The intake

The second step. Talking to a potential mentor for my research. Monday became clear in a conversation with a teacher at the university that my subject is interesting enough to work with! besides that is great news, we also talked about a way to define the question a bit more. As I was wondering what way the question was going to myself, that was actually the problem. I couldn't define it more properly without having a intake first. It's different when you switch from study, it's not always clear what to expect from something when you weren't there at the start.

So, back to the subject; the research subject. I've tried to put it together in the following picture:

The main goal is to look at the begaafdheidsprofielscholen. ('giftedness schools' these schools have a label which means that they have special programs for the gifted child). There are 22 of them now. Is there a difference with the schools who don't have such a program? Within the range of giftedness, I'm especially interested in the problem of underachievement. Why? These children can function well on a very high level, but they don't show it. With the right approach I think it is possible to let them function on the level they should. So I will look further into the question of under achievement as a subject. Of this is possible, I have to look into literature, experiments, information available for me to work with... etc.

It looks like it will be a policy evaluation sort of research.

This week will focus on the research proposal (what to do, what to research, deepen the question even further, contact the CPS for more information about the begaafdheids profielscholen) and the plan I will work with the following 5 months.

Do you think the problem of underachievement is an important one? I spoke a remedial pedagogue who was convinced that children scoring less than 130 on the NIO IQ test weren't gifted enough for extra curriculum. On the question: ''don't you think you're throwing away potential Einsteins?'' she repeated: ''well, then they should have made the test better. It's their fault they score less than 130.'' Can someone who is a pedagogue, studied psychology at a university and is her whole life involved with children and learning problems be wrong?