Conceptual principles of research and diagnostics of giftedness

Abstract

For decades, scientific and educational circles have used the terms “general giftedness” (sometimes the terms “giftedness”, “intellectual giftedness” are used), “special giftedness”, “talent” (we are talking about students’ exceptional special intellectual abilities at school age). But both teachers and researchers often put a different essence in the mentioned constructs, filling them with different structural components. There are no less misunderstandings about how these constructs of the psyche are coordinated, how they are hierarchically related to each other. Several reasons for these discrepancies can be named. One of them is the fact that the named mental phenomena are complex in structure and, therefore, in essence, that is, they combine several mental processes, the course of which is determined by the corresponding mental properties, certain mental aspirations, abilities, states, attitudes, features of the spiritual and energy potentials. In addition, critical levels have not been established for the mentioned characteristics, on the basis of which it would be possible to distinguish a gifted individual from an ordinary one (because it is at these extreme points that they should differ qualitatively from each other). In addition, the brand “gifted” is used both in relation to those who demonstrate high abilities during school years, and in relation to those who are expected to produce notable creative products in adult life. As a result, the task of filling the specified mental phenomena with essence and establishing a connection between them is to proceed by using available empirical data, analyzing the data of daily observations and certain agreements, which are not devoid of logical meaning. The above in the proposed article is presented in the form of questions and answers with generalizations that go somewhat beyond the given questions and answers to them.