This book highlights how to conduct research in gifted education when researchers have to choose from myriad theoretical ideas, hypotheses, claims, practical models, and strategies. It shows researchers how to build clarity, rigor, and relevance into a research agenda that combats fragmentation and contributes to enhanced theoretical and practical endeavors in the field. Specifically, Paradigms of Gifted Education advocates a paradigmatic approach to conducting research in gifted education and shows how it can be done every step of the way by specifying the essential questions of What?, Why?, Who?, and How? in a coherent manner, and by selecting methods that are appropriate for the question asked and the phase of the research efforts. To facilitate the development of a research agenda, the book identifies three major paradigms of gifted education and 20 essential research questions that would help move the field forward.

Scientific Inquiry into Human Potential explores the intellectual legacy and contemporary understanding of scientific research on human intelligence, performance, and productivity. Across nineteen chapters, some of the most eminent scholars of learning and psychology recount how they originated, distinguished, measured, challenged, and adapted their theories on the nature and nurture of human potential over decades of scientific research. These accessible, autobiographical accounts cover a spectrum of issues, from the biological underpinnings and developmental nature of human potential to the roles of community, social interaction, and systematic individual differences in cognitive and motivational functioning. Researchers, instructors, and graduate students of education, psychology, sociology, and biology will find this book not only historically informative but inspiring to their own ongoing research journeys, as well.

Scientific Inquiry into Human Potential explores the intellectual legacy and contemporary understanding of scientific research on human intelligence, performance, and productivity. Across nineteen chapters, some of the most eminent scholars of learning and psychology recount how they originated, distinguished, measured, challenged, and adapted their theories on the nature and nurture of human potential over decades of scientific research. These accessible, autobiographical accounts cover a spectrum of issues, from the biological underpinnings and developmental nature of human potential to the roles of community, social interaction, and systematic individual differences in cognitive and motivational functioning. Researchers, instructors, and graduate students of education, psychology, sociology, and biology will find this book not only historically informative but inspiring to their own ongoing research journeys, as well.

This volume presents a rare occasion where scholars from Europe, North Africa and North America share their research programs and findings revolving around an important theme: integration. Despite different research foci and methodologies, there is a strong consensus that we need to understand a psychological phenomenon in all its complexity, involving its neural, psychological, and social dimensions, involving perception and conception, and decision processes, involving motivation, emotion, and cognition - all in complex interaction. This volume is intended to reach out to basic and applied psychological researchers, cognitive and affective scientists, learning scientists, biologists, sociologists, neuropsychological researchers, and philosophers, who have an interest in an integrated understanding of the mind at work, particularly pertaining to explanations of real-life phenomena that have social and practical significance. A distinct feature of this volume is that most research involved is heavily built on neuropsychological evidence, while loyal to the experimental tradition with its focus on functional behavior in various situations and conditions that mimic or resemble real life. The viability of this approach to doing cutting-edge research that is relevant and applicable to many real-life phenomena should also make this body of research useful for a wide range of human endeavor, from religion, education, to industrial and organizational psychology.

This volume presents a rare occasion where scholars from Europe, North Africa and North America share their research programs and findings revolving around an important theme: integration. Despite different research foci and methodologies, there is a strong consensus that we need to understand a psychological phenomenon in all its complexity, involving its neural, psychological, and social dimensions, involving perception and conception, and decision processes, involving motivation, emotion, and cognition - all in complex interaction. This volume is intended to reach out to basic and applied psychological researchers, cognitive and affective scientists, learning scientists, biologists, sociologists, neuropsychological researchers, and philosophers, who have an interest in an integrated understanding of the mind at work, particularly pertaining to explanations of real-life phenomena that have social and practical significance. A distinct feature of this volume is that most research involved is heavily built on neuropsychological evidence, while loyal to the experimental tradition with its focus on functional behavior in various situations and conditions that mimic or resemble real life. The viability of this approach to doing cutting-edge research that is relevant and applicable to many real-life phenomena should also make this body of research useful for a wide range of human endeavor, from religion, education, to industrial and organizational psychology.

