Dotação intelectual: rastreio e relação com engajamento estudantil e desempenho acadêmico

Abstract

If identified and offered development, intellectual giftedness (IG) of graduate students may represent an opportunity for academic success and, consequently, professional success. However, there is a shortage, especially in Brazil, of research regarding IG and college education. Thus, two complementary studies about this topic were conducted. To analyze the use of the Test of Cubes in the universal screening of IG, 749 undergraduate students responded to the Test of Cubes and, to validate the identification, to Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III). Among the different cutoff points analyzed, the 80th percentile of Test of Cubes manual was the most appropriate for screening, because 51.51% of those screened were confirmed with the WAIS-III. Distinctly from the WAIS-III which appears to be more appropriate to identify caucasian students, there seems to be independence between the performance in the test cubes and demographic variables (gender, race and economic level). Differently of the WAIS-III that seems to be more appropriate to identify caucasian students, the performance in the Test of cubes appears to be independent of demographic variables (gender, race and economic level). In the second study, the relationship between identification DI and academic achievement (AA) and screening in student engagement (SE) was investigated. The groups with and without IG did not differ in SE and AA. The dentification of IG with WAIS-III and / or screening in IG (Test of Cubes) and SE do not have a very high predictive value for the AA. Thus, AA seems to be due to a dynamic combination of multiple factors that was beyond IG and / or SE.