Detection of high ability children by teachers and parents: Psychometric quality of new rating checklists for the assessment of intellectual, creative and social ability

In the present study we devised scales for teachers’ and parents’ estimation of intellectual, creative and social abilities of fourth grade elementary school pupils. Their scores were related to psychometrically determined ability scores. Ninety-three school pupils in the age range between 9.3 and 11.2 years, as well as their parents and teachers took part. The new rating checklists proved as sufficiently reliable (particularly the teachers’ version). Analyses of validity showed a high correspondence in parents’ and teachers’ estimations of cognitive intelligence, but much lower correspondence for creativity and social ability. Correlating teachers’ and parents’ estimates with the respective psychometric tests shows that teachers and parents were better at identifying intellectual (high)ability than detecting creative and social abilities. With the exception of social (high)ability, where girls were usually regarded as highly socially gifted by their parents, there were no differences in parents’ and teachers’ estimations of boys and girls.