Identifying Gifted Students Across Three Assessments: Correlational Relationships and Their Implications

We investigated three specific aptitude measures (the Test of Mathematical Abilities for Gifted Students, the Screening Assessment for Gifted Elementary and Middle School Students, and the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices) that have been promoted for the identification of students for gifted services. Using a quantitative, descriptive, correlational design, we examined the proportion of students that would be identified using each test with a sample of approximately 100 students in grades K–3 attending a public school in the southeastern United States. Kendall's Tau correlations among these assessments ranged from .16 to .37, revealing moderate positive relationships that suggest that these three measures may reflect different yet overlapping constellations of traits or aptitudes. These findings offer further support for the use of multiple pathways for identification of gifted and advanced learning abilities.