The Use of Dynamic Testing to Reveal High Academic Potential and Underachievement in a Culturally Different Population

The under-representation of children from culturally different and low SES backgrounds in programs for the gifted is widely recognised. The cause of this under-representation can, at least in part, be attributed to the inappropriateness of the identification methods used. This paper presents the findings of a major study which sought to determine the effectiveness of a specific dynamic testing method for identifying high academic potential in Australian Aboriginal children. The dynamic testing method used in the study involved a test-intervention-retest format where the intervention was designed to address predicted causes of underachievement. The results suggest that dynamic testing was an effective identification tool for the study children, revealing high academic potential in similar proportions to those in the instrument normative population. This study has implications for both gifted education and the education of culturally different children generally arising from the findings that many of the children were 'invisible' underachievers and that it is possible to identify such underachievement through the dynamic testing process.