suggest that making educational/vocational choices is quite difficult for many students. The present study aims to help students in making better considered choices, by offering them a series of talent-oriented workshops in Grade 4, 5, and 6.

Theoretical framework

In the literature, five theoretical perspectives on educational/vocational choices exist, that is (a) a matching perspective (e.g., Holland, 1997), (b) a decision-making perspective (e.g., Germeijs & Verschueren, 2007; Taborsky, 1994), (c) a social-cognitive perspective (e.g., Eccles, 2005; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994), (d) a contextual developmental perspective (e.g., Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad, & Herma, 1951; Gottfredson, 1981; Super, 1980), and (e) a sociological perspective (e.g., Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Breen, & Goldthorpe, 1997). We consider these five perspectives as complimentary, as each perspective focuses on a specific piece of the complex ‘choice puzzle’ (for a visual summary, see Figure 1). In this paragraph, we will briefly describe how each perspective adds his piece to that complex puzzle.

According to the first perspective (i.e., the matching perspective), one is most successful and satisfied in a track (or study program) when the possibilities and demands of that track (or study program) match with one’s interests and abilities (Holland, 1997). Occupational interests and abilities have been studied as

Exploration of selfBroad exploration of choice alternativesChoice orientation Decision CommitmentIn-depth exploration of choice alternatives

1 2 3 4 5 6Educational/vocational decision-making process

Characteristics of the studentself-perceptionscareer adaptabilitygenderpersonality

Characteristics of the learning environmentsubject provisionsubject allocationtiming of course selectionperformance feedback by teachers and peerssupport during the decision-making processavailability of role modelsgender socialization and stereotypingschool composition

Characteristics of the home environmentsupport during the decision-making processavailability of role modelsgender socialization and stereotypingfamily SES

Characteristics of the broader environmentgender socialization and stereotypingjob availabilitysocio-cultural barriers

predictors of educational/vocational choice for decades and several reviews have confirmed their importance (e.g., Tinsley, 2000).

According to the second perspective (i.e., the decision-making perspective), one is most successful and satisfied in a track (or study program) when the choice process proceeding that track (or study program) decision was completed in a thoughtful and successful way. Making an educational/vocational choice implies a long process in which several consecutive steps need to be taken (see upper part in Figure 1): one needs to (a) orient oneself to choosing (i.e., one needs to be aware of the need to make a decision and one needs to be motivated to engage in the career decision-making process), (b) explore oneself in terms of one’s interests and abilities (see also matching perspective), (c) explore all possible choice alternatives broadly (i.e., one needs to gather general information about the alternatives), (4) explore a reduced set of choice alternatives in-depth regarding their possibilities and demands, (5) decide, and (6) show commitment to that decision (Germeijs & Verschueren, 2007). Evidence for the importance of all steps being taken carefully has been provided by many empirical studies (e.g., Gati & Asher, 2001; Germeijs & Verschueren, 2006).

Figure 1. Theoretical framework.

According to the third perspective (i.e., the social-cognitive perspective), fourth perspective (i.e., the contextual developmental perspective), and fifth perspective (i.e., the sociological perspective), one is most successful and satisfied in a track (or study program) when the choice for that track (or study program) was made under supportive personal and environmental conditions (see bottom part in Figure 1). The following personal and environmental conditions have been detected by research to be important predictors of educational/vocational choice: self-perceptions (i.e., self-concept, self-efficacy beliefs, and self-confidence), career adaptability (i.e., general problem solving skills, strategies to deal with choices in general), personality (i.e., indecision, extraversion, conscientiousness), gender, subject provision at school, subject allocation at school, performance feedback by peers and teachers, availability of role models, gender socialization and stereotyping, support during the decision-making process (e.g., availability and quality of information regarding choice alternatives, refusal or approval of certain choice alternatives by peers and parents), timing of course selection, school composition, family SES, job availability, and lack of socio-structural barriers (e.g., Boone & Van Houtte, 2013; Korpershoek, Kuyper, Van der Werf, & Bosker, 2010, 2011; Lyn, Care, & Ainley, 2011; Lyons, 2006; Nagy, Garrett, Trautwein, Cortina, Baumert, & Eccles, 2008; Pinxten, De Fraine, Van Den Noortgate, Van Damme, & Anumendem, 2012; Sheu, Lent, Brown, Miller, Hennessy, & Duffy, 2010; Smyth, & Hannan, 2006; Van Langen, Rekers-Mombarg, & Dekkers, 2006, 2008).

