Research
GERRIC sees fostering excellence in research and promoting research training through PhD and Masters by research study in gifted education as critically important.
The Centre conducts research in all areas of gifted education across a broad range of topics, fields of research, methodologies and approaches
Releasing the Brakes for High-Ability Learners – Get the Overview Report .
Our Partners
GERRIC is keen to foster research partnerships and collaborations that contribute towards meeting the educational, social and emotional needs of gifted children and adolescents.
In 2010, GERRIC has formed a strengthened partnership with the School of Education. A research-intensive school within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UNSW, the School of Education is a key player in the professional preparation of teachers and other educational professionals in Australia and internationally.
Our international academic partners include the Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development (Belin-Blank Center) at the University of Iowa.
Fields of Research
GERRIC’s research focus in gifted education strongly complements that of the School of Education, in which it is housed. Particular research strengths are in the areas of: social-emotional development including issues of self-esteem, moral reasoning, motivational orientations and friendship choice, conceptions of friendship; intellectual development; spiritual development; issues in the development of special programs including the cognitive and affective outcomes of the many forms of ability grouping and acceleration; identification of gifted and talented students including those from special populations, e.g. highly gifted, gifted students from cultural minorities, gifted students with physical or learning disabilities; gifted students in situations of geographic isolation.
Our research group members are: Miraca Gross (Convenor), Jae Yup Jung, Robert Urquhart, Margaret Varady, Karen Rogers, and Katherine Hoekman.
Our current projects include a national study of teacher’s attitudes to academic acceleration, supported by a grant from the Sir John Templeton Foundation of Pennsylvania (USA), a philanthropic organization that sponsors many initiatives to communicate the nature, development and benefits of scientific genius and creativity. For more information click here.
Our previous international research collaborations include the Templeton National Report on Acceleration, “A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students”, which highlighted the most effective way to help gifted students thrive and research-supported best practices in acceleration. The three primary authors of “A Nation Deceived”, funded by the Sir John Templeton Foundation are Professor Nicholas Colangelo, Director, and Professor Susan Assouline, Associate Director, of the Belin-Blank Center, and Professor Miraca Gross, GERRIC. An executive summary is available here.
A Nation Deceived (Volumes I & 2) is available for download in English. Volume 1 has been translated into in the following 9 languages: Arabic (PDF), Chinese (PDF), French (PDF), German (PDF), Japanese (PDF), Russian (PDF), Korean (PDF), Hindi (PDF), and Spanish (PDF).
Our previous Australian research collaborations include a study (funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant) in collaboration with state and independent secondary schools, which examined the impact on self-esteem of academically gifted students and students of average academic ability, of entering the first year of secondary school. Both comprehensive and selective schools were included in the study. Students in both types of school experienced a statistically significant dip in both academic and social self-esteem over the first few months of secondary school. These findings demonstrated that the self-esteem dip which has been reported in students entering selective high schools is not limited to students entering ability grouped settings but is, rather, associated with the shift from primary to secondary education rather than what type of secondary school the students is entering.
More information about GERRIC's research program?
Professor Miraca Gross, AM
Director, GERRIC
m.gross@unsw.edu.au
Robert Urquhart
Research Fellow, GERRIC
r.urquhart@unsw.edu.au
