Comparing Tests Used to Identify Ethnically Diverse Gifted Children: A Critical Response to Lewis, Decamp-Fritson, Ramage, Mcfarland, & Archwamety (Research Response) (Report‪)‬

Recently Multicultural Education published a research article examining the effectiveness of three different tests in identifying ethnically diverse gifted and talented children (Lewis, DeCamp-Fritson, Ramage, McFarland, & Archwamety, 2007, Volume 15, Number 1, pp. 38-42). After examining the proportions of Caucasian and non-Caucasian children identified as gifted by each test, Lewis and her colleagues concluded, "... the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices was a more effective means of selecting for ethnically diverse children who may be gifted than one example of a traditional achievement test [the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills] or even the newer Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test" (p. 42). It is my opinion that those researchers' conclusion, however, must be questioned because of an assortment of philosophical, testing, and statistical issues that they did not consider when conducting their study. The purpose of this response is to use the Lewis et al. article as a springboard to discuss the issues in gifted education that Lewis and her colleagues overlooked and to consider how those issues relate to multicultural education.