The central argument of this book is that cognition is not the whole story in understanding intellectual functioning and development. To account for inter-individual, intra-individual, and developmental variability in actual intellectual performance, it is necessary to treat cognition, emotion, and motivation as inextricably related.
"Motivation, Emotion, and Cognition: Integrative Perspectives on Intellectual Functioning and Development: "
*represents a new direction in theory and research on intellectual functioning and development;
*portrays human intelligence as fundamentally constrained by biology and adaptive needs but modulated by social and cultural forces; and
*encompasses and integrates a broad range of scientific findings and advances, from cognitive and affective neurosciences to cultural psychology, addressing fundamental issues of individual differences, developmental variability, and cross-cultural differences with respect to intellectual functioningand development.
By presenting current knowledge regarding integrated understanding of intellectual functioning and development, this volume promotes exchanges among researchers concerned with provoking new ideas for research and provides educators and other practitioners with a framework that will enrich understanding and guide practice.

The central argument of this book is that cognition is not the whole story in understanding intellectual functioning and development. To account for inter-individual, intra-individual, and developmental variability in actual intellectual performance, it is necessary to treat cognition, emotion, and motivation as inextricably related.
"Motivation, Emotion, and Cognition: Integrative Perspectives on Intellectual Functioning and Development: "
*represents a new direction in theory and research on intellectual functioning and development;
*portrays human intelligence as fundamentally constrained by biology and adaptive needs but modulated by social and cultural forces; and
*encompasses and integrates a broad range of scientific findings and advances, from cognitive and affective neurosciences to cultural psychology, addressing fundamental issues of individual differences, developmental variability, and cross-cultural differences with respect to intellectual functioning and development.
By presenting current knowledge regarding integrated understanding of intellectual functioning and development, this volume promotes exchanges among researchers concerned with provoking new ideas for research and provides educators and other practitioners with a framework that will enrich understanding and guide practice.

The book Gifted Education in Asia: Problems and Prospects is the first of its kind in terms of providing a critical assessment of the state of gifted education in nine representative countries or regions in Asia (Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mainland China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey), five commentaries that put gifted education in a global context, and a conclusion chapter that provides a long?term projection of future developments in gifted education in an information age and knowledge economy in the 21st century, and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead for Asian countries. As Asia has become an economic powerhouse globally, and its education has also gained global attention (e.g., its stellar performance in international comparisons such as PISA), gifted education gearing toward the cultivation of the most precious human capital gains added importance. Authors of the 15?Chapter volume come from Asia, Europe, and North America, and they represent top experts in the field of education. The book is an authoritative source of knowledge for anyone interested in gifted education, talent development, and creativity in this region. Policy makers, business and school leaders, teachers, educational researchers, and parents will find this book informative and thought?provoking.

The book Gifted Education in Asia: Problems and Prospects is the first of its kind in terms of providing a critical assessment of the state of gifted education in nine representative countries or regions in Asia (Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mainland China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey), five commentaries that put gifted education in a global context, and a conclusion chapter that provides a long?term projection of future developments in gifted education in an information age and knowledge economy in the 21st century, and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead for Asian countries. As Asia has become an economic powerhouse globally, and its education has also gained global attention (e.g., its stellar performance in international comparisons such as PISA), gifted education gearing toward the cultivation of the most precious human capital gains added importance. Authors of the 15?Chapter volume come from Asia, Europe, and North America, and they represent top experts in the field of education. The book is an authoritative source of knowledge for anyone interested in gifted education, talent development, and creativity in this region. Policy makers, business and school leaders, teachers, educational researchers, and parents will find this book informative and thought?provoking.

With unprecedented scope and vision, Dr. Dai systematically redefines giftedness and proposes a new framework for the field of gifted education. He identifies nine essential tensions, revolving around three core questions: What do we know about the respective roles of natural ability, environment and experiences, and personal effort in talent development? How do we identify the gifted and talented, and study the process of gifted and talent development? And finally, how do we define the aims of gifted education and promote excellence? Sure to be a milestone in the field, this book scrutinizes some of the deeply held assumptions about the nature of giftedness and explains why a contextual, developmental approach is a more viable alternative to the traditional psychometric approach. It tackles tensions between the gifted-child and talent development movements, and between excellence and equity, and responds to the elitism criticisms in a constructive and comprehensive way.