According to the fourth perspective (i.e., the contextual developmental perspective) – and especially worth stressing in the context of the current study – one’s educational/vocational decision-making process is a lifelong choosing process, starting already in early childhood (Hartung, Porfeli, & Vondracek, 2005). With time, one’s self-reflection skills improve, and as such, one’s self-concept becomes more realistic and differentiated, allowing choice alternatives conflicting with the self-concept to be progressively eliminated, especially from age 8 onwards (Gottfredson, 1981).

Talent-oriented approach in Flemish primary education

It should therefore not come as a surprise that many primary schools in Flanders nowadays start offering talent-oriented workshops related to a variety of subjects, in order to help students better detect their interests and abilities before switching to secondary school. Several small-scale experiments have been conducted (e.g., http://www.ark123.be/blikopeners/talenten; http://www.aarschot.be/leven-welzijn/onderwijs/website-talentenarchipel; http://www.houthalen-helchteren.be/presentatie-focus-op-talent; http://www.bs-willemtell.com/projecten/proeftuinen/), based on the work of Aerden (2010) and Heylen (2013). These efforts are supported by the Flemish government, in the light

of the planned reform of secondary education which has the intention of making student choose an interest domain instead of a track (Vlaams Parlement, 2013).

Aim of this study

The aim of this study is to offer students of Grade 4 to 6 in two schools where such talent-oriented approach did not yet exist, a series of workshops, in order to help them develop a more accurate self-concept and thus to smoothen their transition to secondary school. Focus is on students’ ability in several subjects, rather than their interest in it, because recent research has proven the former to have the largest impact among Flemish Grade 8 students (Pinxten et al., 2013).

Research questions

The present study will address the following three research questions:(a) Are students in Grade 6 (in comparison to those in Grade 4 and 5) more

accurate in detecting their abilities?(b) In which areas do students and teachers (dis)agree on students’ ability?(c) Does students’ well-being increase when applying a talent-oriented

approach in class?

METHOD

Participants

This study was set up in two small primary schools in Flanders, as part of the Bachelor thesis project of Gabbano and Martens. Participants were 15 students from Grade 4 of Basisschool [primary school] Boseind in Neerpelt, 9 students from Grade 5 and 6 of Gemeentelijke Basisschool [primary school] Maasmechelen, their teachers, and their parents. Students ranged in age from 10 to 12 years.

Study design

This study was an exploratory intervention study, without controls, consisting of two main stages. In the first stage of the study (March 2015), eight talent-oriented workshops were offered to the students by Gabbano and Martens, during a two-week period. Each workshop lasted 50 to 100 minutes. Designing of these workshops was done within the multiple intelligences framework of Gardner (1983), inspired by research done by Aerden (2010) and Heylen (2013). An overview of the workshops and their content can be found in Table 1.

In the second stage of the study (April – May 2015; three-week period), ‘regular’ classes were offered to the students by Gabbano and Martens (as part of Gabbano’s and Martens’ final pre-service internship). Many differentiation techniques were applied overall in these classes, but particular attention was paid to talent-related differentiation, integrating students’ talents detected in the first stage.

Table 1Talent-oriented workshops as offered in the 456’s got talent interventionWorkshop ContentSelf smart Students were asked several philosophical questions, such as ”Will

you be a champion in the future?”, ”What does one need to become a champion?”, ”Can anyone become a champion in any domain?” etc. Students were stimulated to raise arguments and contra-arguments and to listen to and react upon others’ arguments and contra-arguments.

