Primary school teachers' criteria for the identification of gifted pupils

Which are the characteristics leading teachers to judge a child as 'gifted'? To answer this question 384 German primary school teachers were asked to describe a gifted child in their own words as well as on a 90 item rating scale. A total of 192 teachers, who declared they had never instructed a gifted child, described a fictitious child; the other teachers described a child they had instructed. Only in a small group of persons in the two subsamples of German primary school teachers do the results show evidence of negative stereotypes concerning gifted children. Furthermore, the results point to the fact that gifted underachievers, children with low achievement motivation and gifted girls are at risk to be overlooked.