Journal for the Education of the Gifted
Winter 2001, Volume 24, Number 2 Abstracts

University Mentors in the Elementary Classroom: Supporting the Intellectual, Motivational, and Emotional Needs of High-Ability Students*
Thomas P. Hébert & Kristie L. Speirs Neumeister

This article chronicles a 4th-grade teacher’s experiences of facilitating a program involving university students as mentors for her students. Through a qualitative research design integrating features of case study and ethnographic research, this study examined how a mentoring program provided a differentiated educational experience for high-ability students. The mentorship approach described in this study is one strategy examined in the first author’s larger study of the same teacher’s differentiated classroom (Hébert, 1995). Major findings of the current study describe a thoughtfully designed program resulting in partnerships that provided the high-ability students with an intellectually stimulating experience combined with strong motivational and emotional support.

Gender Roles and Achievement-Related Choices: A Comparison of Early Adolescent Girls in Gifted and General Education Programs
Linda M. Raffaele Mendez

The purpose of this study was to compare early-adolescent girls in gifted and general education programs on constructs related to gender-role stereotyping. Participants included 132 girls in a gifted program and 77 girls in general education. All participants were in grades 6–8. Because the gifted group was significantly higher in socioeconomic status than the general education group, this variable was covaried in the analyses. Results showed that girls in the gifted education program held stronger self-perceptions of instrumentality (or stereotypically masculine personality attributes), evidenced higher achievement motivation, were less traditional in their career aspirations, and were more liberal toward the rights and roles of women than their peers in general education. The two groups did not differ significantly on self-perceptions of expressiveness (or stereotypically feminine personality traits), degree of competitiveness, or fear of success. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding differences in gender-role stereotyping and achievement-related choices between girls in gifted and general education programs.

Spatial–Temporal Intelligence: Original Thinking Processes of Gifted Inventors
Eileen E. Cooper

This psychological phenomenological research analyzed the cognition of gifted inventors and proposes a theory on original, creative thinking. Spatial intelligence is reviewed. Results provide 7 findings, including cognitive, motivational, affective, and psychokinesthetic factors. A key assumption that space–time cannot be separated supports a redefinition and renaming of spatial intelligence to spatial–temporal intelligence. Spatial–temporal intelligence is theorized as an abstract mode of cognition, combining intuitive and rational modes of logic. Cognitive imagery and dialog are described as reasoning tools in multidimensional and multidirectional space–time. Implications for educational practice suggest that spatial–temporal intelligence is complementary to linguistic-mathematical modes of thinking.