People smart

Students were given the responsibility to take care of a boiled egg as if it was their baby, for three consecutive days.

Music smart

Students were learnt the Cup-song by Anna Kendrick (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmSbXsFE3l8), with the goal of recognizing, memorizing, and producing rhythmic patterns.

Body smart

Students were learnt the haka, while being stimulated to produce own moves and cries as much as possible.

Picture smart

Students were stimulated to create their own Keith Haring men and to attach these men to the walls, stairs, and doors of the school building.

Nature smart

Students were grouped and given a step-by-step plan to create a lip balm, a lava lamp, and bath salts. The workshop’s goal was to read the plan, execute the steps as indicated, observe, and conclude based on observations (scientific inquiry approach).

Logic smart

Students were given three games stimulating their reasoning and analytical skills: (a) Rummikub, (b) Lego (with a construction assignment), and (c) a game-creation game.

Word smart

Students were stimulated to create a class journal. Each student was asked to pick a last-week news fact which they found interesting or worthwhile telling something about, and to write an article about that news fact, either alone or in collaboration with a classmate.

Measures

Perceived student ability

Students’ ability was evaluated by a variety of measurements. At the start of the study (i.e., before the intervention took place), students, teacher, parents, and peers were asked to answer the following question: “What is/are your talent(s)? What is/are the talent(s) of [this child]?”. Answers were collected per child and

visualized/summarized on a giant wall paper in the classroom. During the study, students and Gabbano/Martens rated students’ ability shown in each workshop. Rating was done on a 5-point-likert scale, with values ranging from 0 (--) to 4 (++). Averages were calculated per workshop, per rater, per grade, and overall. At the end of the study (i.e., after the intervention took place), students were asked to answer the following question: “What is your biggest, newly-discovered talent?”. This answer was compared with the answers given before the project (by and during the project. A student was considered to have an accurate self-perception when he/she identified an ability that (a) was not a talent mentioned before the onset of the study by either him/herself, the teacher, his/her parents, or his/her peers, and (b) was rated with a ++-score during the study, by either him/herself or the teacher.

Student well-being

Students’ well-being before, during, and after the study was evaluated by a Dutch student questionnaire developed and validated by De Lee and De Volder (2009). This questionnaire contains 28 items, to be rated on a 4-point-likert-scale, with values ranging from 0 (never) to 3 (always). Subscales measure students’ (a) satisfaction in school (4 items), (b) engagement (4 items), (c) academic self-concept (6 items), (d) social relationships (6 items), and (e) perception regarding the pedagogical climate (8 items). For each subscale, scale scores were computed by averaging students’ item scores. An overall well-being score was also calculated.

Data analysis procedure

Student ability averages were compared per grade, rater, and workshop, by means of a series of analyses of variance. Analyses were conducted in SPSS 20.

Students’ growth in well-being throughout the study was estimated by means of a series of two-level growth curve models, with measurement occasions at level 1 and students at level 2. A stepwise sequential modelling approach was used, in which each successive model reflected an increased complexity. As a first step, a model without any predictors was fitted (Model 0) as a baseline for subsequent model comparison. In a second step, time was added to the baseline model (Model 1) in order to examine well-being growth trough time. Finally, in a third step, grade dummies and time*grade dummies were added to the previous model (Model 2), in order to detect differences in well-being status at the start of the study and wellbeing growth during the study. This approach was used for the overall well-

being score, as well as for the 5 scale scores. Analyses were conducted in MLwiN 2.27.

RESULTS

Question 1: Are students in Grade 6 (in comparison to those in Grade 4 and 5) more accurate in detecting their abilities?

