Theoretical Principles of the Diagnostics of Academic Giftedness

In order to organize an eff ective educational process for gifted individuals, it is fi rst necessary to know how specifi cally gifted they are and whether they are generally gifted. In addition, it is necessary to know how to diagnose special or general giftedness, and therefore, optimally reliably identify such individuals. Unfortunately, the phenomenon of giftedness has been studied for a century, but today there is no established vision of giftedness, its division into general and special giftedness, and suffi ciently valid diagnostic methods for the fi rst and second. As a rule, the generally gifted (mistakenly considered intellectually gifted) are identifi ed on the basis of testing their intelligence (which is questionable for several reasons, because the level of intelligence is not the only criterion of general giftedness, and the existing intelligence tests are far from being able to objectively examine intelligence as such, rather than individual fragmentary intellectual abilities, and to set a critical limit of giftedness on the basis of substantiated criteria). The situation is far from better with regard to the specially gifted. First of all, there is no established typology of special giftedness. Many researchers, being captive to their own scientifi c interests, produce the corresponding types of special giftedness without thinking about how justifi ed it is from a scientifi c point of view, whether there are the necessary tools, and how pedagogically appropriate it is. This creates at least some chaos for both educational practice and researchers in this scientifi c segment, including in the fi eld of academic giftedness. A priori, it is believed that students studying in academic lyceums are academically gifted. But this is far from the case. First of all, because they are enrolled in such educational institutions at best on the basis of intellectual ability testing, which, as noted above, is questionable. In addition, excellent students are admitted to such educational institutions on the basis of their previous education, which also does not withstand serious criticism. As a result, this article is devoted to the problem of structuring giftedness, diff erentiation of special giftedness, development of principles for diagnosing academic giftedness of students in order to carry out various kinds of research involving academically gifted students and, including, the problem of forming socio-economic motives for the practical use of knowledge in natural disciplines by students of academic lyceums and the development of their intellectual abilities.