To Be Gifted in School: Gifted Kids Speak about Life after NCLB

GT Liaison FAQ

Who? / Gifted students in grades 4-12
What kind of schools? / Public, Private, and Home Schools
When? / We will collect data via the survey from April – December, 2009. We hope the Blog will be a permanent location for gifted kids to share their stories.
Who are the Researchers? / ·  Carol L. Tieso, Ph.D., The College of William and Mary
·  Patti Wood, Ph.D., Samford University
Why? / No Child Left Behind has left many gifted students behind. We want to give them a voice so we can do a better job of meeting their educational and social and emotional needs.
Will it be published? / Yes, we plan to write articles and a book based on their responses and insights.
Will their names be protected? / Yes, since students will use a new Gmail account without a corresponding profile, no one will be able to identify them.
How long is the survey? / The survey is 35-items long and will take about 15 minutes to complete. More in-depth information may be found on the parents’ information form.
Do students have to participate in the blog? / No, the blog is voluntary, but we hope that their postings will be thoughtful and in-depth to help us supplement and “fill-in” the gaps from the survey.
May I pass this information along to my colleagues? / YES! We appreciate your participation!
What if we have to submit this to our own research board? / Our study has been approved by both Human Subjects Boards (College of William and Mary & Samford University). If you send us the information about or forms for your specific district, we will forward that information to you.
May younger gifted students participate? / Sure! But we will not be able to use those responses in our publications.
Can we find out about the results when you’re finished? / Absolutely! One of the most important aspects of research is to report your results back to your participants.
Why does the email say “This is a commercial message”? / Since we are university faculty members, we do not have access to mass marketing techniques, so we hired a firm to do that for us. They do not send us any contact information for you. We send them the content for the email and they distribute the email for us.
May I post this on my class portal? / Yes, you may, but PLEASE use the guidelines we send out to parents. We want to maintain the students’ anonymity.
What is my time commitment? / Since this study is conducted completely online, the only time commitment you’d have is filling out our GT Liaison Form and emailing the parent consent information to the parents. If your district requires a research proposal, then we would ask you to forward that form to us and return the required information to your appropriate contact person.