The overall student ability mean (averaged across workshops, raters, and grades) was 3.19. Student ability means (averaged across workshops and raters) were highest in Grade 5 and Grade 6, as can be seen in Figure 2. Yet, this grade difference was not significant, (F(22, 2) = 3.22, p = 0.06.

Figure 2. Student ability means by grade.

Student ability means (averaged across workshops and grades) were higher among students (3.36) than among teachers (3.04). Yet, this rater difference was not significant, F(24, 1) = 3.40, p = 0.07. The mean rater difference was largest in Grade 4 (0.40), as can be seen in Figure 3. Likewise, the percentage overlap between student and teacher ratings given throughout the workshops was smallest in Grade 4 (47.82%; as compared to 80.36% in Grade 5 and 80.00% in Grade 6) and the percentage of ‘new talents’ correctly detected by students was lowest in Grade 4 (42.86%; as compared to 71.43% in Grade 5 and 100.00% in Grade 6).

Figure 3. Student ability means by grade and rater.

Looking at students’ individual scores, only 3 students (all in Grade 4) rated their ability lower than their teachers did, in at least two workshops.

Question 2: In which areas do students and teachers (dis)agree on students’ ability?

Student ability means (averaged across raters and grades) were highest in the people smart workshop (3.38), nature smart workshop (3.38), and picture smart workshop (3.27), and lowest in the self smart workshop (2.67) as can be seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Student ability means by workshop.The mean rater difference was largest in the word smart workshop (0.57), picture smart workshop (0.54), body smart workshop (0.43), and self smart workshop (0.36), as shown in Figure 5.

Mean rating student ability

3.38 3.08 2.94 3.27 3.382.67

3.21 2.94

0

1

2

3

4

People

smart

Logic

smart

Music

smart

Picture

smart

Nature

smart

Self sm

art

Body s

mart

Word sm

art

Figure 5. Student ability means by workshop and rater.

Question 3: Does students’ well-being increase when applying a talent-oriented approach in class?

As can be seen in Figure 6 and Table 2, regarding overall well-being, the intercepts of students in Grade 4, Grade 5, and Grade 6 were 2.30, 2.20, and 1.57, respectively. The intercept of students in Grade 6 was significantly lower than that of students in Grade 4 (b = -0.73, SE = 0.15, p < .01), indicating that, at the start of the study, students in Grade 6 rated themselves significantly lower in overall well-being. Throughout the study, overall well-being scores increased significantly (b = 0.08, SE = 0.03, p < .01). In Grade 4, Grade 5, and Grade 6, growth per wave was estimated to be 0.05, 0.06, and 0.45, respectively. Growth in well-being scores was significantly larger in Grade 6 than in Grade 4 (b = 0.40, SE = 0.10, p < .01), indicating that Grade 6 students caught up in well-being ratings throughout the study and ended up at a similar level as their counterparts in Grade 4 and Grade 5.

Figure 6. Estimated overall well-being scores before, during, and after the study.Table 2Fixed effects estimates (top) and random effects estimates (bottom) for overall well-being

Model 0 Model 1 Model 2b SE B SE b SE

Fixed parametersIntercept 2.30* 0.04 2.21* 0.05 2.30* 0.05Time 0.08* 0.03 0.05 0.03Grade 5 -0.10 0.09Grade 6 -0.73* 0.15Time * Grade 5 0.01 0.06Time * Grade 6 0.40* 0.10

Random parametersStudent-level variance 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01Time-level variance 0.05 0.01 0.04 0.01 0.03 0.01

* p < .05

Looking at the subscale scores (not shown in Table 2, but available from the authors upon request), growth was noticeable in satisfaction in school (b = 0.10, SE = 0.05, p = .03), engagement (b = 0.10, SE = 0.05, p = .04), academic self-concept (b = 0.10, SE = 0.05, p = .05), and social relationships (b = 0.09, SE = 0.03, p < .01), but not perception regarding the pedagogical climate (b = 0.05, SE = 0.04, p = .23). The pattern of low ratings increasing with time among Grade 6 students was replicated for academic self-concept (b = 0.61, SE = 0.16, p < .01), social relationships (b = 0.40, SE = 0.11, p < .01), and perception regarding the pedagogical climate (b = 0.43, SE = 0.14, p < .01).

