e selection of materials and instructional methods that encourage and motivate each child to learn, and stimulate and nurture each child's intellectual development (Department of Defense Education Activity, 1998/1999; Kadena Elementary School, 2004). Therefore it is important that the teachers at this school correctly identify gifted students so that they will receive this optimal educational opportunity for development.
The research question is: Was the training program effective?
There will be a statistically significant difference at the .05 level of significance between pre- and post-training percentages of teacher-identification of gifted students.
Program evaluation for this study will consist of a pre-post and survey research design. The experimental design will focus on one group of sixth-grade teachers who will participate in the RHS training program. The number of students identified as gifted due to RHS use before and after the training program will be compared. In addition participants will be surveyed regarding the training program and RHS use. The research design is quasi-experimental since while the effects of the independent variable will be assessed, the researcher will not have control over variables.
Thus as a result of the independent variable, RHS teacher training, the dependent variable, teacher identification of gifted students, will be measured. In addition, the teacher perception survey will be administered post-training to determine teacher perceptions of the program and the RHS. These findings will provide additional qualitative information.
Questions asked to determine the reliability and validity of the survey include: How consistently does the survey measure whatever it does measure? What type of validity will be used, face, predictive, content, concurrent, or construct? Test-retest, equivalent forms, and split half methods are used to test instrument reliability. For this survey, t...