TY - GEN A1 - Gronostaj, Anna A1 - Werner, Elise A1 - Bochow, Eric A1 - Vock, Miriam T1 - How to learn things at school you don't already know BT - experiences of gifted grade-skippers in Germany T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Skipping a grade, one specific form of acceleration, is an intervention used for gifted students. Quantitative research has shown acceleration to be a highly successful intervention regarding academic achievement, but less is known about the social-emotional outcomes of grade-skipping. In the present study, the authors used the grounded theory approach to examine the experiences of seven gifted students aged 8 to 16 years who skipped a grade. The interviewees perceived their feeling of being in the wrong place before the grade-skipping as strongly influenced by their teachers, who generally did not respond adequately to their needs. We observed a close interrelationship between the gifted students' intellectual fit and their social situation in class. Findings showed that the grade-skipping in most of the cases bettered the situation in school intellectually as well as socially, but soon further interventions, for instance, a specialized and demanding class- or subject-specific acceleration were added to provide sufficiently challenging learning opportunities. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 415 KW - qualitative methodologies KW - social and/or emotional development and adjustment KW - acceleration KW - grade-skipping Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-405211 IS - 415 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Vock, Miriam A1 - Stubbe, Tobias T1 - Grade skipping from the perspective of teachers in Germany BT - the links between teachers’ decisions, acceptance, and perceived knowledge T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The present study explored teachers' perspectives on one specific type of acceleration, namely, grade skipping. In addition, we investigated the extent to which teachers' beliefs about students' academic, motivational, and social development after grade skipping may explain teachers' acceptance of this accelerative strategy. Moreover, we examined whether teachers' acceptance is linked to their decisions about using this intervention. Using data from the PARS project, which included 316 teachers from 18 secondary schools in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, we assessed teachers' acceptance, beliefs, and perceived knowledge about grade skipping using 4-point rating scales. Teachers also reported whether they had advised a student to skip a grade. Multilevel regression analyses indicated that teachers' beliefs about students' social, motivational, and academic development largely explained their acceptance. Teachers who showed a higher level of acceptance and perceived knowledge were more likely to have recommended grade skipping before. Educational implications are discussed. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 411 KW - grade skipping KW - teacher knowledge KW - teacher beliefs and practices KW - teacher attitudes KW - acceleration Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-405235 IS - 411 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gronostaj, Anna A1 - Werner, Elise A1 - Bochow, Eric A1 - Vock, Miriam T1 - Gifted Grade-Skippers in Germany JF - The gifted child quarterly N2 - Skipping a grade, one specific form of acceleration, is an intervention used for gifted students. Quantitative research has shown acceleration to be a highly successful intervention regarding academic achievement, but less is known about the social–emotional outcomes of grade-skipping. In the present study, the authors used the grounded theory approach to examine the experiences of seven gifted students aged 8 to 16 years who skipped a grade. The interviewees perceived their “feeling of being in the wrong place” before the grade-skipping as strongly influenced by their teachers, who generally did not respond adequately to their needs. We observed a close interrelationship between the gifted students’ intellectual fit and their social situation in class. Findings showed that the grade-skipping in most of the cases bettered the situation in school intellectually as well as socially, but soon further interventions, for instance, a specialized and demanding class- or subject-specific acceleration were added to provide sufficiently challenging learning opportunities. KW - qualitative methodologies KW - social and/or emotional development and adjustment KW - acceleration KW - grade-skipping Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986215609999 SN - 0016-9862 SN - 1934-9041 VL - 60 SP - 31 EP - 46 PB - Sage Publ. CY - Thousand Oaks ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kretschmann, Julia A1 - Vock, Miriam A1 - Luedtke, Oliver T1 - Acceleration in elementary school: using propensity score matching to estimate the effects on academic achievement JF - The journal of educational psychology N2 - Using German data, we examined the effects of one specific type of acceleration-grade skipping-on academic performance. Prior research on the effects of acceleration has suffered from methodological restrictions, especially due to a lack of appropriate comparison groups and a priori measurements. For this reason, propensity score matching was applied in this analysis to minimize selection bias due to observed confounding variables. Various types of matching were attempted, and, in consideration of balancing the covariates, full matching was the final choice. We used data from the Berlin ELEMENT Study, analyzing, after matching, the information of 81 students who had skipped a grade over the course of elementary school and up to 1,668 nonaccelerated students who attended the same grade level as the accelerated students. Measurements took place 3 times between the 4th and 6th grades, including the assessment of reading, spelling, and mathematics performance. After matching, the results of between-group comparisons regarding performance indices showed no significant effects of skipping a grade, other than a small positive effect found on spelling performance. Theoretical implications and methodological limitations are discussed. KW - grade skipping KW - academic performance KW - propensity score matching KW - acceleration KW - elementary school Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036631 SN - 0022-0663 SN - 1939-2176 VL - 106 IS - 4 SP - 1080 EP - 1095 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER -