Giftedness in the Light of Principles of Identification: Essential Characteristics and Approaches to Measurement

Abstract

The content of the article is a summary of the results of an attempt to identify and describe the principles of giftedness identification. The starting point of the research initiative is the general scientific meaning of the concept of principle, which is outlined by means of the following statements. The principle reflects the stable characteristics and key functional trends that determine the specifics of the phenomenon as a holistic entity, contains schemes for its objective understanding and explanation, as well as measurement algorithms indicating the scope of realistic possibilities and limitations and rules for purposeful interaction with it to solve practical problems and tasks. A principle is a regularity that reflects the nature of the world order or a particular
phenomenon. A principle is a fundamental explanatory model, an integral part of which is knowledge about the regularities that determine the limits of possibilities and parameters of measuring a phenomenon, as well as the possibilities of its practical use. The principles of giftedness identification are interpreted as constructs that reflect the results of its research cognition, the degree of its understanding as a phenomenon and play the role of guidelines in building its further research, as well as identifying it as a phenomenon and its features for practical purposes: for its development, providing conditions for an individual to achieve optimal levels of productivity of his or her giftedness. Giftedness diagnostic principles reflect the general patterns of emergence, functioning, and development of giftedness. They are cognitive formations, constructs of scientific thinking used in the knowledge of the nature of the phenomenon of giftedness as a tool that determines the parameters and limits of the possibilities of research and diagnostic measurements. The article provides a definitional description of the following principles of giftedness research and identification: the principle of specificity; the principle of authenticity; the principle of productivity; the principle of association; the principle of cognitive complexity; the principle of the value of the giftedness effect; the principle of the degree of giftedness; the
principle of dynamics; the principle of flexibility; the principle of the presumption of talentlessness.