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

In sum, three major findings emerged from this study. First, in line with vocational developmental research (Hartung et al., 2005), we found that, in Grade 5 and 6, students are pretty accurate in their self-perceptions, as shown by high student-teacher consistency in student ability ratings. Therefore, we have reasons to believe in the added value of a talent-oriented approach in primary school. It should be stressed that both schools participating in this project, in the past, did not yet use an explicit talent-oriented approach. Within the current study, talents of students were appointed very explicitly on a giant wall paper in the classroom, and after each workshop, students were asked to reflect on what they had learnt and whether they felt they were good at the area explored during the workshop provided. This apparently increased students’ talent awareness, as a new talent area was correctly appointed by many students after the study, especially by those in Grade 5 and 6. As for future practice-based research, we advise other researchers to broaden our (limited, small-scale) study scope, by (a) offering longer and more workshop sessions, (b) providing workshop choice, in order to refine an already detected talent or to explore an area of interest not yet investigated in-depth, (c) incorporating a student talent portfolio to ease communication among students,

teachers, and parents, and (d) starting already in Grade 1. What is more, we advise researchers to have these workshops offered by trained personnel who are themselves good at the skills to be taught, and to have all workshops within a domain to be offered by the same teacher. In our study, Martens offered all workshops in one school (Grade 4), and Gabbano in the other (Grade 5 and 6). Martens and Gabbano were skilled in all workshops abilities. Yet, maybe Martens was more critical in detecting talent in general, and might give lower student ratings overall, regardless of grade. This means our students in Grade 4 scored themselves higher that did their teacher, not because of lack of self-knowledge, but because of criticism and perfectionism of their teacher. To overcome this alternative explanation for our study findings, in future research, teacher effects as explained here should be minimized as much as possible, by working with across-grade and across-school workshops with one teacher offering all workshops in a certain domain.

Second, we found students and teachers to disagree most in terms of students’ linguistic abilities, creativity, bodily-kinaesthetic abilities, and philosophical skills. To the best of our knowledge, we did not find research having explored such domain effects. We think our findings can be explained in two different ways. A first explanation might be that pre-service teachers (which Gabbano and Martens were when conducting the study) are just not qualified enough to rate students’ abilities in these domains correctly. This might be true for creativity, sports, and (especially) philosophy, domains in which evaluation is less straightforward. If true, teacher educators should provide students in the primary school teaching program with more background on how to evaluate students in these domains correctly, with cases and good practices, not just how to evaluate students in general. A second explanation might be that our students have simply not had enough time during their primary school career so far to explore these domains in-depth, which seems a highly plausible explanation for philosophy in particular, but maybe also (to a smaller extent) for arts and sports. This means that students are less accurate in detecting their abilities in these domains because of lack of prior experience and thus overrate themselves based on one successful workshop. If so, a suggestion for future practice-based research would be to investigate the time spent on several domains during primary school, in relation to students’ accuracy in talent awareness. The student-teacher disagreement in linguistic abilities needs further investigation in general.

Third, we found students to rate themselves increasingly higher in terms of well-being, over the 16-week period of the project. Our talent-oriented approach (i.e., talent-related workshops and talent-related differentiated lessons) thus seems to have enhanced students’ well-being in school. Though a plausible explanation, we believe that our study design is not strong enough to support this assumption, as we lack a group of controls to compare these results with. Many other factors might have contributed to students’ higher reported well-being as well, such as (a) mere

exposure to a new, young, dynamic teacher, (b) the larger amount of individual support given due to possibility of co-teaching in the class, etc. We recommend other practice-based researchers to replicate our study, with a more sound design.

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